Ilokano language

Ilokano (variants: Ilocano, Iluko, Iloco, and Iloko) is the third most-spoken language of the Republic of the Philippines.

Being an Austronesian language, it is related to such languages as Bahasa Indonesia, Malay, Fijian, Maori (of New Zealand), Hawaiian, Malagasy (of Madagascar), Samoan, Tahitian, Chamorro (of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands), Tetum (of East Timor), and Paiwan (of Taiwan).

History

Ilokanos are descendants of Austronesian-speaking people from southern China via Taiwan. Families and clans arrived by viray or bilog, meaning boat. The term Ilocano originated from i-, meaning "from", and looc, meaning "cove or bay", thus "people of the bay." Ilocanos also refer to themselves as Samtoy, a contraction from the Ilocano phrase saö mi ditoy, meaning "our language here".

Classification

Ilokano comprises its own branch in the Philippine Cordilleran family of languages. It is spoken as a native language by seven million people.

A lingua franca of the northern region, it is spoken as a secondary language by more than two million people who are native speakers of Pangasinan, Ibanag, Ivatan, and other languages in Northern Luzon.

Dialects

Linguists recognize two main dialect groups in Ilokano: northern and southern. The northern group of subdialects is generally characterised by the pronunciation of the vowel e as an open-mid front unrounded vowel or . This is pronounced similarly to English bed.

In the southern group of subdialects, the letter e has two pronunciations. In words of Spanish and other foreign origin, it is pronounced as in the northern dialect. In native Ilokano words, e is pronounced as a close back unrounded vowel or . This sound is found in many Philippine languages like Kinaray-a as well as non-Philippine languages such as Japanese, and Turkish.

Geographic distribution

Ilocanos occupy the narrow, barren strip of land in the northwestern tip of Luzon, squeezed in between the inhospitable Cordillera mountain range to the east and the South China Sea to the west. This harsh geography molded a people known for their clannishness, tenacious industry and frugality, traits that were vital for survival. It also induced Ilocanos to become a migratory people, always in search for better opportunities and for land to build a life on. Although their homeland constitutes the provinces of Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur, La Union and Abra, their population has spread east and south of their original territorial borders.

Ilocano pioneers flocked to the more fertile Cagayan Valley, Apayao mountains and the Pangasinan plains during the 18th and 19th centuries and now constitute a majority in many of these areas. In the 20th century, many Ilocano families moved further south to Mindanao. They became the first Filipino ethnic group to immigrate en masse to North America (the so-called Manong generation), forming sizable communities in the American states of Hawaii, California, Washington and Alaska. Ilocano is the native language of most of the original Filipino immigrants in the United States, but Tagalog is used by more Filipino-Americans because it is the national language of the people of the Philippines.

A large, growing number of Ilocanos can also be found in the Middle East, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Canada and Europe.

Writing system

Pre-colonial Ilocanos of all classes wrote in a syllabic system prior to European arrival. Similar to the Tagalog and Pangasinan scripts, it was the first to designate coda consonants with a diacritic mark - a cross virama, shown in the Doctrina Cristiana of 1621, one of the earliest surviving Ilocano publications.

Ilocano culture revolves around life rituals, festivities and oral history. These were celebrated in songs, dances, poems, riddles, proverbs, literary verbal jousts called bucanegan and epic stories.

The epic story Biag ni Lam-ang (The Life of Lam-ang) is undoubtedly one of the few indigenous stories from the Philippines that survived colonialism, although much of it is now acculturated and shows many foreign elements in the retelling. It reflects values important to traditional Ilocano society; it is a hero’s journey steeped in courage, loyalty, pragmatism, honor, and ancestral and familial bonds.

Literature

Ilocano animistic past offers a rich background in folklore, mythology and superstition (see Religion in the Philippines). There are many stories of good and malevolent spirits and beings. Its creation mythology centers on the giants Aran and her husband Angngalo, and Namarsua (the Creator).

Grammar

Typology

Ilocano employs a predicate-initial structure and uses a highly complex list of affixes (prefixes, suffixes, infixes and enclitics) and reduplications to indicate a wide array of grammatical categories. Learning simple root words and corresponding affixes goes a long way in forming cohesive sentences. Ilocano also has five sets of pronouns.

Example: Root word for bath is digos.

Agdigos (to take a bath) Agdigdigos (bathing) Agdigdigosak (I am bathing) Agindidigosak (I am pretending to bathe) Nagdigosak (I bathed)

Pronouns

Ilokano pronouns are categorized by case: absolutive, ergative, and oblique.

	Absolutive Independent	Absolutive Enclitic	Ergative	Oblique
1st person singular	siák	-ak	-k(o)	kaniák
1st person dual	datá, sitá	-ta	-ta	kadatá
2nd person singular	siká	-ka	-m(o)	kenká
3rd person singular	isú(na)	-	-na	kenkuána
1st person plural inclusive	datayó, sitayó	-tayó	-tayó	kadatayó
1st person plural exclusive	dakamí, sikamí	-kamí	-mi	kadakamí
2nd person plural	dakayó, sikayó	-kayó	-yo	kadakayó
3rd person plural	isúda	-da	-da	kadakuáda

Absolutive pronouns are divided into two forms; independent and enclitic.

Independent pronouns are not attached to any word.

Siák ti gayyem ni Juan.
"I am Juan's friend."

Dakamí ti napan idiay Laoag.
"It was us who went to Laoag."

On the other hand, enclitic pronouns are.

Gumatgatangak iti saba.
"I am buying bananas."

Agawidkayonto kadi no Sabado?
"Are all of you going home on Saturday?"

Genitive pronouns are either attached to nouns to refer to the possessive or to verbs to indicate the ergative case.

The pronouns -mo and -ko are reduced to -m and -k after vowels.

Napintas ti balaymo.
"Your house is beautiful."

Ayanna daydiay asok?
"Where is my dog?"

''Basbasaenda ti diario.
"They are reading the newspaper."

Oblique pronouns usually express to or for someone.

Intedna kaniak.
"He gave it to me."

Imbagam kaniana!
"You told her!"

Borrowings

Ilocano's vocabulary has a closer affinity to languages from Borneo. Foreign accretion comes largely from Spanish, followed by English and smatterings of Hokkien (Min Nan), Arabic and Sanskrit.

Examples of Borrowing
Word	Source	Ilocano meaning
arak	Arabic (drink similar to saki)	generic alcoholic drink
karma	Sanskrit (see Buddhism)	spirit
Sanglay	Hokkien (to deliver goods)	to deliver/Chinese merchant
agbuldos	English (bulldozer)	to bulldoze
kwarta	Spanish (copper coin)	money
kumusta	Spanish (greeting)	how are you

Common expressions

Yes	Wen or Hamman (Saan man)
No	Saan or Haan
How are you?	Kumusta ka?
Good day	Naimbag nga aldaw
Good morning	Naimbag a bigat
Good afternoon	Naimbag a malem
Good evening	Naimbag a rabii
What is your name?	Ania ti naganmo? (often contracted to Aniat' naganmo?)
Where's the bathroom?	Ayanna ti banio?
I love you	Ay-ayatenka or Ipatpategka
Sorry	Pakawan or Dispensar
Goodbye	Agpakadaakon or Kastan/Kasta pay (Till then) or Sige (Okay) or Innakon (I'm going)

Numbers (Bilang), Days, Months

Numbers
0	ibbong OR awan OR sero (English zero) OR itlog (Ilocano slang, "egg")
0.25 (1/4)	kakappat
0.50 (1/2)	kagudua
1	maysa
2	dua
3	tallo
4	uppat
5	lima
6	innem
7	pito
8	walo
9	siam
10	sangapulo
11	sangapulo ket maysa
20	duapulo
50	limapulo
100	sangagasut
1000	sangaribu
1000000	sangariwriw
1000000000	sangabilion (English, billion)

Days and months are of Spanish origin:

Days of the Week
Monday	Lunes
Tuesday	Martes
Wednesday	Mierkoles
Thursday	Huebes
Friday	Biernes
Saturday	Sabado
Sunday	Domingo

Months
January	Enero	July	Hulio
February	Pebrero	August	Agosto
March	Marso	September	Settiembre
April	Abril	October	Oktubre
May	Mayo	November	Nobiembre
June	Hunio	December	Disiembre

Units of time
second	kanito OR segundo
minute	minuto OR daras
day	aldaw
week	lawas OR domingo
month	bulan
year	tawen OR anio

To mention time, Ilocanos use a mixture of Spanish and Ilocano:

1:00 a.m. A la una iti bigat (One in the morning)

2:30 p.m. A las dos imedia iti malem (in Spanish, Son las dos y media de la tarde or "half past two in the afternoon")

More Ilocano words

ading = younger brother/sister
aysus! = Oh, Jesus/Oh, my God!
babai = female
bakla = feminine male
kabsat = sibling
lalaki = male
manang = older sister
manong = older brother
mari = female friend/mother
nana = old woman
napintas = beautiful (woman)
nataraki = cute (man, slightly impolite connotation, but properly used on an animal, as for a rooster)
naguapo = handsome (man)
pari = close male friend/father (priest)
pustaan = bet or wager
sakit = hurts
tata = old man
tomboy = masculine female
ubing = child

External links

Etnologue entry for Ilokano
Bansa.org Ilokano Dictionary
Ilocano.org A project for building an online Ilokano dictionary. Also features Ilokano songs, and a community forum.
Ilocano: Ti pagsasao ti amianan - Webpage by linguist Dr. Carl R. Galvez Rubino, author of dictionaries on Iloko and Tagalog.
Iluko.com popular Ilokano web portal featuring Ilokano songs, Iloko fiction and poetry, Ilokano riddles, and a lively Ilokano forum (Dap-ayan).
mannurat.com blog of an Ilokano fictionist and poet written in Iloko and featuring original and Iloko fiction and poetry, literary analysis and criticism focused on Ilokano Literature, and literary news about Iloko writing and writers and organization like the GUMIL (Gunglo dagiti Mannurat nga Ilokano).
samtoy.blogspot.com Yloco Blog maintained by Ilocano writers Raymundo Pascua Addun and Joel Manuel
Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database

Austronesian languages | Malayo-Polynesian languages | Languages of the Philippines

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