Hiligaynon, also often referred to as Ilonggo or Binisayâ/Bisayâ nga Hiniligaynon/Inilonggo, is an Austronesian regional language spoken in the Philippines by about 9.1 million people, predominantly in Panay Island, Negros Occidental, and Soccsksargen, most of whom belong to the Hiligaynon people. It is the second-most widely spoken language in the Visayas and belongs to the Bisayan languages, and it is more distantly related to other Philippine languages.
It also has one of the largest native language-speaking populations of the Philippines, despite it not being taught and studied formally in schools and universities until 2012. Hiligaynon is given the ISO 639-2 three-letter code hil, but has no ISO 639-1 two-letter code.
Hiligaynon is mainly concentrated in the regions of Western Visayas (Iloilo, Capiz, and Guimaras), Negros Island Region (Negros Occidental), and Soccsksargen (South Cotabato including General Santos, Sultan Kudarat, and Cotabato). It is spoken in other neighboring provinces, such as Antique and Aklan in Western Visayas, Negros Oriental in Negros Island Region, Masbate in Bicol Region, and southern parts of Mindoro, Romblon and Palawan in Mimaropa.
It is spoken as a second language by Kinaray-a speakers in Antique, Aklanon/Malaynon speakers in Aklan, Capiznon speakers in Capiz, Cebuano speakers in Negros Oriental, and spoken and understood by native speakers of Maguindanaon, Cebuano, Ilocano, Blaan, Tboli and other settler and indigenous languages in Soccsksargen in Mindanao. There are approximately 9,300,000 people in and out of the Philippines who are native speakers of Hiligaynon and an additional 5,000,000 capable of speaking it with a substantial degree of proficiency.
Aside from Hiligaynon, the language is also referred to as Ilonggo, also spelled Ilongo, as it originated in Iloilo. Many speakers outside Iloilo argue, that this is an incorrect usage of the word Ilonggo. In precise usage, these people opine that Ilonggo should be used only in relation to the ethnolinguistic group of native inhabitants of Iloilo and the culture associated with native Hiligaynon speakers in that place, including their language. The disagreement over the usage of Ilonggo to refer to the language extends to Philippine language specialists and native laypeople.
Historical evidence from observations of early Spanish explorers in the Archipelago shows that the nomenclature used to refer to this language had its origin among the people of the coasts or people of the Ilawod ("") in Iloilo, Panay, whom Spanish explorer Miguel de Loarca called Yligueynes (or the more popular term Hiligaynon, also referred to by the Karay-a people as Siná).
The term Hiligaynon comes from the root word ('to go downstream'), referring to a flowing river in Iloilo. In contrast, the Kinaray-a has been used by what the Spanish colonizers called Arayas, which may be a Spanish misconception of the Hiligaynon words or , or the current and more popular version Karay-a ('highlanders' â people of Iraya/highlands).
Similar to many languages in the Philippines, very little research on dialectology has been done on Hiligaynon. Standard Hiligaynon, is the dialect that is used in the province of Iloilo, primarily in the northern and eastern portions of the province. It has a more traditional and extensive vocabulary, whereas the Urban Hiligaynon dialect spoken in Metro Iloilo has a more simplified or modern vocabulary.
For example, the term for 'to wander', 'to walk', or 'to stroll' in Urban Hiligaynon is , which is also widely used by most of the Hiligaynon speakers. In contrast, Standard Hiligaynon more commonly uses , a term that is rarely or never used by other dialects of the language anymore. Another example, , ('this is it') in Standard Hiligaynon can be simplified in Urban Hiligaynon and become .
Some of the other widely recognized dialects of the language, aside from Standard Hiligaynon and Urban Hiligaynon, are Bacolodnon Hiligaynon (Metro Bacolod dialect), Negrense Hiligaynon (provincial Negros Occidental dialect that is composed of three sub-variants: Northern, Central and Southern Negrense Hiligaynon), Guimaras Hiligaynon, and Mindanao Hiligaynon (which incorporated some Cebuano and other languages due to the mass influx of migrants from Cebu, Bohol, Siquijor and Cebuano-speaking parts of Mindanao reside in the Soccsksargen area).
Some native speakers also consider Kinaray-a (also known as Hiniraya or Antiqueño) and Capiznon dialects of Hiligaynon. However, linguists have classified Kinaray-a as a Western Bisayan language, while Capiznon is a Central Bisayan language closely related to Hiligaynon.
Consonants and were once allophones but cannot interchange as in other Philippine languages: ('to forgive') [from , 'forgiveness'] but not , and ('from where') [from , 'where'] but not .
There are four main vowels: , , , and . and (both spelled i) are allophones, with in the beginning and middle and sometimes final syllables and in final syllables. The vowels and are also allophones, with always being used when it is the beginning of a syllable, and always used when it ends a syllable.
Hiligaynon is written using the Latin script. Until the second half of the 20th century, Hiligaynon was widely written largely following Spanish orthographic conventions. Nowadays there is no officially recognized standard orthography for the language and different writers may follow different conventions. It is common for the newer generation, however, to write the language based on the current orthographic rules of Filipino.
A noticeable feature of the Spanish-influenced orthography absent in those writing following Filipino's orthography is the use of "c" and "qu" in representing (now replaced with "k" in all instances) and the absence of the letter "w" ("u" was formerly used in certain instances).
The core alphabet consists of 20 letters used for expressing consonants and vowels in Hiligaynon, each of which comes in an uppercase and lowercase variety.
The apostrophe and hyphen also appear in Hiligaynon writing, and might be considered separate letters.
The hyphen, in particular, is used medially to indicate the glottal stop 'when' 'evening; night'. It is also used in reduplicated words: 'daily, every day', from 'day, sun'. This marking is not used in reduplicated words whose base is not also used independently, as in 'bird'.
Hyphens are also used in words with successive sounds of and , to separate the letters with the digraph NG. Like in the word 'was given'; without the hyphen, it would be read as as opposed to .
In addition, some English letters may be used in borrowed words.
Hiligaynon has three types of case markers: absolutive, ergative, and oblique. These types in turn are divided into personal, that have to do with names of people, and impersonal, that deal with everything else, and further into singular and plural types, though the plural impersonal case markers are just the singular impersonal case markers + (a contracted spelling for ), a particle used to denote plurality in Hiligaynon.
(*)The articles and means the following noun is indefinite, while tells of a definite noun, like the use of a in English as opposed to the; however, it is not as common in modern speech, being replaced by . It appears in conservative translations of the Bible into Hiligaynon and in traditional or formal speech.<br> (**)The plural personal case markers are not used very often and not even by all speakers. Again, this is an example of a case marker that has fallen largely into disuse, but is still occasionally used when speaking a more traditional form of Hiligaynon, using fewer Spanish loan words.
The case markers do not determine which noun is the subject and which is the object; rather, the affix of the verb determines this, though the -marked noun is always the topic.
In addition to this, there are two verbal deictics, , meaning 'to come to the speaker', and , meaning 'to go yonder'.
Hiligaynon lacks the marker of sentence inversion of Tagalog/Filipino or of Akeanon. Instead sentences in SV form (Filipino: ) are written without any marker or copula.
Examples:
(Tagalog)
/ (Hiligaynon) = 'Leni is beautiful.'
'Leni is beautiful' (English)
There is no direct translation for the English copula to be in Hiligaynon. However, the prefixes and may be used to mean will be and became, respectively.
Example: <br>'It is nice to become rich.'
The Spanish copula ('to be') has also become a part of the Hiligaynon lexicon. Its meaning and pronunciation have changed compared to its Spanish meaning, however. In Hiligaynon it is pronounced as and means 'to live (in)/location' (Compare with the Hiligaynon word ).
Example: <br>'I live in tabuk suba'. translates to 'other side of the river' and is also a barangay in Jaro, Iloilo.
To indicate the existence of an object, the word is used.
Example:
When an adjective modifies a noun, the linker links the two.
Example:
<br>'black dog'
Sometimes, if the linker is preceded by a word that ends in a vowel, glottal stop or the letter N, it becomes acceptable to contract it into -ng, as in Filipino. This is often used to make the words sound more poetic or to reduce the number of syllables. Sometimes the meaning may change as in , '(the) good morning', and , the greeting for 'good morning'.
The linker is used if a number modifies a noun.
Example:
<br>'six dogs'
The interrogative pronouns of Hiligaynon are as follows: , , , , , , and
means 'where<nowiki/>'.<br>Example: <br>'Where are you now?'
A derivation of , , is used to inquire about the birthplace or hometown of the listener.<br>Example: <br>'Where are you from?'
means 'when<nowiki/>'<br>Example: <br>'When is that?'
means 'who<nowiki/>'<br>Example: <br>'Who is your friend?'
means 'why<nowiki/>'<br>Example: <br>'Why won't you go?'
means 'how<nowiki/>', as in "How are you?"<br>Example: <br>'How is the store?'
means 'what<nowiki/>'<br>Example: <br>'What are you reading?'
A derivative of , , meaning 'how<nowiki/>', as in "How do I do that?"<br>Example: <br>'How can I get home?'
A derivative of is , an archaic phrase which can be compared with .<br>Example: <br>'How art thou?'
means 'how much/how many<nowiki/>'<br>Example: <br>'How many are with you?'
A derivative of , , asks the numerical order of the person, as in, "What place were you born in your family?"(first-born, second-born, etc.) This word is notoriously difficult to translate into English, as English has no equivalent.<br>Example: <br>'What place were you born into your family?'
A derivative of , , asks the monetary value of something, as in, "How much is this beef?"<br>Example: <br>'How much is this beef?'
As it is essential for sentence structure and meaning, focus is a key concept in Hiligaynon and other Philippine languages. In English, in order to emphasize a part of a sentence, variation in intonation is usually employed â the voice is stronger or louder on the part emphasized. For example:
Furthermore, active and passive grammatical constructions can be used in English to place focus on the actor or object as the subject:
In contrast, sentence focus in Philippine languages is built into the construction by grammatical elements. Focus is marked by verbal affixes and a special particle prior to the noun in focus. Consider the following Hiligaynon translations of the above sentences:
Hiligaynon, like other Philippine languages, employs reduplication, the repetition of a root or stem of a word or part of a word for grammatical or semantic purposes. Reduplication in Hiligaynon tends to be limited to roots instead of affixes, as the only inflectional or derivational morpheme that seems to reduplicate is -pa-. Root reduplication suggests 'non-perfectiveness' or 'non-telicity'. Used with nouns, reduplication of roots indicate particulars which are not fully actualized members of their class. Note the following examples.
Reduplication of verbal roots suggests a process lacking a focus or decisive goal. The following examples describe events which have no apparent end, in the sense of lacking purpose or completion. A lack of seriousness may also be implied. Similarly, reduplication can suggest a background process in the midst of a foreground activity, as shown in (5).
When used with adjectival roots, non-telicity may suggest a gradualness of the quality, such as the comparison in (6). In comparative constructions the final syllables of each occurrence of the reduplicated root are accented. If the stress of the second occurrence is shifted to the first syllable, then the reduplicated root suggests a superlative degree, as in (7). Superlatives can also be created through prefixation of to the root, as in .
While non-telicity can suggest augmentation, as shown in (7), it can also indicate diminishment as in shown in (9), in contrast with (8) (note the stress contrast). In (8b), , accented in the superlative pattern, suggests a trajectory of improvement that has not been fully achieved. In (9b), suggests a trajectory of decline when accented in the comparative pattern. The reduplicated implies sub-optimal situations in both cases; full goodness/wellness is not achieved.
Hiligaynon has a large number of words derived from Spanish including nouns (e.g., from , 'saint'), adjectives (e.g., from , 'green'), prepositions (e.g., from , 'before'), and conjunctions (e.g., from , 'but').
Nouns denoting material items and abstract concepts invented or introduced during the early modern era include (, 'ship'), (, 'shoes'), (, 'knife'), (, 'spoon'), ('fork'), ('plate'), (, 'shirt'), and (, 'change', as in money). Spanish verbs are incorporated into Hiligaynon in their infinitive forms: , , , . The same holds true for other languages such as Cebuano. In contrast, incorporations of Spanish verbs into Tagalog for the most part resemble, though are not necessarily derived from, the vos forms in the imperative: , , , . Notable exceptions include , (from ) and (from ).
Just like other Philippine languages that are influenced by Spanish, Hiligaynon uses 2 systems of numbers, one from its Austronesian roots and one derived from Spanish.
The names of the days of the week are derived from their Spanish equivalents.
Literal translation as per photo:
Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ()
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