Abellen, Abenlen, Aburlin, or Ayta Abellen, is a Sambalic language. It has about 4,400 speakers and is spoken in a few

Aeta Aeta (Ayta ), Agta and Dumagat, are collective terms for several indigenous peoples who live in various parts of Luzon islands in the Philippines. They are included in the wider Negrito grouping of the Philippines and the rest of Southeast A ...

communities in

Tarlac Tarlac, officially the Province of Tarlac (; ; ; ; ), is a landlocked Provinces of the Philippines, province in the Philippines located in the Central Luzon Regions of the Philippines, region. It had a population of 1,503,456 people according to ...

province A province is an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire, Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

. Ayta Abellen itself is part of the Sambalic language family in the Philippines and is closely related to not only the five other Ayta dialects but also the

Botolan Botolan, officially the Municipality of Botolan, is a municipality in the province of Zambales, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 66,739 people. The municipality was founded by Spanish Governor-General Juan de S ...

dialect of Sambal. ''

Ethnologue ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensive catalogue of languages. It w ...

'' reports 45 monolinguists.

Geographic distribution

Abellen Ayta speakers can be found in the following locations: *Maamot, San Jose, Tarlac ProvinceAbellen
at ''

'' (18th ed., 2015) *Santa Juliana, Mayantoc, Tarlac Province *

Capas Capas, officially the Municipality of Capas (; ), is a Philippine municipality, municipality in the Philippine province, province of Tarlac, Philippines, and one of the richest towns in the province. The town also consists of numerous subdivi ...

, Tarlac Province *Sitio Loob-Bunga, Barangay Poon Bato, Botolan, Zambales

History

Early history

The Ayta Abellen people are historically a semi-nomadic people. Also known as

Negrito The term ''Negrito'' (; ) refers to several diverse ethnic groups who inhabit isolated parts of Southeast Asia and the Andaman Islands. Populations often described as Negrito include: the Andamanese peoples (including the Great Andamanese, th ...

s, they are said to be descendants of the earliest inhabitants of the Philippines, dating back to the late

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...

Era.Reid, L. (1987).
"The Early Switch Hypothesis: Linguistic Evidence for Contact between the Negritos and the Austronesians". ''Man and Culture in Oceania 3, Special Issue.''
/ref> The Ayta Abellen are distinguishable by their curly black hair, and darker skin tone as compared to other Filipinos. Since their language is similar to other Austronesian languages, there is a theory of an Austronesian migration that occurred. In this theory, there were two different migrations, one from the southern coast of

Sundaland Sundaland (also called Sundaica or the Sundaic region) is a biogeographical region of Southeast Asia corresponding to a larger landmass that was exposed throughout the last 2.6 million years during periods when sea levels were lower. It inc ...

eastward and from

Wallacea Wallacea is a biogeography, biogeographical designation for a group of mainly list of islands of Indonesia, Indonesian islands separated by deep-water straits from the Asian and Australia (continent), Australian continental shelf, continental ...

Mindanao Mindanao ( ) is the List of islands of the Philippines, second-largest island in the Philippines, after Luzon, and List of islands by population, seventh-most populous island in the world. Located in the southern region of the archipelago, the ...

, causing there to be a separation of Ayta people and the

Mamanwa The Lumad are a group of Austronesian indigenous peoples in the southern Philippines. It is a Cebuano term meaning "native" or "indigenous". The term is short for Katawhang Lumad (Literally: "indigenous people"), the autonym officially ado ...

for about 20,000 to 30,000 years. Prior to the Austronesian migration, there was not much similarity between the original languages of the Negritos.

Modern history and revitalization

After the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the 1990s, some of the Ayta Abellen have relocated from the mountains and have intermarried and mixed in with the local Ilocano people. As a result, there are Ilocano loan words in the language. Much of the population also speaks Ilocano as a second language along with Tagalog as well. The Ayta people rely on natural resources; however, due to shrinking forests, it has become harder to sustain that life style. This problem, along with diseases and remoteness from modern health care centers, is correlated with the higher death rate as compared to the birth rate among the Ayta Abellen people.

Phonology

Stone, R. '' ''(2013). ''Ayta Abellen Orthography Fact Sheet.'' orking Paper Retrieved from http://www.pnglanguages.org/asia/Philippines/show_work.asp?pubs=onlinehtml&id=928474551911&Lang=eng Additionally, s, r, c (for , j, among other phonemes, are used in loanwords and names. In the Sambal and Ayta languages, the glottal stop tends to replace a word final non-obstruent when proceeded by a stressed high central vowel.

Grammar

Ayta Abellen shares the same verb–subject–object sentence structure as other languages in the Philippines. It shares similar phonology with other Ayta dialects as well as Botolan Sambal. Not only does it share an identical pronoun system with other Sambalic languages, but between other Ayta languages, it is around 70% similar. This language is a CV (consonant and vowel) and CVC language, although sometimes it is ambiguously a VC and V language. In this language, vowel deletion as well as consonant deletion are evident when words are combined. In this language, placement of stress can be unpredictable. Poly-syllabic words have primary stress whereas words with more than three syllables contain a secondary stress. However, suffixation also causes a shift in stress placement.

Writing system

Ayta Abellen is written using Latin text. Ilocano is a second language to much of the Abellen and the lingua franca of where many of the Abellen people reside, while Tagalog is the national language of the Philippines. Transcribers are trying to document the language in text that is similar to both Ilocano and Tagalog. Many of the hymnals used in the area are written in Botolan Sambal, and thus they are also trying to have Ayta Abellen orthography conform to it as well.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Abellen Language Endangered Austronesian languages Sambalic languages Aeta languages Languages of Tarlac