Casiguran Dumagat Agta, also known as Casiguran Agta (after the endonym Agta, the name which the people call themselves and their language), is a Northeastern Luzon language spoken in the northern Philippines. It is spoken by around 610 speakers, most of whom live in the
San Ildefonso Peninsula
San Ildefonso Peninsula is a peninsula in Central Luzon, central part of Luzon island, Philippines, at . It is attached to the mainland through a 3.5 mile wide strip of land. Cape San Ildefonso can be found south of the peninsula.
The peninsula ...
, across the bay from
Casiguran, Aurora
Casiguran, officially the Municipality of Casiguran ( Tagalog/ Kasiguranin: ''Bayan ng Casiguran''; ilo, Ili ti Casiguran), is a 2nd class municipality in the province of Aurora, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of ...
.
The language was first documented in 1936 by Christian missionaries. There are many surviving works o
Father Morice Vanoverberghthat document the language. Although the language has gone through rapid cultural change since his early work, the Father's writings still give a window of insight into what the language and the culture of the people was. Since then it has been continually documented by SIL linguists like Thomas and Janet Headland (Lobel 2013:88).
A New Testament translation was published in 1979, called ''Bigu a Tipan: I mahusay a baheta para ta panahun tam.''
Among the languages spoken by Philippine "Negrito" populations, Casiguran Dumagat Agta has been one of the most extensively studied varieties.
Casiguran Dumagat is closely related to Dupaningan Agta, Pahanan Agta (near Palanan town), Paranan (the non-Agta language of Palanan town), and Dinapigue Agta. A dialect called Nagtipunan Agta was discovered by Jason Lobel and Laura Robinson in Nagtipunan, Quirino in 2006 (Lobel 2013:88).
Casiguran Agta has been described as having eight vowel sounds, compared to the usual four in most Philippine languages.
See also
*List of linguistic materials and descriptions
online access*Agta Demographic Database: chronicle of a hunter-gatherer community in transition,
https://www.sil.org/resources/publications/entry/9299
References
Aeta languages
Northeastern Luzon languages
Languages of Aurora (province)
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