Yakan is an Austronesian language primarily spoken on

Basilan Island Basilan, officially the Province of Basilan ( cbk, Provincia de Basilan; yka, Wilayah Basilanin; tsg, Wilaya' sin Basilan; fil, Lalawigan ng Basilan), is an island province of the Philippines located primarily in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Re ...

in the Philippines. It is the native language of the

Yakan people The Yakan people are among the major indigenous Filipino ethnolinguistic groups in the Sulu Archipelago. Having a significant number of followers of Islam, it is considered one of the 13 Moro people, Moro groups in the Philippines. The Yakans m ...

, the indigenous as well as the largest ethnic group on the island. It has a total of 110,000 native speakers. Despite being located in the Philippines, it is not closely related to other languages of the country. It is a member of the

Sama-Bajaw languages The Sama-Bajau include several Austronesian people, Austronesian ethnic groups of Maritime Southeast Asia. The name collectively refers to related people who usually call themselves the Sama or Samah (formally A'a Sama, "Sama people"); or are ...

, which in turn are related to the

Barito languages The Barito languages are around twenty Austronesian languages of Indonesia (Borneo), Southern Philippines, plus Malagasy, the national language of Madagascar. They are named after the Barito River located in South Kalimantan, Indonesia. The ...

spoken in southern

Borneo Borneo (; id, Kalimantan) is the third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia. At the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, in relation to major Indonesian islands, it is located north of Java, west of Sulawesi, and eas ...

Madagascar Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...

and

Mayotte Mayotte (; french: Mayotte, ; Shimaore: ''Maore'', ; Kibushi: ''Maori'', ), officially the Department of Mayotte (french: Département de Mayotte), is an overseas department and region and single territorial collectivity of France. It is loc ...

Phonology

Vowels

Yakan has a simple five-vowel system: , , , , , with phonemic vowel length: , , , , .

Consonants

The following chart lists the consonant phonemes of Yakan. The consonant ''d'' is usually realized between vowels as a flap [], although some speakers use the stop [] in all positions. All consonants except for , , , and can occur as lengthened consonants. The following spelling conventions are used: , , , .

References

Bibliography

External links

Omniglot's entry on the Yakan languageOnline Yakan-English dictionary accessible from SIL Philippines's websiteGrammar description from Brainard and Behrens (2002), accessible via Rosetta Project
{{Austronesian languages Sama–Bajaw languages Languages of Basilan Languages of the Philippines