Ilocano Language

Ilocano (also Ilokano; ; Ilocano: ) is an Austronesian language spoken in the Philippines, primarily by Ilocano people and as a lingua franca by the Igorot people and also by the native settlers of Cagayan Valley. It is the third most-spoken native language in the country.

As an Austronesian language, it is related to Malay (Indonesian and Malaysian), Tetum, Chamorro, Fijian, Māori, Hawaiian, Samoan, Tahitian, Paiwan, and Malagasy. It is closely related to some of the other Austronesian languages of Northern Luzon, and has slight mutual intelligibility with the Balangao language and the eastern dialects of the Bontoc language.

The Ilokano people had their indigenous writing system and script known as ''kur-itan''. There have been proposals to revive the ''kur-itan'' script by teaching it in Ilokano-majority public and private schools in Ilocos Norte and Ilocos Sur.

Classification

Ilocano, like all Philippine languages, is an Austronesian language, a very expansive language family believed to originate in Taiwan. Ilocano comprises its own branch within the Philippine Cordilleran language subfamily. It is spoken as a first language by seven million people.

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

Geographic distribution

The language is spoken in northwest Luzon, the Babuyan Islands, Cordillera Administrative Region, Cagayan Valley, northern parts of Central Luzon, Mindoro, and scattered areas in Mindanao (the Soccsksargen region in particular). The language is also spoken in the United States, with Hawaii and California having the largest number of speakers. It is the third most spoken non-English language in Hawaii after Tagalog and Japanese, with 17% of those speaking languages other than English at home (25.4% of the population) speaking the language.

In September 2012, the province of La Union passed an ordinance recognizing Ilocano (Iloko) as an official provincial language, alongside Filipino and English, as national and official languages of the Philippines, respectively. It is the first province in the Philippines to pass an ordinance protecting and revitalizing a native language, although there are also other languages spoken in the province of La Union, including Pangasinan and Kankanaey.

Writing system

Modern alphabet

The modern Ilokano alphabet consists of 28 letters:

Aa, Bb, Cc, Dd, Ee, Ff, Gg, Hh, Ii, Jj, Kk, Ll, Mm, Nn, Ññ, NGng, Oo, Pp, Qq, Rr, Ss, Tt, Uu, Vv, Ww, Xx, Yy, and Zz

Pre-colonial

Pre-colonial Ilocano people of all classes wrote in a syllabic system known as Baybayin prior to European arrival. They used a system that is termed as an ''abugida'', or an alphasyllabary. It was similar to the Tagalog and Pangasinan scripts, where each character represented a consonant-vowel, or CV, sequence. The Ilocano version, however, was the first to designate coda consonants with a diacritic mark – a cross or virama – shown in the ''Doctrina Cristiana'' of 1621, one of the earliest surviving Ilokano publications. Before the addition of the virama, writers had no way to designate coda consonants. The reader, on the other hand, had to guess whether a consonant not succeeding a vowel is read or not, for it is not written. Vowel apostrophes interchange between ''e'' or ''i'', and ''o'' or ''u''. Due to this, the vowels ''e'' and ''i'' are interchangeable, and letters ''o'' and ''u'', for instance, and ('shop-assistant').

Modern

In recent times, there have been two systems in use: the Spanish system and the Tagalog system. In the Spanish system words of Spanish origin kept their spellings. Native words, on the other hand, conformed to the Spanish rules of spelling. Most older generations of Ilocanos use the Spanish system.

In the system based on that of Tagalog there is more of a phoneme-to-letter correspondence, which better reflects the actual pronunciation of the word. The letters ''ng'' constitute a digraph and count as a single letter, following ''n'' in alphabetization. As a result, ('humility') appears before ('to chew') in newer dictionaries. Words of foreign origin, most notably those from Spanish, need to be changed in spelling to better reflect Ilocano phonology. Words of English origin may or may not conform to this orthography. A prime example using this system is the weekly magazine '' Bannawag''.

Samples of the two systems

The following are two versions of the Lord's Prayer. The one on the left is written using Spanish-based orthography, while the one on the right uses the Tagalog-based system.

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Comparison between the two systems

''Notes''

''1.'' In Ilocano phonology, the labiodental fricative sound // does not exist. Its approximate sound is //. Therefore, in words of Spanish or English origin, // becomes //. In particular (yet not always the case), last names beginning with // are often said with //, for example ''Fernández'' /per.'nan.des/.

''2.'' The sound // only occurs in loanwords, and in the negative variant ''haan''.

Ilocano and education

With the implementation by the Spanish of the Bilingual Education System of 1897, Ilocano, together with the other seven major languages (those that have at least a million speakers), was allowed to be used as a medium of instruction until the second grade. It is recognized by the Commission on the Filipino Language as one of the major languages of the Philippines. Constitutionally, Ilocano is an auxiliary official language in the regions where it is spoken and serves as auxiliary media of instruction therein.

In 2009, the Department of Education instituted Department Order No. 74, s. 2009 stipulating that "mother tongue-based multilingual education" would be implemented. In 2012, Department Order No. 16, s. 2012 stipulated that the mother tongue-based multilingual system was to be implemented for Kindergarten to Grade 3 Effective School Year 2012–2013. Ilocano is used in public schools mostly in the Ilocos Region and the Cordilleras. It is the primary medium of instruction from Kindergarten to Grade 3 (except for the Filipino and English subjects) and is also a separate subject from Grade 1 to Grade 3. Thereafter, English and Filipino are introduced as mediums of instructions.

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 Angalo, and Namarsua (the Creator).

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 Ilokano society; it is a hero's journey steeped in courage, loyalty, pragmatism, honor, and ancestral and familial bonds.

Ilocano culture revolves around life rituals, festivities, and oral history. These were celebrated in songs (), dances (), poems (), riddles (), proverbs (), literary verbal jousts called (named after the writer Pedro Bucaneg, and is the equivalent of the Balagtasan of the