kapampangan language

Kapampangan or Pampangan is an Austronesian language, and one of the eight major languages of the Philippines. It is the primary and predominant language of the entire province of Pampanga and southern Tarlac, on the southern part of Luzon's central plains geographic region, where the Kapampangan ethnic group resides. Kapampangan is also spoken in northeastern Bataan, as well as in the provinces of Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, and Zambales that border Pampanga. It is further spoken as a second language by a few Aeta groups in the southern part of Central Luzon. The language is known honorifically as ('breastfed, or nurtured, language').

Classification

Kapampangan is one of the Central Luzon languages of the Austronesian language family. Its closest relatives are the Sambalic languages of Zambales province and the Bolinao language spoken in the towns of Bolinao and Anda in Pangasinan. These languages share the same reflex of the proto-Malayo-Polynesian *R.

History

''Kapampangan'' is derived from the root word ('riverbank'). The language was historically spoken in the Kingdom of Tondo, ruled by the Lakans.

A number of Kapampangan dictionaries and grammar books were written during the Spanish colonial period. wrote two 18th-century books about the language: Bergaño (first published in 1729) and (first published in 1732). Kapampangan produced two 19th-century literary giants; was noted for and , and playwright wrote in 1901. "Crissotan" was written by Amado Yuzon, Soto's 1950s contemporary and Nobel Prize nominee for peace and literature, to immortalize his contribution to Kapampangan literature.

Geographic distribution

Kapampangan is predominantly spoken in the province of Pampanga and southern Tarlac ( Bamban, Capas, Concepcion, San Jose, Gerona, La Paz, Victoria and Tarlac City). It is also spoken in border communities of the provinces of Bataan (Dinalupihan, Hermosa and Orani), Bulacan ( Baliuag, San Miguel, San Ildefonso, Hagonoy, Plaridel, Pulilan and Calumpit), Nueva Ecija (Cabiao, San Isidro, Gapan City and Cabanatuan City) and Zambales ( Olongapo City and Subic). In Mindanao, a significant Kapampangan-speaking minority also exists in South Cotabato, specifically in General Santos and the municipalities of Polomolok and Tupi. According to the 2000 Philippine census, 2,312,870 people (out of the total population of 76,332,470) spoke Kapampangan as their native language.

Phonology

Standard Kapampangan has 21 phonemes: 15 consonants and five vowels; some western dialects have six vowels. Syllabic structure is relatively simple; each syllable contains at least one consonant and a vowel.

Vowels

Standard Kapampangan has five vowel phonemes:
*, a close back unrounded vowel when unstressed; allophonic with , an open front unrounded vowel similar to English ''father'' when stressed
*, an open-mid front unrounded vowel similar to English ''bed''
*, a close front unrounded vowel similar to English ''machine''
*, a close-mid back rounded vowel similar to English ''forty''
*, a close back rounded vowel similar to English ''flute''

There are four main diphthongs: , , , and . In most dialects (including standard Kapampangan), and are reduced to and respectively.

Monophthongs have allophones in unstressed and syllable-final positions:
* becomes in all unstressed positions.
*Unstressed is usually pronounced , as in English ''bit'' and ''book'' respectively (except final syllables).
*In final syllables can be pronounced , and can be pronounced .
** ('these') can be pronounced / or /; ('bought') can be pronounced or ; ('to us' xcept you can be pronounced or ; can be pronounced or , ('dusk') can be pronounced or .
** ('he said, she said, they said, it was said, allegedly, reportedly, supposedly') can be pronounced or ; ('book') can be pronounced or ; ('who') can be pronounced or ; ('to me') can be pronounced or , and ('cricket') can be pronounced or .
*Unstressed are usually pronounced , respectively (except final syllables).

Consonants

In the chart of Kapampangan consonants, all stops are unaspirated. The velar nasal occurs in all positions, including the beginning of a word. Unlike other languages of the Philippines but similar to Ilocano, Kapampangan uses /h/ only in words of foreign origin.

* tends to lenite to between vowels.
* and are allophones in Kapampangan, and sometimes interchangeable; can be ('Where are the books?').
*A glottal stop at the end of a word is often omitted in the middle of a sentence and, unlike in most languages of the Philippines, is conspicuously absent word-internally; hence, Batiáuan's dropping of semivowels from its very name.

Stress

Stress is phonemic in Kapampangan. Primary stress occurs on the last or the next-to-last syllable of a word. Vowel lengthening accompanies primary or secondary stress, except when stress occurs at the end of a word. Stress shift can occur, shifting to the right or left to differentiate between nominal or verbal use (as in the following examples):Forman, Michael, 1971, pp.28-29
* ('should, ought to') → ('deed, concern, business')
* ('gather, burn trash') → ('trash pile')

Stress shift can also occur when one word is derived from another through affixation; again, stress can shift to the right or the left:
* → ('company')
* → ('melt, digest')

Sound changes

In Kapampangan, the proto-Philippine schwa vowel merged to in most dialects of Kapampangan; it is preserved in some western dialects. Proto-Philippine is ('to plant') in Kapampangan, compared with Tagalog , Cebuano and Ilocano ('grave').

Proto-Philippine merged with . The Kapampangan word for 'new' is ; it is in Tagalog, in Ilocano, and in Indonesian.

Grammar

Kapampangan is a VSO or Verb-Subject-Object language. However, the word order can be very flexible and change to VOS (Verb-Object-Subject) and SVO (Subject-Verb-Object). Just like other Austronesian languages, Kapampangan is also an agglutinative language where new words are formed by adding affixes onto a root word (affixation) and the repetition of words, or portions of words (reduplication), (for example: ('child') to ('children')). Root words are frequently derived from other words by means of prefixes, infixes, suffixes and circumfixes. (For example: ('food') to