Small island communities across the Visayas region of the Philippines are sites of convergence,
engagement, and tension among people and entities of different origins and backgrounds. I
examine the content of folk narratives gathered through linguistic fieldwork in two such
communities: (i) the Municipality of Romblon, on the island of Romblon, Province of Romblon
(from 28 April-2 May, 2014) and (ii) the Municipality of Poro, on the island of Poro, in Camotes,
Province of Cebu (from 8 March-30 April, 2022) and sketch out the ways in which high relative
insularity (Baldacchino, 2006; Nash, et al., 2020) may have influenced these accounts. One
account is a tale involving a golden ship which allegedly abducts children during Holy Week in
Romblon, Romblon (Santiago, 2019). Another tale involves the intermediary named
Panganoron who is said to have settled a dispute between the two tribes Tag-Anito and Tag-
Maktang in Poro Island (Costas, 1997; Santiago, 2022). Further, I seek to demonstrate that the
specific experiences associated with island life in the Central Philippines are encoded in these
two selected folk narratives. The distinctiveness of Southeast Asian island experiences
(Andaya, 2006) may also be gleaned from comparing the above case studies with narratives
from other sites which have a similar character, such as the island of Jandayan, Bohol where
entities called agta inhabit the mangrove forests (Guieb, 2017) and the island of Cuyo, in
Palawan where a place called napuro in the local language is said to be inhabited by similar
supernatural entities (Lee, 2021, 2022).

Keywords: island studies, folklore, Visayan communities

Porohanon, spoken in the Municipality of Poro, Camotes, Cebu is a member of the Central Bisayan branch of the Bisayan complex (Zorc 1977). Previous descriptions of this speech variety (Wolff 1967, Zorc 1977, Ballo 2011) have tended to classify its common noun markers into NOMINATIVE, GENITIVE, and OBLIQUE case forms. These forms are also purported to encode distinctions of DEFINITE versus INDEFINITE and SPECIFIC versus NONSPECIFIC, notions which fall under what Balogh, Latrouite, and Van Valin (2020) call “nominal anchoring”. The current study re-evaluates the functions and present-day forms of these common noun markers using written and spoken data. An alternative classification is proposed in this paper’s conclusion. The syntactic alignment of Porohanon is also reassessed considering more contemporary research on ergativity in Philippine languages.

Keywords: Porohanon, nominal anchoring, definiteness, specificity

ISO 639-3 codes: prh

This paper catalogs the provincial, municipal, and barangay-level place names—or toponyms—of the island province of Marinduque. Through close readings of primary historical sources and lexicographic texts, hypotheses on the provenance of these toponyms are forwarded. They are organized based on ten toponymic categories: physical descriptions, flora, fauna, persons, local or national events, geopolitical categories, human attributes, objects, concepts, or activities based partially on the categories in Jocano (1965), Medina (1992), Lesho and Sippola (2018), and Martynenko and Chesnokova (2019). The linguistic sources for Marinduque toponyms affirm the province’s place in the Tagalogspeaking regions, but strong signals also point to contact with Bisayan and Bikol communities.

Short story published in Revolt Magazine PH.

Accessible at https://revoltmagazineph.ink/2020/07/27/ang-pangatlong-sulok-sa-triangul....

The unprecedented nature of the COVID-19 pandemic has wrought a lot of changes in our lives and in our use of language. Scientific and technical terms have become part of our daily conversations. Words like coronavirus, self-quarantine, incubation period, while common to those in the medical field, were used perhaps infrequently by the general population, until recently. Tony Thorne called it the “medicalisation” of everyday language. (King’s College London, 2020). The #LexiCOVID Project was an online initiative carried out during the month of August 2020. The main goal was to look into words and concepts that Filipinos associated with the pandemic. The results of the project were then disseminated through a series of online posters on the UP Department of Linguistics Facebook page (shorturl.at/itIMR) and Instagram account (shorturl.at/yDL18). Responses to our survey featured words already in use, whether in a local or foreign language, but only recently gained usage outside their technical fields e.g., flatten(ing) the curve. Some have undergone shifts in meaning due to how they were being used in mass and social media e.g., social distancing. Some describe our new work arrangements and modes of interaction: WFH (work from home), and contactless delivery. Some neologisms in the year 2020 were also documented, e.g., Zoomustahan. All in all, what emerged from our results is a record of our lives in lockdown describing our collective experience and sense-making.

Keywords: medicalization, semantic shift, corpus linguistics

ISO 639-3 language codes: tgl, fil, eng, ita, ilo, spa, war, loc, ceb, deu, hil, pam

Primer containing a brief introduction to the language Inagta Alabat (ISO 639-3 dul), an alphabet chart, and a phrase list. 

This is one of the outputs for the project Documenting Alabat Agta, a nearly-extinct language of the Philippines headed by Louward Allen M. Zubiri (Mangyan Heritage Center, University of Hawai'i at Mānoa) and funded by the U.S. Embassy in the Philippines.

Compilers and editors: Louward Allen M. Zubiri, Amy Jugueta, Julieta Alpay, Vincent Christopher Santiago, Irvin Jen Imperial

Illustrations by: Ara Villena

Illustrated compilation of localized literature in Inagta Alabat (ISO 639-3 dul).

This is one of the outputs for the project Documenting Alabat Agta, a nearly-extinct language of the Philippines headed by Louward Allen M. Zubiri (Mangyan Heritage Center, University of Hawai'i at Mānoa) and funded by the U.S. Embassy in the Philippines.

Compilers and editors: Louward Allen M. Zubiri, Amy Jugueta, Julieta Alpay, Vincent Christopher Santiago, Irvin Jen Imperial

Illustrations by: Ara Villena

Inihaharap ng papel ang ilang kritikal na tala sa Diksiyonaryo ng Wikang Pilipino (DWP) ni Rosendo Ignacio na inilimbag noong 1958 ng Samar Publishing, Co. Sa pagkilates sa mga estruktural na katangian sa iba’t ibang antas: mega-, macro-, micro-, cross-reference structure, atbp. at isinasaad na punsiyon ng DWP, dumudulog ang pag-aaral na ito sa mga establisadong prinsipyo ng kontemporaneong leksikograpiya at kritisismong pandiksiyonaryo. Sa antas na ito ng analisis ay lumilitaw na may mga pagkukulang ang DWP bilang isang diksiyonaryong nakatuon sa mga mag-aaral ng mababa at mataas na paaralan, i.e. may tahasang nakasaad na pedagohikal na punsiyon. Kakikitaan din ng ilang kontradiksiyon sa isinaad na metodolohiya at teoretikal na lapit ng DWP sa realisasyon nito sa aktuwal na mga katangian ng diksiyonaryo gaya ng ortograpiya, pagpili ng lemma, atbp.

Bagamat nakatuon sa estruktura, nakaangkla pa rin ang lahat ng obserbasyon, puna, at ebalwasyon sa mga kongkretong historikal na kondisyon at konteksto ng pagkakasulat at pagkakalimbag sa DWP: ang mga panimulang yugto sa kasaysayan ng pagsusulong ng Wikang Pambansa na ngayo’y tinatawag na Filipino.

Mga susing salita: Rosendo Ignacio, leksikograpiya, diksiyonaryong pedagohikal, Wikang Pambansa, polisiyang pangwika

This paper forwards some critical notes on Rosendo Ignacio’s Diksiyonaryo ng Wikang Pilipino (DWP) published in 1958 by Samar Publishing, Co. In analyzing its structural characteristics on multiple levels: mega-, macro-, micro-, cross-reference structure, etc. and also the stated purpose of the DWP, the study subscribes to established principles of contemporary lexicography and dictionary criticism. On this level of analysis, it is apparent that the DWP is lacking in certain respects as a dictionary intended for use at the primary and tertiary levels, i.e. a dictionary that has an explicitly-stated pedagogical function. Several contradictions are also identified in terms of methodology and the theoretical framework of the DWP vis-à-vis the realization of these in the actual characteristics of the dictionary such as its orthography, lemma selection, etc.

Although focused on structure, all observations, critiques, and evaluations are grounded on concrete historical conditions and the context in which the DWP was written and published: the initial phases in the history of the development of the National Language which we now call Filipino.

Keywords: Rosendo Ignacio, lexicography, pedagogical dictionaries, National Language, language policy