CEBUANO LANGUAGE

The Cebuano language, also known as Sinugbuanon, is one of the major

languages in the Philippines. It is spoken by more than 20,000,000 people,2 not only
Cebu, but in Bohol, Negros Oriental, western parts of Leyte, some areas in Samar,
Negros Occidental, Palawan, Biliran islands, southern part of Masbate, and in the
regions of Mindanao as well. Though classified as dialect of the Bisayan or Visayan
Language (also called Binisaya) along with Hiligaynon and Waray languages, but it is
spoken nationwide and heard otherwhere. Cebuano belongs to the Western or
Indonesian subgroup of the Austronesian family of languages, formerly known as the
Malayo-Polynesian family of languages, one of the world’s largest language groups.
Its derivation is from Cebu or Sugbu. Sugbu means "to wade" through the waters in
the bayou or "suba." It is said that the early settlers in Cebu lived near the bayou and
were known as "Taga-Suba" or "Suban-on"; hence, the name Sugbuanon.

Cebuano refers primarily to the inhabitants of the Province of Cebu, their

descendants, and to the language they speak. The term Cebuano refers to both the
poeple and the language. No one argues with this definition. Secondarily, though there
are some who disagree with this, Cebuano applies to all speakers of vernaculars
mutually intelligible with the vernaculars of Cebu, regardless of origin or location of
the speakers, and their ancestry. (Endriga, 2010)

Another observation is that, for the people in the academe and non-Cebuano
speakers, the language is called Cebuano but for the native speakers the language, it is
called Binisaya. If the speakers want to speak the language, they would
say MagBinisaya lang ta or Binisay-on lang nato ‘Let’s speak/talk in Binisaya’.

During the pre-Hispanic colonization, the Cebuano language had only three
vowels, namely: a, i, and u. 3 With the adoption of some Spanish, English, and other
foreign words, it expanded to five to include e and o. 4 In current usance, there are
five (5) vowels: a, e, i, o, and u along with fifteen (15) consonants: b, k, d, g, h, l, m,
n, ng, p, r, s, t, w, and y.

Moreover, the Cebuano ‘r’ is originally a trill but there are people, as stated from
a study, who pronounce the ‘r’ as the English ‘r’ which is an approximant. This is
common among students who are exposed to English and their sound systems become
interchanged. However, this does not cause any change in meaning. It would only
sound different to one accustomed to hearing the ‘r’ as a trill, as it really is.

LEXICOLOGICAL

Residents of Cebu City, Mandaue and Mactan usually use contracted words,
like stanan for sangatanan ‘all’, gyud or dyud/jud for gayud ‘affirming and stressing
particle’, and kaba’w for kahibalo ‘to know’. They also use din-a, dip-a, dis-a, wan-a,
and wap-a for dili na ‘not anymore’, dili pa ‘not yet’, diin ‘where’, wala na‘none’,
and wala pa ‘not present yet’, respectively. These variants can be heard in the whole
of Cebu City, also in Carcar, Dalaguet, Toledo and Bato.
In Cebu City, the possessive pronoun can be used as a dative, as in para nako ‘for
me’, para nimo ‘for you, sg’, para niya ‘for him/her/it’, para nato ‘for us’, para
ninyo ‘for you, pl’, and para nila ‘for them’. The possessive is added with the bound
morpheme na or n– which is sa in Davao.
The main difference between the vernaculars of Cebu involves the segments [w] and
[l]. That of Cebu City is full of w‘s in place of l in words where the l is not dropped;
i.e ka?hiba?wo instead of ka?hiba?lo ‘to know’; u?wan instead of u?lan ‘rain’. As
described in the phonology part, it also drops the ‘l’ if it is intervocalic position and if
the vowels are alike; i.e ?wa?? instead of wa?la? ‘none’; ?ka?yo instead of ka?
layo ‘fire’.
On the other hand, Sialo or southeastern Cebuano is full of L’s: bu?lombong ‘wall’
instead of ?bungbong, ka?latkat ‘climb’ instead of ?katkat, la?lum ‘deep’ instead
of la?wom.
Above all, The Cebuano language may be the strongest language next to Tagalog,
with its number of speakers, many advocacy groups advancing its use and the usage
of the language by its speakers. However, this language is still faced with problems.

REFERENCES

Patrick O. Steinkrüger (2008). "Hispanisation processes in the Philippines". In

Thomas Stolz; Dik Bakker; Rosa Salas Palomo. Hispanisation: The Impact of Spanish
on the Lexicon and Grammar of the Indigenous Languages of Austronesia and the
Americas. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 203–236. ISBN 9783110207231

Endriga, Divine Angeli (2010). The Dialectology of Cebuano: Bohol, Cebu and
Davao. 1st Philippine Conference Workshop on Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual
Education held from February 18-20, 2010. Capitol University, Cagayan de Oro

Trosdal, Mimi B., Formal-Functional Grammar of the Cebuano Language, Salvador

and Pilar Sala Foundation, Inc., 1992.

5 Adopted by the Akademiyang Bisaya, Inc. per Resolution No. 02 dated September
27, 2010, based on "Gabay Sa Ortograpiyang Filipino," Komisyon sa Wikang
Filipino, Sangay ng Linggwistika, 2009.

Plong, P. 2006. About Cebuano. Retrieved February 20, 2009, from Southeast Asia
Digital Library. http://sea.lib.niu.edu/lang/cebuano.html
6 Approved by the Akademiyang Bisaya on January 7, 2011.

4 Wapedia, supra
Wapedia – Wiki: Cebuano Language.