Hiligaynon, also often referred to as Ilonggo or Binisayâ/Bisayâ nga Hiniligaynon/Inilonggo, is an Austronesian regional language spoken in the Philippines by about 9.1 million people, predominantly in Panay Island, Negros Occidental, and Soccsksargen, most of whom belong to the Hiligaynon people. It is the second-most widely spoken language in the Visayas and belongs to the Bisayan languages. It is more distantly related to other Philippine languages.
It also has one of the largest native language-speaking populations of the Philippines, despite it not being taught and studied formally in schools and universities until 2012. Hiligaynon is given the ISO 639-2 three-letter code hil, but has no ISO 639-1 two-letter code.
Hiligaynon is mainly concentrated in the regions of Western Visayas (Iloilo, Capiz, and Guimaras), Negros Island Region (Negros Occidental), and Soccsksargen (South Cotabato including General Santos, Sultan Kudarat, and Cotabato). It is spoken in other neighboring provinces, such as Antique and Aklan in Western Visayas, Negros Oriental in Negros Island Region, Masbate in Bicol Region, and southern parts of Mindoro, Romblon and Palawan in Mimaropa.
It is spoken as a second language by Kinaray-a speakers in Antique, Aklanon/Malaynon speakers in Aklan, Capiznon speakers in Capiz, Cebuano speakers in Negros Oriental, and spoken and understood by native speakers of Maguindanaon, Cebuano, Ilocano, Blaan, Tboli and other settler and indigenous languages in Soccsksargen in Mindanao. There are approximately 9,300,000 people in and out of the Philippines who are native speakers of Hiligaynon and an additional 5,000,000 capable of speaking it with a substantial degree of proficiency.Philippine Census, 2000. Table 11. Household Population by Ethnicity, Sex and Region: 2000
Despite being a somewhat large language in the Philippines, it is sometimes considered a "rare' language online. This is mostly because of a lack of a well-documented way to learn it.
Nomenclature
Aside from Hiligaynon, the language is also referred to as Ilonggo, also spelled Ilongo, as it originated in Iloilo. Many speakers outside Iloilo argue, that this is an incorrect usage of the word Ilonggo. In precise usage, these people opine that Ilonggo should be used only in relation to the ethnolinguistic group of native inhabitants of Iloilo and the culture associated with native Hiligaynon speakers in that place, including their language. The disagreement over the usage of Ilonggo to refer to the language extends to Philippine language specialists and native laypeople.
History
Historical evidence from observations of early Spanish explorers in the Archipelago shows that the nomenclature used to refer to this language had its origin among the people of the coasts or people of the Ilawod ("") in Iloilo, Panay, whom Spanish explorer Miguel de Loarca called YligueynesCf. BLAIR, Emma Helen & ROBERTSON, James Alexander, eds. (1903). The Philippine Islands, 1493–1803. Volume 05 of 55 (1582–1583). Historical introduction and additional notes by Edward Gaylord BOURNE. Cleveland, Ohio: Arthur H. Clark Company. . OCLC 769945704. "Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the beginning of the nineteenth century.", pp. 120–121. (or the more popular term Hiligaynon, also referred to by the Karay-a people as Siná).
The term Hiligaynon comes from the root word ('to go downstream'), referring to a flowing river in Iloilo. In contrast, the Kinaray-a has been used by what the Spanish colonizers called Arayas, which may be a Spanish misconception of the Hiligaynon words or , or the current and more popular version Karay-a ('highlanders' – people of Iraya/highlands).Cf. Miguel de Loarca, Relacion de las Yslas Filipinas (Arevalo, June 1582) in BLAIR, Emma Helen & ROBERTSON, James Alexander, eds. (1903). The Philippine Islands, 1493–1803. Volume 05 of 55 (1582–1583). Historical introduction and additional notes by Edward Gaylord BOURNE. Cleveland, Ohio: Arthur H. Clark Company. . OCLC 769945704. "Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the beginning of the nineteenth century.", pp. 128 and 130.
Dialects Similar to many languages in the Philippines, very little research on dialectology has been done on Hiligaynon. Standard Hiligaynon is the dialect that is used in the province of Iloilo, primarily in the northern and eastern portions of the province. It has a more traditional and extensive vocabulary, whereas the Urban Hiligaynon dialect spoken in Metro Iloilo has a more simplified or modern vocabulary.
For example, the term for 'to wander', 'to walk', or 'to stroll' in Urban Hiligaynon is , which is also widely used by most of the Hiligaynon speakers. In contrast, Standard Hiligaynon more commonly uses , a term that is rarely or never used by other dialects of the language anymore. Another example, , ('this is it') in Standard Hiligaynon can be simplified in Urban Hiligaynon and become .
Some of the other widely recognized dialects of the language, aside from Standard Hiligaynon and Urban Hiligaynon, are Bacolodnon Hiligaynon (Metro Bacolod dialect), Negrense Hiligaynon (provincial Negros Occidental dialect that is composed of three sub-variants: Northern, Central and Southern Negrense Hiligaynon), Guimaras Hiligaynon, and Mindanao Hiligaynon (which incorporated some Cebuano and other languages due to the mass influx of migrants from Cebu, Bohol, Siquijor and Cebuano-speaking parts of Mindanao reside in the Soccsksargen area).
Some native speakers also consider Kinaray-a (also known as Hiniraya or Antiqueño) and Capiznon dialects of Hiligaynon. However, linguists have classified Kinaray-a as a Western Bisayan language, while Capiznon is a Central Bisayan language closely related to Hiligaynon.
Phonology
Consonants
+Main consonant phonemesLabialDental/AlveolarPalatalVelarGlottalNasalStopFricative FlapApproximant Consonants and were once allophones but cannot interchange as in other Philippine languages: ('to forgive') [from , 'forgiveness'] but not , and ('from where') [from , 'where'] but not .
Vowels
There are four main vowels: , , , and . and (both spelled i) are allophones, with in the beginning and middle and sometimes final syllables and in final syllables. The vowels and are also allophones, with always being used when it is the beginning of a syllable, and always used when it ends a syllable.
Writing system Hiligaynon is written using the Latin script. Until the second half of the 20th century, Hiligaynon was widely written largely following Spanish orthographic conventions. Nowadays there exists an officially recognized standard orthography for the language, which was standardized in 2022 and is based on the current orthographic rules of Filipino.
A noticeable feature of the formerly used Spanish-influenced orthography absent in those writing following Filipino's orthography is the use of "c" and "qu" in representing (now replaced with "k" in all instances) and the absence of the letter "w" ("u" was formerly used in certain instances).
The core alphabet consists of 20 letters used for expressing consonants and vowels in Hiligaynon, each of which comes in an uppercase and lowercase variety.
Alphabet +The 1st to 10th lettersSymbolA aB bD dE eG gH hI iK kL lM mAbakada nameabadaegahaikalamaModern nameeybidiidyieytsaykeyelemPronunciationin contextaaw/aoaybdeghiiw/ioklm
+The 11th to 20th lettersSymbolN nNg ngO oP pR rS sT tU uW wY yAbakada namenangaoparasatauwayaModern nameenendyiopiarestiyudobolyuwayPronunciationin contextnngooyprssytuuawy
Formerly, the letter K was sorted between B and D, as in the Abakada alphabet.
Additional letters for foreign words are shown in the official orthography in a separate table: +The foreign lettersSymbolC cF fJ jÑ ñQ qV vX xZ zNamesiefdyeyenyekyuviekszi
Additional symbols The apostrophe and hyphen also appear in Hiligaynon writing, and might be considered separate letters.
The hyphen, in particular, is used medially to indicate the glottal stop 'when' 'evening; night'. It is also used in reduplicated words: 'daily, every day', from 'day, sun'. This marking is not used in reduplicated words whose base is not also used independently, as in 'bird'.
Hyphens are also used in words with successive sounds of and , to separate the letters with the digraph NG. Like in the word 'was given'; without the hyphen, it would be read as as opposed to .
The diacritical marks are also sometimes used, in the same way as in the Filipino orthography.
Grammar
Determiners Hiligaynon has three types of case markers: absolutive, ergative, and oblique. These types in turn are divided into personal, that have to do with names of people, and impersonal, that deal with everything else, and further into singular and plural types, though the plural impersonal case markers are just the singular impersonal case markers + (a contracted spelling for ), a particle used to denote plurality in Hiligaynon.
AbsolutiveErgativeObliquesingular impersonal, *plural impersonal, *singular personalplural personal**
(*)The articles and means the following noun is indefinite, while tells of a definite noun, like the use of a in English as opposed to the; however, it is not as common in modern speech, being replaced by . It appears in conservative translations of the Bible into Hiligaynon and in traditional or formal speech. (**)The plural personal case markers are not used very often and not even by all speakers. Again, this is an example of a case marker that has fallen largely into disuse, but is still occasionally used when speaking a more traditional form of Hiligaynon, using fewer Spanish loan words.
The case markers do not determine which noun is the subject and which is the object; rather, the affix of the verb determines this, though the -marked noun is always the topic.
Example ≈ 'The man ate the bread' 'The bread was eaten by the man' (literal)
Personal pronouns AbsolutiveErgative₁(Postposed)Ergative₂(Preposed)Oblique1st person singular, , 2nd person singular, , 3rd person singular1st person plural inclusive, 1st person plural exclusive2nd person plural3rd person plural
Demonstrative pronouns AbsolutiveErgative/ObliqueLocativeExistentialNearest to speaker ('this, here')Near to addressee or closely removed from speaker and addressee ('that, there')Remote ('yon, yonder')
In addition to this, there are two verbal deictics, , meaning 'to come to the speaker', and , meaning 'to go yonder'.
Copula Hiligaynon lacks the marker of sentence inversion of Tagalog/Filipino or of Akeanon. Instead sentences in SV form (Filipino: ) are written without any marker or copula.
Examples:
(Tagalog)
/ (Hiligaynon) = 'Leni is beautiful.'
'Leni is beautiful' (English)
There is no direct translation for the English copula to be in Hiligaynon. However, the prefixes and may be used to mean will be and became, respectively.
Example: 'It is nice to become rich.'
The Spanish copula ('to be') has also become a part of the Hiligaynon lexicon. Its meaning and pronunciation have changed compared to its Spanish meaning, however. In Hiligaynon it is pronounced as and means 'to live (in)/location' (Compare with the Hiligaynon word ).
Example: 'I live in tabuk suba'. translates to 'other side of the river' and is also a barangay in Jaro, Iloilo.
Existential To indicate the existence of an object, the word is used.
Example:
Hiligaynon linkers