Masbateño language


Masbateño or Minasbate is an Austronesian language spoken by more than 600,000 people, primarily in the province of Masbate in the Philippines. It is very close to Capiznon, Hiligaynon/Ilonggo and Waray-Waray, all three spoken in Visayas. It belongs to the Central branch of the Bisayan languages.

Sounds

Masbateño has sixteen consonants:. There are three vowels:,,, and. The vowels u and o are allophones, with u always being used when it is the beginning and sometimes end of a syllable, and o always used when it ends a syllable. The sounds /e/ and /o/ could be borrowed from Spanish. This is one of the Philippine languages which is excluded from - allophone.

Examples

Masbateño Basic Mathematical Operations

Masbateño is written using the Latin script. Currently, there is no officially-recognized orthography for the language so different writers may follow different writing conventions. With the implementation of the Department of Education's Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education starting school year 2012-2013, there emerged a need for orthographic guidelines for the various "mother tongues" to be used in the early years of education. For Masbateño, Rosero and Balbuena prepared the draft working orthography developed during the first orthography congress held from July 15–16, 2016. This working orthography, however, is not meant as a final guide and is open to revisions.
In the working orthography, the following are the basic alphabet used: Aa, Bb, Dd, Gg, Hh, Ii, Kk, Ll, Mm, Nn, NGng, Pp, Rr, Ss, Tt, Uu, Ww, and Yy. The letters Cc, Ff, Jj, Ññ, Qq, Vv, Xx, and Zz may be used in unassimilated loanwords and proper nouns.
Ee and Oo are considered to be variants of Ii and Uu and are used according to certain rules. Generally, "U" shall be used in representing /u/ except if there is only one /u/ in a word which occurs in the final position. If there is more than one /u/ sound, "o" shall used at the final position of a word. In assimilated loanwords, "O" is used etymologically. The rules on the usage of "E" and "I" follow a similar principle. In general, "I" shall be used to represent /i/ but borrowed words originally having an /e/ sound shall be spelled with an "E".
In representing the glides of /u/ and /w/, and /i/ and /y/, the vowels are dropped and w and y are used.
In addititon, the grave accent is used for the glottal stop and is also considered as part of the alphabet of the working orthography. This symbol may be used between a consonant and vowel, in the final position of words, between two vowels and at the onset of a syllable beginning with a vowel. In indicating stress, the acute accent is used above the vowel of a stressed syllable. Stress is indicated if it falls on the last syllabe but not when it falls on the penultimate syllable. It is possible that two stress accents be used in one word.
A hyphen is used in, among others, words with full reduplication, compound words, affixation of proper nouns, time expression, and expressions derived from Spanish using the "de" affix. The hyphen is not used in words with partial reduplication, affixation of native root words, affixation of borrowed verbs and nouns and in linkers.