WIKAKUL Lec 2

“Subgrouping and number of the Philippine languages or

How many Philippine languages are there? “

(1994. Curtis D. McFarland)

1. The Austronesian Family of Languages

Indigenous Philippine languages Melanesia

Indonesia Micronesia
Malaysia Some languages of Taiwan
Polynesia Indochina, Malagasy

Related languages  out of a single language, they have developed a single

speech variety

sharing common ancestor

Languages which share a more recent ancestor - - e.g., same ‘mother’ - - are more closely
related to each other and in general more similar to each other, than they are to languages
which share a more distant ancestor - - e.g., languages which have the same ‘grandmother’ but
different ‘mothers’.

Northern Philippine Languages = more related/similar than southern, central

Languages

Groups and subgroups

2. Methods for tracing the prehistory of the Philippine Languages

Measuring difference or similarity of languages

 Lexicostatistics
 Comparative method

LEXICOSTATISTICS - - replacement of words in the basic vocab of a language occurs at a

relatively constant rate, and that therefore ‘daughters’ of a given language will share a higher
percentage of words in their basic vocabularies with each other, than they will with languages
which descend from the same ‘grandmother’ but a different ‘mother’ …..

COMPARATIVE METHOD - - involves comparison of shared innovations; based on assumption

that the likelihood of any given innovation is very small; and that therefore the likelihood that
the same innovation would occur independently in two different languages is almost zero.
3. Subgrouping of PHL Languages

LANGUAGE defined as codes which are NOT mutually intelligible or understandable.

Based on lexicostatiscal studies (Dyen 1965, Walton 1979, et al )

THE SEA UNITES AND MOUNTAINS DIVIDE.

*** much greater linguistic diversification in mountainous inland areas ****

Linguistic grouping **

Languages’ social identification may diverge from linguistic subgrouping - - - - people of

Sorsogon belong to Bicol socio-economic community, but their languages belong to Central
Visayan subgroup

Level of development**

Divisions get reversed; development of a number of L-complexes (Language – complexes)

or complex languages, which means languages contiguous to each other are mutually
intelligible.

Some points on subgrouping of PHL languages

a. All PHL languages except Chavacano and imported languages are Austronesian
languages and Hesperonesian (Western Austronesian) languages.

b. Not clear whether PHL languages constitute a subgroup or not. Some of southern
languages are more closely related to some Indonesian languages, etc.

c. There are 3 large groups of PHL language - - Northern, Meso-PHL, Southern.

d. Meso-PHL and Southern PHL groups probably combine into a single group.

e. The Ivatan languages, South Mindanao languages, Sama languages and Sangil do not
belong to any of these 3 large groups of the PHL languages.

WIKAKUL Lec 2 PH Languages McFarland