Republic of the Philippines

Leyte Normal University

College of Arts and Sciences

LANGUAGES AND LITERATURE UNIT

Tacloban City

A Study of Phonological Variations in Eastern Samar and Tacloban:

An Exploratory Essay

Submitted by:

Jirahmae M. Diasanta

Submitted to:

Mr. Dean Carl Villacorte

Phonology and Morphology

December 9, 2019
 There are more than a hundred expression systems in the Philippine language group.

These languages belong to a larger family known as Austronesian which approximately has 500

members extending their geographical distribution from the Malagasy Republic in the west, to

Easter Island in the east, and from Formosa in the North to New Zealand in the south. One of the

languages found in the Philippines is Waray-Waray. This language is spoken by approximately

5.5% of the total population of the country. The native speakers are found in the islands of Samar

and Leyte.

Moreover, contained in this paper incorporate various information relating to the

phonological and distributional features of the segmental phonemes of the language, and two

variations will be discussed. However, the suprasegmental phonemes will not be found in this

paper as conclusions about the nature of language are tentative and controversial.

The basic vowel system of the Waray language consists of three phonemes: /i a u/. There

is evidence which points to the existence of /e o/ in this language. But further studies reveal that

the words containing these phonemes are for the most part Spanish loan words. The very few

other occurrences of /e o/ in the native language systems are in free variation or in alternation

with /i u/ respectively. With these as evidence, it is more than likely that Spanish loan words

introduced a split of the original protophonemes /*i *u/, and that this division is rather recent

since the number which show contrasts are statistically insignificant. Because of the special

conditions concerning the existence of /e o/ in the languages under this study, these phonemes

were therefore regarded as allophones of /i u/ respectively. Furthermore, the consonants that

occur in this language are: /p t kb d g h m n ~ s 1 r w y/. There is at least one stress phoneme and

one length phoneme in Waray-Waray, and stress is always accompanied by length and high

pitch, but length may occur independently of stress. There are three pitch levels and three
terminal contours which are also common to other languages. A characteristic intonation patterns

consists of two or more pitch levels and one terminal contour. The following intonation patterns

are common in this language and its variations: / (2) 3 2 ~/~ / (2) 3 2 +/, / (2) 3 2 -+/, and / (2) 3

3 +/ (Llamzon, 1965).

The two variations that will be referred in this study are Eastern Samar and the central

area of Leyte, Tacloban City. These variations were possible and is still alive in the culture of the

two places because of distance and origin of the people that lived in the areas. One distinct

example is the phoneme /ch/ in the Eastern Samar in the word ‘chada’, used in the sentence: It

chada man or in English as “It is there”. In Tacloban or in some parts of Leyte, the phoneme /ch/

in chada is transalated to “iton” or “iton man”. In addition, the first mentioned variation of

Waray-Waray omits phonemes in the Leytehanon word ‘gad’ (Ayaw gad) to ‘ga’ (Ayaw ga). In

the same case, omission of the phonemes in the word ‘hiton’ to ‘hit’ and ‘iton to ‘it’.

Albeit the differences and variations in the Waray-Waray language mostly on lexical and

vocabulary, these do not pose an impediment to speakers in understanding each other and

stopping the conversation. Eastern Samar dialects of the Waray language though are distinct in

their use of a schwa vowel while in some parts of Samar, specifically Northern Samar use ‘s’ in

certain grammar words like pronouns and case markers where most Waray dialects uses ‘h’ for

example ‘sira’ (they) is used in Northern speech varieties instead of the majority ‘hira’.

Learning the different variations of a mother tongue makes an impact in knowing the

origin of each culture. Despite the differences in expression, tone and speech, these factors will

not hinder in conveying the speakers in Waray-Waray language their own stories and sharing

experiences. In fact, they are more interested on how these particular variations have come to life

and imitate each other’s way of speaking.

REFERENCES:

Lande, N. (1971) A Comparative Phonology of the Eight Major Philippine Languages.

Retrieved from http//www.google. MALC_1971_1-7_Asuncion_Lande

Oyzon, V. (2005) Frequently Asked Questions: Waray-Waray. Retrieved from

http//www.angelfire.com

Zorc, P. (1975) Bisayan Dialects of the Philippines: Subgrouping and Reconstruction.

Retrieved from http//www.angelfire.com