57

CONCLUSION

This paper is like that sunglass vendor outside the bus looking in. Each

song tries to highlight each of the languages’ distinctive characteristics

albeit some equivalent terms and inflected forms.

Competing forms are characteristics among the languages as reflected

in their different versions of the song. Present geography identifies Surigao

del Norte and Surigao del Sur as two separate entities with different political

districts and municipalities. However, the languages of both these Surigao

provinces have shared a lot in common despite the spelling and some

phonological differences. These two languages in the Surigao provinces are

actually aberrant forms of the Cebuano Visayan language—making

Surigaonon and Bisliganon Kamayo linguistic varieties of the language.

Typical among the Surigaonon languages and Bisliganon Kamayo, are

the phonological alterations of intervocalic sounds particularly that of the

phoneme /l/. The morphophonemic alterations between the different versions

of the songs reflect the same kind of changes unique to the Cebuano Visayan

language. This phenomenon is then referred to as intelligibility of two

languages where one speaker can understand that of the other speaker and

vice versa. H.J Ottenheimer identifies this as the mutual intelligibility of

dialects of linguistic variants of a language. Hence, if this is so, Surigaonon

(naturalis and even Cantilangnon) and Bisliganon Kamayo are in themselves

variants of the Cebuano Visayan language since speakers from the

58

languages can understand each other without really having to speak the kind

of language each speaker is acquainted with. Lewis has classified Kamayo

language as intelligible with that of Surigaonon; while the latter is intelligible

to the Cebuano language.

The term “waya waya” is a misnomer which actually reflects the kind

of phonological characteristics inherent to the Surigaonon language in much

the same way as “jaon-jaon”; Bisliganon Kamayo conforms to some rules of

the Surigaonon language particularly that with the phonological processes.

Both languages’ morphological constructions differ with the use of some

inflectional affixes and grammatical markers. Using competing forms and

equivalent terms set some similarities and differences in the semantics of

the Surigaonon languages and Bisliganon Kamayo. Yet, with the use of songs

as equalizers, the differences in the meanings of some equivalent terms are

still set about to establish intelligibility between the Surigaonon and

Bisliganon Kamayo languages.

REFERENCES

59

_______. Language and Dialect [PowerPoint Slides]. Retrieved on April 6,2010 from www.uvm.edu/~jadickin/week6slides.ppt

Dumanig, F. and R. Jubilado (2005). A Descriptive Analysis of Surigaonon Language: Abstract. Retrieved on March 31, 2010 from http://lingweb.eva.mpg.de/jakarta/seals/Dumanig_SEALS_XVI_Abstract.pdf

Kamayo Language. (n.d.) In Wikipedia Retrieved on March 31, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamayo_language

Lewis, M. Paul (ed.), (2009). Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Sixteenth edition. Dallas, Tex.: SIL International. Retrieved on April 23, 2010 from Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com/.

Mendoza, R.C. (____). Phonological Processes [PowerPoint Slides].

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Surigao del Norte. (n.d.) In Wikipedia Retrieved on March 31, 2010 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surigao_del_Norte

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Wolff, J.U. (1982). Introduction: Cebuano Visayan Dictionary. Cornell University: Southeast Asia Program and Linguistic Society of the Philippines.