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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., languageswhich 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

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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 samegrandmother 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

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Level of development**

Divisions get reversed; development of a number ofL-complexes (Languagecomplexes) 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 areAustronesian languages and Hesperonesian (Western Austronesian)

languages.

b. Not clear whether PHL languages constitute a subgroup or not. Some ofsouthern 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 andSangil do not belong to any of these 3 large groups of the PHL languages.

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