Learn about differences in Filipino throughout the Philippines
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Betsey: Kamusta! Hello everyone! I’m Betsey. |
| Becky: And I’m Becky! Welcome back to FilipinoPod101.com. This is Pronunciation series, lesson 4 - Filipino Regional Accents. |
Lesson focus |
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| Betsey: In this lesson we will talk about different accents within the Philippines. |
| Becky: As we’ve mentioned before, the Philippines has somewhere between 120 and 200 dialects |
| Betsey: Yeah, it’s a lot! |
| Becky: But don’t worry listeners. Among these, only two of them are used by a lot of people. So in this lesson we’re going to cover these two. |
| Betsey: They are Ilokano and Cebuano. We’re going to compare them to the standard Filipino pronunciations. |
| Becky: Ok! First, let’s see what Ilokano is like. |
| Betsey: Ilokano is language spoken among people from the Northern part of Luzon island, which is the largest island in the Philippines. The Ilocano ethnic group is originally from an area in the northern part of Luzon, called Ilocos Norte. As time passed, the people moved to different parts of the country, as well as to other countries like the United States. |
| Becky: So what are the main differences of the dialect compared to the standard Filipino? |
| Betsey: Well first, Ilokano can be divided into two systems, the Tagalog system and the Spanish system. In the Ilokano dialect, you may see some words pronounced using the Spanish system which follows Spanish spellings. So the character g and j are pronounced as “H” as they would be in Spanish. And they also use the consonants “Q” and “C” in writing, unlike the standard Filipino system. |
| Becky: I see. But these days, more people are using the Tagalog system, right? |
| Betsey: That’s right. Another significant difference between Ilokano and Tagalog, is its diphthongs. The dipthongs that are spelled Aw, Iw, Ay, Ey, and Oy are often pronounced Au, Iu, Ai, Ei, and Oi in Ilokano. |
| Becky: I see. Okay, now let’s move to the Cebuano language. |
| Betsey: This is another one of the most spoken dialects in the country. Cebuano is also called Bisaya or Visayan. People use this dialect mostly around the Visayan islands and in some parts of Mindanao. This dialect also uses a little bit of the Spanish system which pronounces j and g as ‘h’ sounds, and also ‘i’ as ‘y’ sounds. |
| Becky: Ok and what about vowels? |
| Betsey: Vowels in Cebuano are the same as in Filipino, but they tend to read vowels longer than the standard Filipino. For example, they read ‘A’ as ‘Ahh..’ and ‘E’ as ‘Ehh..’ |
| Becky: Can you give us some examples? |
| Betsey: Sure. In Standard Filipino, the word meaning “black” is itim. But in the Cebuano dialect, it is pronounced as “EE-TOOM” |
| Becky: What are some more examples? |
| Betsey: Well, “Car” is Kotse in Filipino. And in the dialect, it’s pronounced “Koht-seh”. |
| Becky: It’s interesting. And what about the grammar of this dialect? Is it very different? |
| Betsey: Yes, it is. Even for people who speak Tagalog, it is hard to understand speakers of Cebuano sometimes! |
Outro |
| Becky: Okay, that’s it for this lesson. |
| Betsey: Thanks for listening, everyone. Paalam! |
| Becky: See you next time, bye! |
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