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Bikol phrasebook
Overview
Bikol is the main local language of the Bicol Region in southeastern Luzon, Philippines. It is strongly influenced by Spanish.
Belonging to the Austronesian family of languages, it is closely related to all the other lan
Wikivoyage guide · 36 sections
▸Introduction685 chars
Bikol is the main local language of the Bicol Region in southeastern Luzon, Philippines. It is strongly influenced by Spanish.
Belonging to the Austronesian family of languages, it is closely related to all the other languages in the Philippines like the larger Ilocano, Tagalog and Cebuano and more distantly to the various languages of the Pacific islands.
Malay, the main language of Malaysia, is also closely related to Bikol, and while the two languages are not mutually intelligible, you will notice many cognates. There are also numerous false friends between Bikol and Malay, such as Malay pagi (morning) vs Bikol pagi (sting ray) and Bikol ayam (dog) vs Malay ayam (chicken).
▸Accent marks1,490 chars
Diacritics (tandang panduon) are normally not written in everyday usage, be it in publications or personal correspondence. The teaching of diacritics is inconsistent in Philippine schools and many Bicolanos do not know how to use them. However, diacritics are normally used in dictionaries and in textbooks aimed at teaching the language to foreigners.
There are three kinds of diacritics used in Bikol:
Acute accent or pahilíg
Used to indicate primary or secondary stress on a particular syllable; marháy. It is usually omitted on words that are stressed on the penultimate (second to the last) syllable; babáyi = babayi. It is possible that there is more than one stressed syllable in a word, meaning that that pahilíg mark may appear multiple times, as in Repúbliká. If there is no diacritic on the last two syllables of a word, then it means that there is stress on the penultimate syllable.
Grave accent or paiwà
It indicates that there is a glottal stop (/ʔ/) at the end of the word. This mark may only appear at the end of a word that ends in a vowel. This mark does not indicate stress. Therefore, following the previously stated rule on stress, sampulò is stressed on the second to the last syllable.
Facts
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Source
WBP almanac