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 Indonesia Malaysia Polynesia Melanesia Micronesia Some languages of Taiwan 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., languages which 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

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 same grandmother 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

Level of development** Divisions get reversed; development of a number of L-complexes (Language complexes) 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 are Austronesian languages and Hesperonesian (Western Austronesian) languages.

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