Eskayan

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This article is about the language. For the people, see Eskaya.

Eskayan or Visayan Eskayan is the language spoken by the cultural minority Eskaya in Bohol, Philippines. It is unrelated to the Boholano and Cebuano dialects. This minority Eskayan language is still taught in community schools in Biabas, Guindulman, Taytay Duero and Lundag Pilar but there are no more mother-tongue speakers.

Contents 1 Writing system 2 Number system 3 Calendar system 4 References

[edit] Writing system

The Eskaya script is unrelated to the Tagalog, Hanunoo, Buhid, and Tagbanwa scripts. This script is still being used today by the Eskayas of the Bohol island in the Philippines.^[1]

The script the Eskayas use is a syllabary, having 46 symbols representing sound syllables rather than letters of an alphabet. The symbols are based on parts of the human anatomy. This is similar to the Manipuri script and that of the Phoenicians.

The Eskaya writing system was devised by one man named Pinay. It is reported to be composed of close to a thousand characters. Some of the characters represent sounds that do not exist in Philippine languages nor in most Austronesian languages. Some symbols are consonant clusters that are not natural sounds in any language spoken in the region.^[1]

The basic structure of the script is that of a syllabary. Like Indic scripts, the basic value of certain symbols are modified by ligatures. There are characters for V, CV, CVC, CCV, CCVC, VC, VCC, CVCC, CCVCC, and dipthongs.^[2] This large variety of composite characters is the reason why there are close to a thousand characters in the Eskaya script. For example, the script has different character representations for ba, bi, and be. Also, the language is reported to have the characteristics of logograms, with some symbols doubling as representations for words and ideas while at the same time representing sounds. This is similar to the Chinese, Egyptian and Mayan writing systems.

The script and some documents in this language had been preserved by Mariano Datahan from a Spanish edict that all writing in the language should be burned. They were passed on to Fabian Baha, the present leader of the tribe (as of 1991) in 1947. Today, the Eskaya continue to teach the children their script and traditions. In fact, scholars and linguists are also studying the Eskaya language and script in hopes of obtaining clues as to the ancestor of the modern Visayan languages.

[edit] Number system

There is nothing extraordinary about the Eskaya number system. It is the same decimal system that we use. What is unusual is that they have symbols for the numbers, something missing from the classic Philippine scripts. They have a symbol but not a name for zero (0) and use a positional system for notation.^[2]

Their names for the numbers (0=no name, 1=oy, 2=tre, 3=koy, 4=pan, 5=sing, 6=nom, 7=pin, 8=wal, 9=sem and 10=pon), except for wal and pon, are not close to the names used in other Philippine languages. They have unique names corresponding to twenty (kaw), thirty (krat), hundred (ten), and thousand (man). Their names for the other numbers are formed from a combination of these unique names so that eleven is pon oy (ten=pon plus one=oy) and twenty-two is kaw tre (twenty=kaw plus two=tre).^[2]

[edit] Calendar system

Whereas the names for the numbers are very different in Eskaya from other languages, their names for the days of the week and the months are not very different from Spanish names.^[2]

[edit] References

• Santos, Hector. "The Eskaya Script" in A Philippine Leaf. US, January 25, 1997.
• Santos, Hector. "Butuan Silver Strip Deciphered?" in A Philippine Leaf. US, October 28, 1996