Waray-Waray language

Waray-Waray
Winaray
Spoken in  Philippines
Region Eastern Visayas, some parts of Masbate
Native speakers 2.6 million  (2000 census)
5th most spoken native language in the Philippines[1]
Language family
Writing system Latin (Filipino alphabet);
Historically Baybayin
Official status
Official language in Regional language in the Philippines
Regulated by Commission on the Filipino Language
Historically regulated by the Sanghiran san Binisaya ha Samar ug Leyte
Language codes
ISO 639-2 war
ISO 639-3 war
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Wáray-Wáray (commonly spelled as Warai; also referred to as Winarai or Lineyte-Samarnon) or Samarnon is a language spoken in the provinces of Samar, Northern Samar, Eastern Samar, and in some parts of the Leyte and Biliran in the Philippines. The name comes from the word often heard by non-speakers, "waray" (meaning "none", "nothing" or "not"), in the same way that Cebuanos are known in Leyte as "mga Kana" (after the oft-heard word "kana", meaning "that", among people speaking the Cebuano language).

The Waray-Waray language spoken by the Waray people of Samar island and in most parts of Leyte and in some parts of Biliran island shows dialectal variations. Dialects are spoken in some parts of Masbate, particularly on the island of Ticao which is adjacent to Samar island.

Waray-Waray Sorsogon and Masbate Sorsogon are grouped into the Waray-Waray language. Waray-Waray Sorsogon and Masbate Sorsogon are called by the untrained as Bisakol because they are intermediate between the Visayan and Bicolano languages, however, all of these are just variants of the Waray-Waray language.

Contents

Grammar

Pronouns

  Absolutive Ergative Oblique
1st person singular ako, ak nakon, nak, ko akon, ak
2nd person singular ikaw, ka nimo, nin, mo imo, im
3rd person singular hiya niya iya
1st person plural inclusive kita, kit, kirita naton aton, at
1st person plural exclusive kami namon amon
2nd person plural kamo, kam niyo iyo
3rd person plural hira nira ira

The Waray copula

Waray-waray, like other Philippine languages, does not have any exact equivalent to the English linking verb be. In Tagalog, for example, the phrase "Siya ay maganda" (She is beautiful) contains the word ay which, contrary to popular belief, does not function as an attributive copula predicating maganda (beautiful) to its subject and topic Siya (he or she). The function of Tagalog's ay is rather a marker of sentence inversion, which is regarded as a literary form but somewhat less common in spoken Tagalog. The same phrase may be spoken as Maganda siya, which has the same meaning.

The Waray-waray language in comparison would express "She is beautiful" only as "Mahosay hiya" or sometimes "Mahosay iton hiya" (iton functioning as a definite article of hiya, she), since Waray doesn't have a present-tense copula or even an inversion marker. As in other Philippine languages, attributive statements are usually represented in predicate-initial form and have no copula at all. Take for example the ordinary English sentence "This is a dog" as translated to Waray:

Ayam ini.

The predicate Ayam (dog) is placed before the subject ini (this); no copula is present. Another example:

Amo ito an balay han Winaray o Binisaya nga Lineyte-Samarnon nga Wikipedia.
Asya it an balay han Winaray o Binisaya nga Lineyte-Samarnon nga Wikipedia.

In English: "This is the Waray/Leyte-Samar Visayan Wikipedia". The predicate Amo ini is roughly translated as "This here" but the rest of the sentence then jumps to its subject, marked by the particle an. It is grammatically impossible to invert a sentence like this into a subject-head form without importing the actual Tagalog inversion marker ay, a growing trend among younger people in Leyte. The word amo is used only in Leyte Waray-Waray. In Samar, asya (this) is used.

Despite the debate regarding the Waray copula, it would be safe to treat structures like magin (to be), an magin/an magigin (will be or will become), and an nagin (became) as the English treat linking verbs:

Makuri magin estudyante. ([It's] hard to be a student.)
Ako it magigin presidente! (I shall be the president!)
Ako an nagin presidente. (I became the president.)

Existential

WARAY TAGALOG ENGLISH
may-ada meron/mayroon there is
wara/waray wala none

Modal

Waray Tagalog English
puyde/sadangyo maaari/pwede may/can
diri puyde hindi maaari/pwede may not / cannot
Pahudma Pahiram/hiram May I borrow?
Pakita-a Patingin May I see?

Interrogative Words

Waray Tagalog English
hin-o sino who
kay-ano bakit why
diin saan where
kanay kanino whose
pa-o-nanho paano how
san-o kailan when
nano ano what
WARAY TAGALOG ENGLISH
hin-o sino who
kay-nano bakit why
diin saan where
kankanay kanino whose
guin-aano/na-ano paano how
san-o kailan when
nano ano what

Orthography issues

While the now-defunct Sanghiran San Binisaya ha Samar ug Leyte (Academy of the Visayan Language of Samar and Leyte) formulated and recommended a standard orthography, this was never widely disseminated and therefore as of present there is still no commonly accepted official orthography. In effect, there may exist two spellings of the same word (usually limited to differences in vowels only), such as

Usage

Waray-Waray is one of the ten officially recognized regional languages in the Philippines and used in local government. It is spoken throughout its islands, especially in the Eastern Visayas region. But it is also spoken in some parts of Mindanao, Masbate, Sorsogon and Metro Manila where Warays have migrated. There is also a small number of Filipinos abroad, especially in the United States, who speak this language. Waray-Waray is widely used in media, especially in radio and television. One good example of this is the regional version of the Philippine news program TV Patrol for Eastern Visayas, TV Patrol Tacloban, which broadcasts in Waray-Waray. There is also a regional cable channel that broadcasts its programs in Waray-Waray, the An Aton Channel operated by DYVL. However print media in this language are rare because most regional newspapers are published in English. The language is also used in the eucharistic celebrations or Holy Masses in the Roman Catholic Church in the region. Bibles published in Waray-Waray are also available. Waray-Waray songs are widely appreciated and can be heard in the radio. In 1993, the LDS Church or Mormonism published a selected Waray-Waray edition of the Book of Mormon entitled "An Libro ni Mormon". Today, many Waray aficionados advocate wider use of this language.

Sounds

The Waray language has sixteen consonants: /p, t, k, b, d, ɡ, m, n, ŋ, s, h, w, l, ɾ, j/. There are three main vowels: a [a], i [ɛ ~ i], and u [o ~ ʊ]. [i ~ ɛ] and [ʊ ~ o] sound the same, but [o] is still an allophone of [ʊ] in final syllables. But they now have separate sounds for each. Consonants /d/ and /ɾ/ were once allophones but cannot interchange, like palaron (to be lucky) [from palad, palm (one's luck is seen on his palm in fortune-telling) but not paladon and tagadiín (from where) [from diín, where] but not tagariín.

Numbers

Native numbers are used for numbers one through ten. From eleven onwards, Spanish numbers are exclusively used in Waray-Waray today, their native counterparts being obsolete for the majority of native speakers (except for gatus for hundred and yukot for thousand). Some, especially among the elderly, are spoken alongside the Spanish counterparts.

English Native Waray-Waray Borrowed from Spanish
One Usa Uno
Two Duha Dos
Three Tuló Tres
Four Upat Cuatro
Five Limá Cinco
Six Unom Saiz
Seven Pitó Siete
Eight Waló Ocho
Nine Siyám Nueve
Ten Napúlô Diez
Eleven (Napúlô kag usá) Onse
Twelve (Napúlô kag duhá) Duce
Thirteen (Napúlô kag tulo) Trece
Fourteen (Napúlô kag upat) Katorse
Fifteen (Napúlô kag lima) Kinse
Sixteen (Napúlô kag unom) Diez y Saiz
Seventeen (Napúlô kag pito) Diez y Siete
Eighteen (Napúlô kag walo) Diez y Ocho
Nineteen (Napúlô kag siyam) Diez y Nueve
Twenty (Karuhaan) Biente
Thirty (Katloan) Trenta
Forty (Kap-atan) Kwuarenta
Fifty (Kalim-an) Singkwenta
Sixty (Kaunman) Siesenta
Seventy (Kapitoan) Setenta
Eighty (Kawaloan) Ochienta
Ninety (Kasiaman) Nobenta
One Hundred Usa ka Gatus Cien
One Thousand Usa ka Yukut Mil
One Million Usa ka Ribo Milyon

Some common words and phrases

Below are examples of the Waray spoken in Metropolitan Tacloban and the nearby areas:

Other common words

Technical terms

Astronomical terms

Natural terms

Parts of the house

Members of the family

Fashion words

Food

Animals

Waray-Waray loanwords

Common Waray-Waray words and its foreign and local origin

Spanish
Portuguese
Nahuatl
Chinese
English
Cebuano
Persian

See also

References

  1. ^ Philippine Census, 2000. Table 11. Household Population by Ethnicity, Sex and Region: 2000

Further reading

External links

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