Botolan language

Botolan
Botolan
Botolan Sambal
Native to	Philippines
Region	some parts of Zambales province, Luzon
Native speakers	(33,000 cited 2000)
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Philippine Central Luzon Sambalic Botolan; ; ; ; ;
Official status
Regulated by	Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino
Language codes
ISO 639-3	sbl
Glottolog	boto1242
	Area where Botolan Sambal is spoken according to Ethnologue
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Botolan is a Sambalic language spoken by 32,867 (SIL 2000) Sambal, primarily in the Zambal municipalities of Botolan and Cabangan in the Philippines. Language status is 5 (developing).^[2]

Varieties

The Ayta people of sitio Villar, Botolan, and sitio Kakilingan, Santa Fe, Cabangan also speak a Botolan dialect with some unique lexical items.^[3]

Ethnologue reports Ayta Hambali (Hambali Botolan), Sambali Botolan as dialects of Sambal Botolan. Among themselves, Ayta Hambali reportedly use some words that are similar to Ayta, Mag-Anchi.^[2]

Phonology

Botolan has 20 phonemes: 16 consonants and four vowels. Syllable structure is relatively simple. Each syllable contains at least a consonant and a vowel.^{[citation needed]}

Vowels

Botolan has four vowels. They are:

/a/ an open central unrounded vowel similar to English father
/e/ a close-mid front unrounded vowel similar to German Elefant
/i/ a close front unrounded vowel similar to English machine
/u/ (written as ‘o’) a close back unrounded vowel similar to English flute

There are five main diphthongs: /aɪ/, /uɪ/, /aʊ/, /ij/, and /iʊ/.

Consonants

Below is a chart of Botolan consonants. All the stops are unaspirated. The velar nasal occurs in all positions including at the beginning of a word.

		Bilabial	Dental	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasals		m	n	ɲ ⟨ny⟩	ŋ ⟨ng⟩
Plosives/ Affricates	voiceless	p	t	tʃ ⟨ts, ty⟩	k	ʔ -
Plosives/ Affricates	voiced	b	d	dʒ ⟨dy⟩	g
Fricatives			s	ʃ ⟨sy⟩		h
Laterals			l	lj ⟨ly⟩
Flaps			r
Semivowels		w		j

Note: Consonants /d/ and /ɾ/ can sometimes interchange as they were once allophones.

Stress

Stress is phonemic in Botolan. Word stress is very important; it differentiates homonyms, e.g. hikó ('I') and híko ('elbow').

Historical sound changes

Many words pronounced with /s/ and /ɡ/ in Tagalog have /h/ and /j/, respectively, in their cognates in Botolan. Compare hiko and bayo with the Tagalog siko and bago.

Sample texts

The Lord's Prayer

Version from Matthew

Tatay nawen ya anti ha katatag-ayan,
Hay ngalan mo ay igalang dayi nin kaganawan.
Andawaten nawen ya tampol kayna dayin mag-arí.
Mangyari dayi ya kalabayan mo bayri ha babon lotá
Bilang ombayro ha katatag-ayan.
Hapa-eg ay biyan mo kayin pamamangan ya
angka-ilanganen nawen.
Patawaren mo kayi ha kawkasalanan
nawen bilang pamatawad nawen ha nakapagkasalanan konnawen.
Agmo kayi biyan ma-irap ya pagsobok boy
ipakarayó mo kayi koni Satanas.^[4]

Philippine national proverb

Below is a translation in Botolan of the Philippine national proverb^[5] "He who does not acknowledge his beginnings will not reach his destination," followed by the original in Tagalog.

Botolan: Hay ahe tanda nin nanlek ha pinangibatan, ay ahe makalateng ha lalakwen.
Tagalog: Ang hindi marunong lumingon sa pinanggalingan ay hindi makararating sa paroroonan.

References

^ Botolan at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
^ ^a ^b "Ethnologue".(subscription required)
^ Himes, Ronald S. (2012). "The Central Luzon Group of Languages". Oceanic Linguistics. 51 (2): 490–537. doi:10.1353/ol.2012.0013. JSTOR 23321866.
^ "Botolan Sambal". Archived from the original on 2007-09-29. Retrieved 2007-09-22.
^ "National Philippine Proverb in Various Philippine Languages". Carl Rubino's homepage.