• Source: Proto-Philippine language

The Proto-Philippine language is a reconstructed ancestral proto-language of the Philippine languages, a proposed subgroup of the Austronesian languages which includes all languages within the Philippines (except for the Sama–Bajaw languages) as well as those within the northern portions of Sulawesi in Indonesia. Proto-Philippine is not directly attested to in any written work, but linguistic reconstruction by the comparative method has found regular similarities among languages that cannot be explained by coincidence or word-borrowing.




Classification



There have been three initial proposals in delineating the southern boundaries of the Philippine group: Northern Borneo in Malaysia, southern Philippines (encompassing southern Luzon all the way to Mindanao and the Sulu Sea area), and northern Sulawesi in Indonesia. The earliest boundary was proposed by Esser (1938) between the Gorontalo languages and the Tomini languages of Sulawesi. While it was later found decades after (Himmelmann, 1990) that there are shared innovations between Philippine and Tomini languages, there are still uncertainties as to whether the latter do validly form one genetic group, or should be relegated as a mere geographic unit. Meanwhile, Charles (1974) in particular proposed that languages in Sabah and of northern Sarawak are descendants of this Proto-Philippine, which has subsequently garnered counter-evidences (Blust, 1974; Reid, 1982; Zorc, 1986). Lastly, there have been several proposals establishing southern Philippines as the boundary (Thomas & Healey, 1962; Dyen, 1965; Zorc, 1977; 1986) with the "Macro Meso-Philippine" and "Sangiric" as two primary branches. Walton (1979) and McFarland (1980) included the Sama-Bajau group as the third branch, but such has been later disputed as entirely separate directly under Malayo-Polynesian.




Features


Due to issues in the validity of a Philippine genetic group, and thus the existence of an ancestral Proto-Philippine language, most of its features particularly its phonology remain as proposals.




= Phonology

=



Llamzon's reconstruction

Llamzon's (1975) proposed phonology of Proto-Philippine was derived from earlier reconstructions of Dempwolff's (1934-1938) works by Dyen (1947; 1951; 1953a; 1953b; 1953c). Used in this reconstruction were nine languages—Tagalog, Cebuano, Hiligaynon, Waray, Bikol (Central?), Ilokano, Ibanag, Ifugao, and Kankanaey—with the rationale that the aforementioned have "relatively better structural description and vocabularies" than other related and geographically contiguous languages at that time. While his analysis focused on attested Proto-Austronesian phonemes which were retained in this Proto-Philippine, features that were lost or merged were not highlighted.

Proto-phonemes *Z and *D were restricted to medial positions, and were not retained in any of the languages.
The proto-phonemes *j and *R are not preserved as such in any Philippine language: *j became either *g or *d (e.g. *púsəj became Ilocano púsəg, Tagalog púsod), whereas *R shifted to *r (e.g. in Ilokano), *l (e.g. in Pangasinan), *g (e.g. in Tagalog) or *y (e.g. in Kapampangan).

Proto-Philippine's schwa *ə often merged with other vowels (e.g. /u/ in Cebuano, Hiligaynon, Waray; /a/ in Ibanag, /i/ in Tagalog), but is retained in a diverse range of Philippine languages (e.g. Gaddang, Kinaray-a, Maranao, Maguindanao, Rinconada Bikol, Palawano), and in southern dialects of Ilokano.



Paz' reconstruction

Another notable proposal is by Paz (1981) who conducted a bottom-up approach by reconstructing using her own symbols.

Paz revisits two types of proto-Austronesian L as part of her reconstruction (l, l̥), which makes it distinct from other reconstructions.

In comparison to Llamzon, Paz presents five diphthongs instead.




Lexicon


Below is a table comparing core vocabulary from modern Philippine languages in relation to the follow Proto-Philippine innovations. Note that the accented vowels (e.g. á) under Proto-Philippine indicate the stress, while q represents glottal stop.

Below are selected animal and plant names in Proto-Philippine from the Austronesian Comparative Dictionary.




= Animal names

=




= Plant names

=




See also


Proto-Austronesian language
Proto-Malayo-Polynesian language
Proto-Oceanic language
Proto-Polynesian language
Philippine languages
Philippine Negrito languages
Austronesian languages




References






Further reading


Paz, Consuelo J. The Application of the Comparative Method to Philippine Languages
Liao, Hsiu-chuan. On the Development of Comitative Verbs in Philippine Languages Archived 2021-06-07 at the Wayback Machine, Language and Linguistics, 2011.




External links


Philippine etyma file cards by R. David Zorc

Kata Kunci Pencarian:

• Bahasa Proto-Filipina
• Bahasa Lampung
• Rumpun bahasa Bilik
• Bahasa Arta
• Bahasa Ati (Filipina)
• Rumpun bahasa Luzon Tengah
• Bahasa Cebu
• Rumpun suku bangsa Austronesia
• Rumpun bahasa Lampung
• Bahasa Tontemboan
• Proto-Philippine language
• Proto-Austronesian language
• Proto-Polynesian language
• Philippine languages
• List of proto-languages
• Proto-Malayo-Polynesian language
• Old Tagalog
• Proto-Oceanic language
• Northern Luzon languages
• Philippine language