Masbateño language

Masbateño Spoken in: Philippines Region: Eastern VisayasTotal speakers: 600,000 Language family: Austronesian
Malayo-Polynesian
  Western
   Central Philippine
    Visayan
     Central Visayan
      Peripheral
       Masbateño Language codes ISO 639-1: none ISO 639-2: phi ISO 639-3: msbNote: This page may contain IPAphonetic symbols in Unicode.

Masbateño is a Visayan language spoken by more than 600,000 people, primarily in the province of Masbate in the Philippines. It is close to Capiznon and Hiligaynon (Ilonggo), both spoken on Panay. It can be considered a Bisakol language, meaning a language intermediate between Visayan languages and Bicolano languages.

Sounds

Masbateño has sixteen consonants: p, t, k, b, d, g, m, n, ng, s, h, w, l, r and y. There are three vowels: i, a, and u/o. The vowels u and o are allophones, with u always being used when it is the beginning and sometimes end of a syllable, and o always used when it ends a syllable. This is one of the Philippine languages which is excluded from [ɾ]-[d] allophone.