Waray-Waray language

Wáray-Wáray
Waráy
Winaray Spoken in: Philippines Region: Eastern VisayasTotal speakers: 3.1 million Language family: Austronesian
Malayo-Polynesian
  Borneo-Philippines
   Central Philippine
    Visayan
     Central Visayan
      Wáray-Wáray
Waráy Writing system: Latin(Filipino variant);
Historically written in Baybayin Official status Official language in: none Regulated by: Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino
(Commission on the Filipino Language) Language codes ISO 639-1: none ISO 639-2: war ISO 639-3: warNote: This page may contain IPAphonetic symbols in Unicode.

Wáray-Wáray or Waráy (commonly spelled as Waray; also referred to as Winaray or L(in)eyte-Samarnon) is a language spoken in the provinces of Samar, Northern Samar, Eastern Samar, Leyte (eastern portion), and Biliran in the Philippines.

The Warayan group of languages consists of Waray, Waray Sorsogon and Masbate Sorsogon. Waray Sorsogon and Masbate Sorsogon are called Bisakol because they are intermediate between Visayan and Bicolano languages. All the Warayan languages belong to the Visayan language family and are related to Cebuano and more closely to Hiligaynon and Masbatenyo.

1 Grammar
2 Orthography issues
3 Sounds
- 3.1 Numbers
- 3.2 Some common words and phrases
4 See also
5 External links

Grammar

Pronouns

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

The Waray copula

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 Waray language in comparison would express "She is beautiful" only as "Mahusay hiya" or sometimes "Mahusay 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 Waray sentence "This is a dog":

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 in an balay han Winaray o Binisaya nga taga Eastern Samar.

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. A more literal translation would therefore be "This is the Waray/Leyte-Samar Visayan Wikipedia". Unlike Tagalog, 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. Amo word is use only in waray waray leyte. In Samar Asya (This).

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 maging estudyante. ([It's] hard to be a student.)

Ako it magiging presidente! (I will be the president!)

Ako an naging presidente. (I became the president.

Existential

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

Modal

WARAY TAGALOG ENGLISH puyde/sadang maaari/pwede may/can diri puyde hindi maaari/pwede may/cannot Pahudma Pahiram/hiram may i borrow Pakit-a Patingin May i see

Interrogative Words

Waray of Leyte (Winaray nga pan Leyte)

WARAY TAGALOG ENGLISH hin-o sino who kay-ano bakit why diin saan where kanay kanino whose paanano paano how san-o kailan when nano ano what

Waray of Samar (Winaray nga pan Samar)

WARAY TAGALOG ENGLISH sino sino who kay-ano bakit why diin saan where kankanay kanino whose guinaano paano how san-o kailan when nano/ano 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 official orthography commonly accepted. In effect, there may exist two spellings of the same word (these usually limited to differences in vowels only), such as

diri or dire ("no")
hira or hera ("them")
maopay or maupay ("good")
guinhatag or ginhatag ("gave")
direcho or diritso ("straight [ahead]")

Sounds

The Waray language has sixteen consonants: p, t, k, b, d, g, m, n, ng, s, h, w, l, r and y. There are three main vowels: [a], [ɛ]/[i], and [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 (because someone's luck is seen in the palm] 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 today, their native counterparts being almost unheard of by the majority of native speakers. Some, specially the old ones, are spoken alongside the Spanish counterparts.

ENGLISH NATIVE WARAY BORROWED FROM SPANISH One Usá Uno Two Duhá Dos Three Tuló Tres Four Upat Kuwatro Five Limá Singko Six Unom Siez/says Seven Pitó Siete/syete Eight Waló Ocho/otso Nine Siyám Nuebe/nueve Ten Napúlô Diez Eleven (Napúlô kag usá) Onse Twenty (Karuhaan) Baynte 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