Western Subanon language

Western Subanon
Western Subanon
Siocon Subanon
Native to	Philippines
Region	Western Mindanao
Native speakers	300,000 (2018)
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Philippine Greater Central Philippine Subanen Western Subanon; ; ; ; ;
Dialects	Siocon; ; Western Kolibugan; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	suc
Glottolog	west2811

Western Subanon (also known as Siocon Subanon or simply Subanon) is an Austronesian language belonging Subanen branch of the Greater Central Philippine subgroup. It is spoken by c. 300,000 people (as of 2018^[update]) in the southwestern part of the Zamboanga Peninsula region of Mindanao.

Distribution and dialects

The Western Subanon speech area includes the villages Malayal, Lintangan, Lanuti, and Limpapa in the municipality of Sibuco, and parts of Siocon, Baliguian, Labason, Surabay, and Ipil, all located in the Zamboanga Peninsula region.^[1] The dialects are Siocon and Western Kolibugan (Western Kalibugan).^[2]

Phonology

Western Subanon has 15 native consonants.^[3]^[1]

Consonants

Consonant phonemes
		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	voiceless	p	t		k	ʔ
Plosive	voiced	b	d		ɡ
Fricative			s			h
Nasal		m	n		ŋ
Lateral			l
Semivowel				j	w

Vowels

Western Subanon has five vowels.^[3]^[1]

Monophthongs
	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
Mid	e		o
Low		a

The diphthongs of Western Subanon are /au/, /ua/, /io/, /oi/, /ai/, and /ia/.

Grammar

Western Subanon has a typical Philippine-type voice system. Unlike most other Philippine languages, it only has three voice categories.^[4]^[5]

Voice affixes
	volitional		non-volitional
	realis	irrealis	realis	irrealis
Actor voice	‹um›‹in› mig-	‹um› mog-	miko-	moko-
Patient voice	‹in› pig-	-on pog-	mi-	mo-
Goal voice	‹in› -an pig- -an	-an pog- -an	ki- -an	ko- -an

Sample text

The chorus of the Western Subanon song "Momula ita" 'Let's plant' is shown.^[3]

Gumani ita
Gumani ita
Landu’ da’da’an ta
Po’ gumani ita
Gumani ita
Gumani ita
Di’ na mobon sinsaan ta
Gumani ita

We will harvest (or, Let's harvest)
We will harvest
Great is our rejoicing
Because we will harvest
We will harvest
We will harvest
Our suffering will not last long
We will harvest

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Bulalang, Sharon (2018). "Two Patterns of /a/ and /o/ Alternation in Subanon". Oceanic Linguistics. 57 (2): 289–302. doi:10.1353/ol.2018.0013. S2CID 149975971.
^ "Subanon, Western". Ethnologue. Retrieved 2022-05-28.
^ ^a ^b ^c Estioca, Sharon Joy. "Subanon (Spring 2015)". Language Documentation Training Center. University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Archived from the original on 10 April 2019. Retrieved 2 September 2017.
^ Hall, William C. (1969). "A Classification of Siocon Subanon Verbs". Anthropological Linguistics. 11 (7): 209–215. JSTOR 30029228.
^ Hauk, Bryn (2019). "Functions of the Subanon mo-Prefix: Evidence from Paradigms and Argument Structure". Oceanic Linguistics. 85 (2): 257–291. doi:10.1353/ol.2019.0009.