Northern Luzon languages
The Northern Luzon languages are one of the few established large groups within Philippine languages. These are mostly located in and around the Central (Luzon)|Cordillera Central] of northern Luzon in the Philippines. Among its major languages are Ilocano, Pangasinan and Ibanag.
Internal classification
Lawrence Reid divides the over thirty Northern Luzon languages into five branches: the Northeastern Luzon, Cagayan Valley and Meso-Cordilleran subgroups, further Ilokano and Arta as group-level isolate branches.- Northern Luzon
- *Ilocano
- *Arta
- *Dicamay Agta †
- *Cagayan Valley
- **Isnag
- ** Ibanagic
- ***Atta
- ***Ibanag
- ***Itawis
- ***Yogad
- ** Gaddang-Cagayan
- ***Central Cagayan Agta
- ***Gaddang
- ***Ga'dang
- *Northeastern Luzon
- **Dupaningan Agta
- **
- ***Dinapigue Agta
- ***Casiguran Agta, Nagtipunan Agta
- ***Pahanan Agta, Paranan
- *Meso-Cordilleran
- ** Northern Alta
- ** Southern Alta
- ** South-Central Cordilleran
- ***Central Cordilleran
- ****Isinai
- ****North Central Cordilleran
- *****Kalinga-Itneg
- ******Itneg
- ******Kalinga
- *****Nuclear Cordilleran
- ******Ifugao
- ******Balangao
- ******Bontok-Kankanaey
- *******Bontok-Finallig
- *******Kankanaey
- ***Southern Cordilleran
- ****Bugkalot
- ****West Southern Cordilleran
- *****Pangasinan
- *****Nuclear Southern Cordilleran
- ******Ibaloi
- ******Iwaak
- ******Kallahan
- ******''Karao''
Reconstruction
Phonology
Reid has reconstructed the Proto-Northern Luzon sound system as follows, with phonemic stress:| Front | Central | Back | |
| Close | *i | *ɨ | *u |
| Open | *a |
The sound inventory of Proto-Northern Luzon shows no innovations from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian that would set it apart from other Philippine languages. There are however two phonological innovations that characterize the Northern Luzon languages:
- Loss of final *ʔ
- Metathesis of *s and *t, e.g. Proto-Northern Luzon *saŋit < Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *taŋis 'weep', *Rasut < *Ratus 'hundred'.