Ilocano language

Iloco is an Austronesian language primarily spoken in the Philippines by the Ilocano people. It is one of the eight major languages of the Philippines with about 11 million speakers and ranks as the third most widely spoken native language. Iloco serves as a regional lingua franca and second language among Filipinos in Northern Luzon, particularly among the Cordilleran ethnolinguistic groups, as well as in parts of Cagayan Valley and some areas of Central Luzon.
As an Austronesian language, Iloco or Ilocano shares linguistic ties with other Philippine languages and is related to languages such as Indonesian, Malay, Tetum, Chamorro, Fijian, Māori, Hawaiian, Samoan, Tahitian, Paiwan, and Malagasy. It is closely related to other Northern Luzon languages and exhibits a degree of mutual intelligibility with Balangao language and certain eastern dialects of Bontoc language. Iloco is also spoken outside of Luzon, including in Mindoro, Palawan, Mindanao, and internationally in Canada, Hawaii and California in the United States, owing to the extensive Ilocano diaspora in the 19th and 20th centuries. About 85% of the Filipinos in Hawaii are Ilocano and the largest Asian ancestry group in Hawaii. In 2012, it was officially recognized as the provincial language of La Union, underscoring its cultural and linguistic significance.

Etymology

In early history, the Ilocano people referred to themselves as "Samtoy", a term derived from the Iloco phrase sao mi ditoy, meaning "our language".
The term "Ilocano" originates from the native word "Ilúko" and has undergone linguistic evolution influenced by both indigenous and Spanish elements. It is derived from the Ilocano prefix i-, meaning "of" or "from", combined with luék, luëk, or loóc, which denote "sea" or "bay". This etymology suggests that the language, like the people, was historically associated with coastal settlements, thus signifying "language of the people from the bay".
An alternative linguistic interpretation connects the term to the Ilocano words lúku or lúkung, which refer to flatlands, valleys, or low-lying areas. According to this explanation, "Ilocano" may have originally meant "language of the people of the lowlands," distinguishing it from the languages spoken by mountain-dwelling communities.
During Spanish colonization, the term "Ilocano" was formalized and adapted to Spanish linguistic conventions. The suffix -ano, commonly used in Spanish to denote a group or people, was appended to align with Spanish grammatical structures. This adaptation contributed to the term’s official recognition and widespread use in colonial records and classifications.

Classification

The Ilocano language, also known as Iloco, belongs to the Austronesian language family, specifically within the Malayo-Polynesian branch. It is widely believed to have originated in Taiwan through the "Out of Taiwan" migration theory. This theory, proposed by archaeologist Peter Bellwood, posits that the Philippines was populated by Austronesian-speaking people who migrated from Taiwan around 3,000 BCE.
Ilocano constitutes its own branch within the Philippine Cordilleran subfamily, which is part of the larger Northern Luzon languages. It is spoken as a first language by approximately eight million people. Linguist Lawrence Reid, an expert in Austronesian languages, categorizes over thirty Northern Luzon languages into five main branches: Northeastern Luzon, Cagayan Valley, Meso-Cordilleran, with Ilocano and Arta further classified as group-level isolates.
Serving as a lingua franca for much of Northern Luzon and parts of Central Luzon, Ilocano is also spoken as a second language by over two million individuals. These speakers include native speakers of languages such as Ibanag, Itawes, Ivatan, Bolinao, Pangasinan, Sambal, and other regional languages.

Geographic distribution

The Iloco language is primarily spoken in Northern Luzon with 8.7 million native speakers and about [|2] million as second language, where the highest concentration of Iloco speakers remains in their home provinces in Ilocos Region, totaling approximately three million. As of the 2020 census, Iloco speakers account for 5.8% of the Philippine population, or 3,083,391 individuals, with the majority residing in the Ilocos Region. The province of Pangasinan has the largest number of Iloco speakers, at 1,258,746, followed by La Union with 673,312, Ilocos Sur with 580,484, and Ilocos Norte with 570,849.
In Cagayan Valley, Iloco speakers number 2,274,435, representing 61.8% of the region’s population. Isabela has the highest number of Iloco speakers at 1,074,212, followed by Cagayan with 820,546, Nueva Vizcaya with 261,901, Quirino with 117,360, and Batanes with 416. In the Cordillera Administrative Region, where Iloco serves as a lingua franca among the Cordilleran people, the number of Iloco speakers totals 396,713, comprising 22.1% of the region’s population. The province of Abra, formerly part of the Ilocos Region, has the highest number of Iloco speakers at 145,492, followed by Benguet with 138,022, Apayao with 47,547, Kalinga with 31,812, Ifugao with 26,677, and Mountain Province with 7,163 Iloco speakers.
Outside of Northern Luzon, Central Luzon is home to 10.8% of Iloco speakers, or 1,335,283 individuals. In Tarlac, 555,000 Iloco speakers were recorded, followed by Nueva Ecija with 369,864, Zambales with 183,629, Bulacan with 97,603, Aurora with 65,204, Pampanga with 40,862, and Bataan with 29,121. In the National Capital Region, 762,629 Iloco speakers were documented, while CALABARZON has 330,774 Iloco speakers, and MIMAROPA has 117,635. In the Bicol Region, there are 15,434 Iloco speakers.
In the Visayas, there are 13,079 Iloco speakers, and in Mindanao, the number reaches 416,796. The SOCCSKSARGEN region in Mindanao has the highest concentration of Iloco speakers, with 248,033, the majority of whom reside in Sultan Kudarat.
Internationally, Iloco is spoken in the United States, with the largest concentrations in Hawaii and California, as well as in Canada. In Hawaii, 17% of those who speak a non-English language at home speak Iloco, making it the most spoken non-English language in the state.
In September 2012, the province of La Union became the first in the Philippines to pass an ordinance recognizing Ilocano as an official provincial language, alongside Filipino and English. This ordinance aims to protect and revitalize the Ilocano language, although other languages, such as Pangasinan, Kankanaey, and Ibaloi, are also spoken in La Union.

Writing system

Modern alphabet

The modern Ilokano alphabet consists of 29 letters: Aa, Bb, Cc, Dd, Ee, Ff, Gg, Hh, Ii, Jj, Kk, Ll, LLll, Mm, Nn, Ññ, NGng, Oo, Pp, Qq, Rr, Ss, Tt, Uu, Vv, Ww, Xx, Yy, and Zz

Pre-colonial

Pre-colonial Ilocano people of all classes wrote in a syllabic system known as Baybayin before the arrival of Europeans. It is a system that is termed as an abugida, or an alphasyllabary, where each character represented a consonant-vowel, or CV, sequence. The Ilocano version of the Doctrina Cristiana, “Libro a Naisuratan amin ti bagas ti
Doctrina Cristiana”, published in 1621, was the first to designate coda consonants with a diacritic mark – a cross or virama. Before the addition of the virama, writers had no way to designate coda consonants. The reader, on the other hand, had to guess whether a consonant not succeeding a vowel is read or not, for it is not written. Vowel apostrophes interchange between e or i, and o or u. Due to this, the vowels e and i are interchangeable, and letters o and u, for instance, tendera and tindira.

Modern

In recent times, there have been two systems in use: the Spanish system and the Tagalog system. In the Spanish system words of Spanish origin kept their spellings. Native words, on the other hand, conformed to the Spanish rules of spelling. Most older generations of Ilocanos use the Spanish system.
In the alphabet system based on that of Tagalog there is more of a phoneme-to-letter correspondence, which better reflects the actual pronunciation of the word. The letters ng constitute a digraph and count as a single letter, following n in alphabetization. As a result, numo appears before ngalngal in newer dictionaries. Words of foreign origin, most notably those from Spanish, need to be changed in spelling to better reflect Ilocano phonology. Words of English origin may or may not conform to this orthography. A prime example using this system is the weekly magazine Bannawag.

Samples of the two systems

The following are two versions of the Lord's Prayer. The one on the left is written using Spanish-based orthography, while the one on the right uses the Tagalog-based system.

Comparison between the two systems

Rules	Spanish-based	Tagalog-based	Translation
c → k	tocac	tukak	frog
ci, ce → si, se	acero	asero	steel
ch → ts	ocho	otso	eight
f → p¹	familia	pamilia	family
gui, gue → gi, ge	daguiti	dagiti	the
ge, gi → he, hi²	página	pahina	page
ll → li	caballo	kabalio	horse
ñ → ni	baño	banio	bathroom
ñg, ng̃ → ng	ñgioat, ng̃ioat	ngiwat	mouth
Vo → Vw	aoan aldao	awan aldaw	nothing day
qui, que → ki, ke	iquit	ikit	aunt
v → b	voces	boses	voice
z → s	zapatos	sapatos	shoe

Notes

1. In Ilocano phonology, the labiodental fricative sound // does not exist. Its approximate sound is //. Therefore, in words of Spanish or English origin, // becomes //. In particular, last names beginning with // are often said with //, for example Fernández /per.'nan.des/.2. The sound // only occurs in loanwords, and in the negative variant haan.