Waray language

Waray
Waray-Waray, Samar-Leyte Visayan
Winaray, Samareño, Lineyte-Samarnon, Binisayâ nga Winaray, Binisayâ nga Samar-Leyte
Native to	Philippines
Region	Eastern Visayas, some parts of Masbate, southern part of Sorsogon, and Gibusong Island of Mindanao
Ethnicity	Waray
Native speakers	3.6 million (2015 census)
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Philippine Central Philippine Bisayan Central Bisayan Warayan Waray
Dialects	Standard Waray (Tacloban dialect), Northern Samar dialect, Calbayog dialect, Culaba-Biliran dialect, Abuyog dialect and 20 other identified dialects and subdialects
Writing system	Latin; Historically Baybayin
Official status
Official language in	Regional language in the Philippines
Regulated by	Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino Historically regulated by the Sanghiran san Binisaya ha Samar ug Leyte
Language codes
ISO 639-2	Template:ISO 639-2
ISO 639-3	war
Glottolog	wara1300
ELP	Template:Endangered Languages Project
Linguasphere	Template:Infobox language/lingualist
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Areas where Waray-Waray is spoken

Waray (also known as Waray-Waray or Bisayâ/Binisayâ and Winaray/Waray, Template:Langx meaning Samar language) is an Austronesian language and the fifth-most-spoken native regional language of the Philippines, native to Eastern Visayas. It is the native language of the Waray people and second language of the Abaknon people of Capul, Northern Samar, and some Cebuano-speaking peoples of western and southern parts of Leyte island. It is the third most spoken language among the Bisayan languages, only behind Cebuano and Hiligaynon.

Nomenclature

The term Waray comes from the word often heard by non-speakers meaning 'none' or 'nothing' in the language; similarly, Cebuanos are known in Leyte as and their language as Kana (after the oft-heard word , meaning 'that' in the Cebuano language). The Cebuano pronunciation of Waray is with the same meaning.

During the Spanish period, texts refer to the language as simply being a dialect of "Visayan". In contrast, most contemporary linguists consider many of these "Visayan dialects" (e.g., Cebuano, Hiligaynon, Karay-a, etc.) to be distinct languages, and the term Visayan is usually taken to refer to what is called Cebuano in contemporary linguistic literature. Domingo Ezguerra's 1663 (reprinted 1747) refers to the "Visayan tongue of the province of Leyte", Figueroa's refers to the "Visaya language of Samar and Leyte". Antonio Sanchez's 1914 (Spanish-Visayan Dictionary) refers to the speech of "Sámar and Leyte".

Dialects

Linguist Jason Lobel (2009) considers there are 25 dialects and subdialects of Waray-Waray.

• Tacloban: "standard" dialect: the dialect used in television and radio broadcasts and in education
• Abuyog, Leyte: heavy Cebuano influence
• Culaba, Biliran: heavy Cebuano influence
• Catbalogan: "original" dialect: Pure Waray, central part of Samar Island
• Calbayog: mixture of the Tacloban dialect and the dialect of Northern Samar
• Allen, Northern Samar: mostly Waray Sorsoganon mixed with Northern Samarenyo. Dialects in neighboring towns have also borrowed extensively from Waray Sorsoganon.

Many Waray dialects feature a sound change in which Proto-Bisayan *s becomes in a small number of common grammatical morphemes. This sound change occurs in all areas of Samar south of the municipalities of Santa Margarita, Matuginao, Las Navas, and Gamay (roughly corresponding to the provinces of Samar and Eastern Samar, but not Northern Samar), as well as in all of the Waray-speaking areas of Leyte, except the towns of Javier and Abuyog. However, this sound change is an areal feature rather than a strictly genetic one.

Most Waray dialects in northeastern and Eastern Samar have the close central unrounded vowel as a reflex of Proto-Austronesian *e.

Usage

Waray is one of the many regional languages found in the Philippines and used in local government. It is widely used in media particularly in television and radio broadcasts, however, not in print media because most regional newspapers are published in English.

The language is used in education from kindergarten to primary level as part of the Philippine government's K–12 program since 2012 in which pupils from kindergarten to third grade are taught in their respective indigenous languages.

Waray is also used in the Mass in the Roman Catholic Church and in the worship services of different Christian sects in the region. Bibles in Waray are also available. In 2019, the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures was released in Waray-Waray. However, there is a growing population of Muslims in the region with the first mosque, Tacloban Mosque and Islamic Center, through a charity built by a Turkish Islamic religious authority in Tacloban at 2017 which teaches the scriptures and offers Friday sermons in both Waray and Cebuano in general.

Phonology

Vowels

Most Waray dialects have three vowel phonemes: , and . Some dialects have an additional vowel ; words with in these dialects have in the majority dialects.

	Front	Central	Back
Close/Mid	i	(ə)	u
Open		a

Consonants

Waray has a total of 16 consonant phonemes: . Two extra postalveolar sounds are heard when occurs after , further proceeding another vowel sound.

	Labial	Alveolar	Dorsal	Glottal
Nasal	m	n	ŋ
Stop	p b	t d	k g	ʔ
Fricative		s		h
Rhotic		ɾ~r
Approximant	w	l	j

Alphabet

Waray, like all Philippine languages today, is written using the Latin script. There is no officially-approved orthography for the language and different writers may use differing orthographic styles. In general, it has become common to write the language following the current orthographic conventions of Filipino.

Waray alphabet

Number	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18
Upper case	A	B	K	D	G	H	I	L	M	N	NG	P	R	S	T	U	W	Y
Lower case	a	b	k	d	g	h	i	l	m	n	ng	p	r	s	t	u	w	y

The Waray alphabet consists of 18 letters: 17 letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet (all but c, e, f, j, o, q, v, x, and z), alongside one digraph: NG.

Letters used to write words of foreign origin

Number	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Upper case	C	E	F	J	Ñ	O	Q	V	X	Z
Lower case	c	e	f	j	ñ	o	q	v	x	z

These ten letters are not used in any native Waray words. Aside from foreign loanwords, they are usually replaced by other letters (e.g. ⟨k⟩ or ⟨s⟩ for ⟨c⟩, ⟨i⟩ for ⟨e⟩, ⟨p⟩ for ⟨f⟩, ⟨y⟩ for ⟨j⟩, ⟨ny⟩ for ⟨ñ⟩, ⟨u⟩ for ⟨o⟩, ⟨kw⟩ for ⟨q⟩, ⟨b⟩ for ⟨v⟩, ⟨ks⟩ for ⟨x⟩, and ⟨s⟩ for ⟨z⟩).

Grammar

Case markers

	Absolutive	Ergative	Oblique
singular impersonal		*
plural impersonal		*
singular personal
plural personal

Vocabulary

Waray uses many different words to specify a particular thing. These words might not be the same in spelling and in construction but they share the same meaning, making it a very diverse language.

Here are some examples of demonstratives and adverbs together with their equivalent definition in Waray-Waray:

English	Waray
what	, ,
where	, ,
who	()
when	, ,
how	, ,
here	, , , , ,
there	, , , , ,
that	, , ,
those	, ,
these	, ,
why	, , ,
this	, , ,

Verbs

English	Waray		English	Waray
to run			to fix something
to walk			to explain
to climb	,		to invite	,
to swim			to attend	,
to talk/speak	, ,		to send something	,
to jump	,		to create	,
to sit			to build
to stand			to fly
to shout/scream			to sleep
to make friends			to write
to cry	, ,		to lay down
to buy	,		to love
to travel			to care
to sing			to discuss	, ,
to dance			to drive	,
to fetch water			to ride	,
to drink	,		to carry	, ,
to eat			to sell something	,

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 (except for for hundred and for thousand). Some, especially the old ones, are spoken alongside the Spanish counterparts.

English	Native Waray	Derived from Spanish	Spanish
one			(m) (f)
two
three
four
five
six
seven
eight
nine
ten
eleven
twelve
thirteen
fourteen
fifteen
sixteen
seventeen
eighteen
nineteen
twenty
twenty one
twenty two
thirty
forty
fifty
sixty
seventy
eighty
ninety
one hundred
one thousand
one million

Loanwords and cognates

Waray has borrowed vocabulary extensively from other languages, especially from Spanish. These words are being adopted to fill lexical gaps of the recipient language. Spanish colonialization introduced new systems to the Philippine society.

See also

• Waray people
• Waray literature
• Waray Wikipedia
• Languages of the Philippines
• Samar
• Leyte
• Waray Sorsogon language

Further reading

• Abuyen, Tomas A. (2005). Dictionary English Waray-Waray/Tagalog, National Book Store, 494 pp., Template:ISBN.
• Diller, Timothy Clair (1971). Case grammar and its application to Waray, a Philippine language (PDF) (PhD dissertation). University of California at Los Angeles.
• Rubino, Carl. Waray-Waray. In Garry, Jane and Carl Rubino (eds.), Facts About the World's Languages, An Encyclopedia of the World's Languages: Past and Present (2001), pp. 797–800.

External links

• Arte de la Lengua Bisaya de la Provincia de Leyte (1747) – Google Books
• Arte del idioma visaya de Samar y Leite (1872) – Google Books
• Diccionario espanol-bisaya para las provincias de Sámar y Leyte (1914) – University of Michigan collection
• Radyo Waraynon – Waraynon Internet Radio Station
• Waray Museum Blog featuring Waray literature
• Waray lessons
• Bansa.org Waray Dictionary
• Waray-Waray Dictionary by Andras Rajki – with Bicol, Cebuano, Hiligaynon &c. cognates and some Proto-Malayo-Polynesian etymologies
• SEAlang Library Waray Resources
• A large collection of bible study material in Waray language (free audio books, videos, publications) – Jehovah's Witnesses