Bisaya gid!

I left a message on Luiza’s (luiza.i.ph) tagboard with the words, “…ayo ayo,” a Cebuano phrase which means ‘Take care’. Well, I just miss talking to some cebuanos lately (you know how I so love Cebu) and I know she understood what I meant ‘coz most of her tagboard is filled with the dialect. The next time I dropped by her site, I got this reply, “car..bisaya diay ka??”

It was a simple question asking me if I’m bisaya, but it got me tongue-tied (or rather finger-tied?).  I couldn’t reply immediately ‘coz I’m not sure if she meant bisaya as somebody from Cebu or bisaya as a dialect.

Anyway, I got ‘finger-tied’ because of these two premises:

1.  Bisaya could mean either a person or a dialect.

I got a little help from Wikipedia on this.

Bisaya as a person means somebody living primarily “…in the Visayas and northeastern Mindanao but others have migrated elsewhere in the Philippines, including Manila. Several linguistic groups in the Philippines are primarily of Bisaya descent. The largest of these groups are the speakers of Cebuano, Hiligaynon and Waray-Waray.” (read more…)

On the other hand, bisaya as a dialect refers to Visayan languages which “…along with Tagalog and Bikol, are part of the Central Philippine language family. Most Visayan languages are spoken in the Visayas region but they are also spoken in the Bicol Region (particularly in Sorsogon and Masbate), islands south of Luzon such as those that make up Romblon, the northern and western areas of Mindanao, and the province of Sulu located southwest of Mindanao.” (read more…)

Sometimes both terms cebuano and bisaya are used interchangeably which usually creates confusion.

I used to think before that the term bisaya only applies to provinces speaking the Cebuano dialect, but I later learned that the term is so broad and includes other non-Cebuano speaking provinces as well, including my home province of Negros. The fact is, my Mom is from Bohol, and my Dad is from Negros. We children were all born and raised in Negros so we speak Hiligaynon. Our family stayed for a long time in Cebu because all of us studied there and because of our business. Some of us even worked there after graduation. We speak Cebuano fluently and it’s funny ‘coz I and my siblings always converse in Cebuano more than our mother dialect!

2.  Ilonggo or ilongga means a person, not a dialect, somebody born and raised in Iloilo. On the other hand, Hiligaynon is what we call that sing-song dialect (ay teh, amo gid na ya, tu-od gid?) spoken by natives of Iloilo and the western part of Negros Occidental, and some areas in Panay and Mindanao.

I am not so sure about the exclusivity of the term ilonggo/ilongga for Iloilo natives only.  I’ve just heard this from somebody who corrected me when I said that I speak ilonggo. He told me Hiligaynon is the correct term while ilonggo is the term for people from Iloilo. Can anybody enlighten me on this please?

Wikipedia states: “The language is referred to as “Ilonggo” in Negros Occidental and in Iloilo. More precisely, “Ilonggo” is an ethnolinguistic group referring to the people living in Panay and the culture associated with the people speaking Hiligaynon. The boundaries of the dialect called Ilonggo and that called Hiligaynon are unclear. The disagreement of where what name is correct extends to Philippine language specialists and native laymen.” (read more…)

It would be a good topic for discussion or might even spark a debate. Though it would be quite correct to say, “He is an ilonggo and he speaks Hiligaynon fluently,” to differentiate the dialect from the person.

As for me, eversince I’ve heard about this exclusivity issue, I don’t call myself an FBI (full blooded ilongga) anymore, its much better to call myself a true-blue Negrense speaking Hiligaynon.

So going back to that question, “…bisaya diay ka?” (Are you bisaya?), I would reply, “yup, I’m bisaya, from Negros… nice meeting you gid.”  🙂