Alphabet
The Bontoc man has not begun even the simplest form of permanent mechanical record in the line of a written language, and no vocabulary of the language has before been published.
The following alphabet was used in writing Bontoc words in this study:
- a as in far; Spanish ramo
- â is in law; as o in French or
- ay as in ai in aisle; Spanish hay
- ao as ou in out; as au in Spanish auto
- b as in bad; Spanish bajar
- ch as in check; Spanish chico
- d as in dog; Spanish dar
- e as in they; Spanish hallé
- ĕ as in then; Spanish comen
- f as in fight; Spanish firmar
- g as in go; Spanish gozar
- h as in he; Tagalog bahay
- i as in pique; Spanish hijo
- ĭ as in pick
- k as in keen
- l as in lamb; Spanish lente
- m as in man; Spanish menos
- n as in now; Spanish jabon
- ng as in finger; Spanish lengua
- o as in note; Spanish nosotros
- oi as in boil
- p as in poor; Spanish pero
- q as ch in German ich
- s as in sauce; Spanish sordo
- sh as in shall; as ch in French charmer
- t as in touch; Spanish tomar
- u as in rule; Spanish uno
- û as in but
- ü as in German kühl
- v as in valve; in Spanish volver
- w as in will; nearly as ou in French oui
- y as in you; Spanish ya
The sounds which I have represented by the unmarked vowels a, e, i, o, and u, Swettenham and Clifford in their Malay Dictionary represent by the vowels with a circumflex accent. The sound which I have indicated by û they indicate by ă. Other variations will be noted.
The sound represented by a, it must be noted, has not always the same force or quantity, depending on an open or closed syllable and the position of the vowel in the word.
So far as I know there is no r sound in the Bontoc Igorot language. The word “Igorot” when used by the Bontoc man is pronounced Igolot. In an article on “The Chamorro language of Guam”[2] it is noted that in that language there was originally no r sound but that in modern times many words formerly pronounced by an l sound now have that letter replaced by r.