A Dictionary of Cebuano Visayan

by John U. Wolff

1.0 Cebuano

This work is a dictionary of Cebuano Visayan, here called Cebuano for short. Cebuano is spoken in the central portions of the Philippines: on the islands of Cebu and Bohol, on the eastern half of Negros, western half of Leyte, along the northern coasts of Mindanao, and on smaller islands in the vicinity of these areas. A large portion of the urban population of Zamboanga, Davao, and Cotabato is Cebuano speaking. Cebuano is also widely spoken throughout the lowland areas of the entire eastern third of Mindanao, where it is spreading at the expense of the native languages (most of which are closely related to Cebuano). Cebuano is the trade language in most places in Mindanao where Cebuano-speaking populations and populations speaking other languages are in contact.

Cebuano is also called Sugbuanon and is one of more than a dozen languages or dialects which are given the name Bisayan or Visayan. Other types of Visayan are spoken in areas surrounding the Cebuano-speaking area on the north, east, west, and southeast. This dictionary is confined to Cebuano forms and does not include forms which are not Cebuano from other languages called Visayan spoken outside of the area we have delineated.

In the areas where Cebuano is native and, to a large extent, also in areas where Cebuano is a trade language, it is used for almost every aspect of daily life and for most formal occasions: radio-TV, social life, religious life, business, and the first two grades of school. Cebuano is also largely used in the later grades, although English is supposed to be the medium of instruction. In these areas Cebuano language publications enjoy a wide readership.

Somewhere between one-quarter and one-third of the population of the Philippines speaks Cebuano natively.[1] But despite its numerical importance and wide use Cebuano lags far behind Tagalog (Pilipino) in prestige and development as a means of literary and scientific expression. In the schools the emphasis is almost entirely English: Cebuano composition is not a school subject, and students read nothing in Cebuano after the first two grades. In prestige Cebuano is losing ground: for the upper and middle class elite, with isolated praiseworthy exceptions, eloquence in Cebuano is not admired. In fact it is almost a matter of pride not to know Cebuano well. Thus, despite a phenomenal increase in literacy and in the total number of potential contributors and participants in Cebuano literature, output has declined in quantity and quality at an ever increasing rate over the past two generations. The cultivation and development of Cebuano is left to the least influential segments of the population, to whom English education and exposure to English publications are minimally available. These people still compose the vast majority of the population, but the influential classes that have grown up knowing only a dilute and inarticulate Cebuano are ever increasing in number, proportion, and prestige.

1.1 Dialects

The Cebuano language is remarkably uniform. There are differences, to be sure, but these differences are no greater than the differences found among the various varieties of English spoken around the world. There are scattered places within the Cebuano area which use a speech widely aberrant from what we describe here: Surigao, Bantayan Islands, and the Camotes Islands. Forms peculiar to those areas we have simply omitted except for a few widely used forms which tend to find their way into standard Cebuano as spoken by natives of these areas. Such forms are listed, but marked ‘dialectal’. Otherwise whatever forms we have found we have listed without comment, whether or not they are in current use throughout the Cebuano speech area.

1.12 Correct and incorrect speech

A happy consequence of the low regard which Cebuano speakers have of their own language is that the doctrine of correctness has never gained foothold. Dialectal differences are purely local, not social,[2] and speakers regard whatever forms they are familiar with as correct. We have followed the same principle in this dictionary: no attempt is made to prescribe which forms or usages are appropriate, but rather we try to show which forms and usages occur. The various meanings of a given form are listed in such a way that their relation is readily discernible: meanings which are derived by extension or specialization from an original meaning are listed under subheadings of the original-meaning.[3]

Occasionally annotations such as ‘slang’, ‘euphemism’, ‘humorous’, ‘coarse’, and the like, are given. These annotations signal only that Cebuano speakers tend to regard these forms as such and that they occur only in styles of speech appropriate to these forms.[4] We use the following terminology: Biblical, literary, metaphorical, humorous, euphemism, coarse, colloquial. The designation BIBLICAL indicates a form confined to liturgical language or the Bible; LITERARY indicates a form confined to high-flown styles, not ordinarily spoken; METAPHORICAL indicates a meaning recognized as metaphorical in some way (not necessarily confined to literary style); HUMOROUS, a meaning commonly given to a form, but not the primary meaning, which gives the feeling of an oft-repeated joke; EUPHEMISM, a form that is used to avoid saying s.t directly, the meaning of which is readily understood but not as jarring as if it had been said directly; COARSE, a form that clearly would jar the hearer and that is confined to speech used in anger or used as a sign of intimacy or disrespect; SLANG indicates a form confined to intimate speech among people of similar occupations or life styles; COLLOQUIAL indicates forms avoided in formal discourse or writing, but commonly used in normal speech even among non-intimates.