[1] We arrive at this figure by totalling the population of towns and villages in Cebuano-speaking areas in the Census of 1960 (about seven and a half million). There are no accurate figures as to language affiliation for the population in the Philippines.
[2] Use of English and to some extent, Spanish, has the function of distinguishing the upper classes from the ordinary folks, rather than class dialect.
[3] Thus, for example, in our definition of danggit (a name given to a small fish) we define as follows: 1 name given to small species of Teuthis with dots. 2 by extension, name given to any small specimen or any species of Teuthis. This definition reflects the usage of fishermen who call any small dotted species of Teuthis, genuine danggit (danggit nga pyúr), but any species of Teuthis with no dots are called aberrant forms of the danggit—other related fish are called danggit sa hunásan ‘the danggit of the tidal flats’ or danggit nga ngisingisi ‘the danggit like the ngisingisi fish’, etc.) Further, by fishermen these other species of Teuthis are given their own names: danghili and lilu kan; but among housewives and in the market all these fish are called danggit.
[4] Just as in an English dictionary we must indicate that the term ‘vagina’ is appropriate to a family-planning lecture, whereas, ‘cunt’ is not, so in Cebuano we must indicate that the term kinatáwu sa babáyi ‘female genitalia’ is fine for a family planning lecture but bilat ‘cunt’ is not. We do this by characterizing kinatáwu sa babáyi as a euphemism and characterizing bilat as coarse. We do not wish to say that one of these alternative forms is better than the other, nor do we mean to say that ‘coarse’ forms in Cebuano are taboo. (They are not taboo in the same way that the English four-letter words are, even though for formal occasions they are avoided.)
[5] Aside from a few catechisms and novenas, there are practically no specimens of Cebuano extant which antedate this century, and even prewar literary productions are extremely difficult to come by. Aside from the forms marked ‘Biblical’, everything here listed is contemporary speech.
[6] Approximately five percent of our data is not included for lack of reliable informants. These are mainly forms of only local currency, a large portion of them from Bohol.
[7] In the Cebuano of Cebu City and most Cebuano-speaking areas, the mid-central vowel falls together with /u/. Nice as it would have been to include information on which forms with /u/ are with a mid-central vowel dialectally, such information is extremely difficult to come by, and so we reluctantly had to leave this information to be supplied in future editions.
[8] The glottal stop in post-consonantal position is usually indicated in Cebuano publications by a hyphen (as we do): tan-aw /tánʔaw/ ‘see’, spelled tan-aw (but sometimes also as tanaw). Between vowels a glottal stop is occasionally indicated, again with a hyphen: maáyu /maʔáyu/ ‘good’, spelled maayu, maayo, ma-ayo, or ma-ayu.
[9] In initial position there is no contrast between /ʔ/ and its absence, and phonetically the [ʔ] is always articulated. Intervocalically there is no contrast between successive like vowels and like vowels separated by a /ʔ/ (between [aa] and [aʔa]; [uu] and [uʔu]; [ii] and [iʔi]), and phonetically the [ʔ] is always present. Between unlike vowels there is either a [ʔ] or a [w] or [y] glide.
[10] [ts] does not contrast with [c]. Morphologically, when a suffix -s is added to a base which ends in /t/ the combination ts automatically becomes [c]: Rit ‘name’ plus -s ‘diminutive suffix’ = Rits [ric].