NOTE.—The above separations are not of the same character as those caused by contractions or elisions, where the proper sign is not a hyphen, but an apostrophe. As,
| gáb’i | from gabii | (night) |
| cabitón’an, | from cabitoónan | (stars) |
| pabáy’i, | from pabayái | (leave him or her) |
| it’ im’ bugtò ng̃an hit’ ac’ patód, | from iton imo bugtò ng̃an hitón acon patód | (your brother or sister and my cousin). |
Therefore, it would not be correct to write gab-i, cabiton-an, pabay-i, where the apostrophe should be employed instead of the hyphen. However, the apostrophe is used only when needed to avoid wrong pronunciation or confusion. [[5]]So the last of the preceding examples is written without any sign of punctuation, thus: it im bugtò ng̃an hit ac patód.
[1] In most of the towns of the island of Sámar, such separation as well as that by apostrophe is frequently disregarded, this being one of the most noticeable differences between the Sámar and Leyte dialects. [↑]
VOWELS
The Bisayan people, especially in Leyte, always have a tendency to separate the vowels in pronouncing the words, there being no Bisayan dipthong. So it is bi-ol (small basket) and not biol; cá-on (eat), ti-il (foot), ma-opay (good), and not cáon, tiil, maopay. But this refers only to spoken language, not to written.
Some words, like uásay (axe), sabáo (broth) are pronounced ua-say, sa-bao, and not u-a-say, sa-ba-o. These syllables ua and ao are not dipthongs. The u in the syllable ua and the o in the syllable ao, are not the vowels u, o, but the consonant w. These words should be written more properly wásay, sabáw.[1]