How to read and say Ilocano

Like all its sister languages, Ilocano is fairly easy to pronounce. The general rule is one sound for each letter. However, the language, like all the Borneo-Philippine Languages, employ the digraph ng to represent an initial velar nasal consonant (the ng in English sing).

Accents are very unpredictable and must be learnt while learning the new word. Although books about the language will show these signs, they are often not found in publications like newspapers.

Vowels

The Ilocano language has either five or six vowels, depending on what dialect you choose to speak. The language is generally divided into the Amianan (Northern) and Abagatan (Southern) Dialects. The only difference however between these two dialects is the way they pronounce the letter 'E'. In the Abagatan Dialect, only five vowels are present and they are pronounced as follows:

a

open front unrounded vowel IPA [a]; like the a in father

e

open-mid front unrounded vowel IPA [ɛ]; like the e in bed

i

close front unrounded vowel IPA [i]; like the ea in beat

o

close-mid back rounded vowel IPA [o]; like the au in author

u

close back rounded vowel IPA [u]; like the oo in boot

On the other hand, the Amianan Dialect has another vowel for the symbol 'e'. For the speakers of the Abagatan Dialect, the 'e' that was given above is used for words of foreign origin (e.g. elepante from Spanish). For native words, the sound of a close back unrounded vowel is used. There is no equivalent for this sound in English so some dictionaries use the IPA symbol for the schwa sign. But the proper symbol must be:

e

close back unrounded vowel IPA [ɯ]; like the ao in the Scots Gaelic caol.

Historically, Ilocano has only 3 vowels and this reality is still evident until today as the sounds of e and i and o and u' often merges.

When the letter i precedes another letter, its sound will glide resulting to the sound of [j]. This happens also to the letter u where it glides into the sound of [w].

Spanish cities such as Vigan were in contact with Spanish, hence, the additional open-mid front unrounded vowel "e".

Consonants

b

like the English bed

c

like the k in sky not as in kite

d

like the d in the Japanese dojo

f

(in proper nouns only) like the English feather

g

like the English go

g

(in foreign words from Spanish only) like the English house

h

like the English house

j

(in foreign words from Spanish only) like the English house

k

like the k in sky not as in kite

l

like the l in London

m

like the m in mother

n

like the n in nanny

p

like the p in spot not as in pot

qu

like the k in sky not as in kite

r

like the r in right

r

(in foreign words from Spanish only) like the r in rojo

s

like the s in seven

t

like the d in the Chinese Dao De Jing

v

like the English bed

v

(in proper nouns only) like the v in vase

w

like the w in water

x

(in proper nouns only) like the x in six

x

(in proper nouns only) like the x in the Spanish Mexico

y

like the y in yam

z

like the s in seven

z

like the z in zebra

Some consonants change their sounds when followed by a vowel. The following sounds are produced:

di

like the j in jack

si

like the sh in shampoo

ti

like the ch in church

As mentioned above the digraph ng represents the sound of the same digraph in Singer. However, unlike in English, this sound may be used as initial.

The initial glottal stop is not written. Thus, it appears as if the word commences with a vowel. When it occurs at the middle of the word, a hypen (-) is inserted to represent the sound.

Common diphthongs

There are only three commonly used diphthongs in the Ilocano language. They are as follows:

ay

like the i in high

iw

like the iw in Tiw

oy

like the oy in boy

Other diphthongs are also likely to occur but they are generally from loaned words. They are usually pronounced as they are foreign.