The Ibanag language (also Ybanag or Ibanak) is spoken by up to 500,000 speakers (the Ibanag people) in the Philippines, in the northeastern provinces of Isabela and Cagayan, especially in Tuguegarao City, Solana, Cabagan, and Ilagan and with overseas immigrants in countries located in the Middle East, UK and the U.S.A.. Most of the speakers can also speak Ilocano, the lingua franca of Northern Luzon. Ibanag is derived from bannag 'river'. It is closely related to Gaddang, Itawis, Agta, Atta, Yogad, Isneg and Malaweg. Map of the Philippines showing the island groups of Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. ... Current distribution of Human Language Families A language family is a group of related languages said to have descended from a common proto-language. ... The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia. ... The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages used by some 351 million speakers. ... The Borneo-Philippines languages (or Outer Hesperonesian or Outer Western Malayo-Polynesian languages) are a branch of the Austronesian family which include the languages of the Philippines, much of Borneo, the northern peninsula of Sulawesi, and Madagascar, as outlined in Wouk and Ross (2002). ... ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family. ... ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages. ... ISO 639-3 is in process of development as an international standard for language codes. ... Articles with similar titles include the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabet”. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ... Phonetics (from the Greek word φωνή, phone meaning sound, voice) is the study of the sounds of human speech. ... Unicode is an industry standard designed to allow text and symbols from all of the writing systems of the world to be consistently represented and manipulated by computers. ... The Ibanags are an ethnic minority numbering a little more than half a million people, who inhabit the provinces of Cagayan, Isabela and Nueva Vizcaya. ... This is about the province of Isabela in the Philippines. ... REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES Province of Cagayan Region: Cagayan Valley (Region II) Capital: Tuguegarao City Founded: 1581 Population: 2000 census—993,580 (25th largest) Density—110 per km² (16th lowest) Area: 9,002 km² (3rd largest) Divisions: Highly urbanized cities—0 Component cities—1 Municipalities—28 Barangays—820 Congressional districts... Tuguegarao City is a city in the province of Cagayan, Philippines. ... Solana is a 2nd class municipality in the province of Cagayan, Philippines. ... Cabagan is a 2nd class municipality in the province of Isabela. ... Ilagan is a 1st class municipality in the province of Isabela, Philippines. ... For other uses, see United States (disambiguation) and US (disambiguation). ... Ilokano (variants: Ilocano, Iluko, Iloco, and Iloko) is the third most-spoken language of the Republic of the Philippines. ...

Structure

The Ibanag language is distinct in that it features phonemes that are not present in many other neighboring Philippine languages. It is related to Itawis, Gaddang, Malaueg and others. As an example the "f","v","z" and "j" sounds. inafi - rice, bavi - pig, kazzing - goat, or madjan - maid. In spoken language, a phoneme is a basic, theoretical unit of sound that can distinguish words (i. ... Languages in the Philippines number more than 170 and almost all of them belong to the Western Malayo-Polynesian languages. ...

In addition to this, Ibanag also features doubled consonants. Therefore making the language sound "hard" or guttural. For example: Gaddua, Pronounced gad-dwa, meaning half. Mappazzi, Pronounced Map-paz-zi', meaning to squeeze or squeezing.

Ibanag is also one of the Philippine languages which is excluded from [ɾ]-[d] allophone.

This is an example of an Ibanag proverb, that is also known throughout the archipelago.

Y tolay nga ari nga mallipay ta pinaggafuannan na ari nga makange ta angayananna.

Translated to: He who does not look back into his past, cannot reach his destination.

Samples

Cagayan Provincial Anthem

Cagayan, Davvun nga kakastan niakan,
Egga ka laran nakuan ta piam,
Nu kuruk tu maparrayyu ka niakan,
Ariat ta ka vuluvvuga a kattamman.

Cagayan, Makemmemmi ka nga innan.
Cagayan, Awan tu kagittam.
Nu anni paga y kasta na davvun a karuan
Egga ka la ta futu' nga ideddukan.

Pronouns

• I - Sacan, So'
• You - Sicau,
• He, She, It - Yayya
• We (inclusive) - Sittam
• We (exclusive) - Sicami
• You (plural/polite) - Sicamu
• They - Ira

There are multiple ways of saying each pronoun in Ibanag. For example: Kuminanna - I ate, but you would never say Kuminan sakan. Apakku - I will get, but again you can't say Apanna' which would mean Get me or take me. In some occasions a simple glottal stop at the end of the verb conveys the "I" in a sentence as in the example of Pinate' - which means i killed or turned off.

Simple greetings

• Good morning - Mapia nga umma nikau
• Good afternoon -Mapia nga fuggag nikau
• Good evening/night - Mapia nga gabbi nikau
• How are you? - Cunnasi ca ngana?
• I'm good and you? - Mapya gapa, sicau?
• I'm just fine thank god - Mappya gapa, mabbalo' ta dios
• Thank you - Mabbalo'
• Where are you going? - Sitau angayammu?
• I'm going to...- Umay na' ta...
• What are you doing? - Anni cucuammu?
• Oh, Nothing in particular. - Awan, maski anni laman.
• Please come in. - Tullung kamu.

Numbers

• 0-awan
• 1-tadday
• 2-dua
• 3-tallu
• 4-appa'
• 5-lima
• 6-annam
• 7-pitu
• 8-walu
• 9-siyam
• 10-mafulu
• 100-magattu
• 200-dua gattu
• 500-limagatu
• 1000-marivvu
• 2000-dua rivvu

Sentences

External references

• Ethnologue on Ibanag