Iraya language

There are different dialects spoken in the North East, North West, and Southwest areas.^[1] Some of these dialects are the following:

1. Abra de Ilog
2. Alag Bako
3. Pagbahan
4. Palauan-Calavite
5. Pambuhan

Basic vocabulary and grammar is shared across the dialects. Besides differences in pronunciation, the dialects differ in their preferred usage of words and expressions from the general Iraya vocabulary stock. Furthermore, there are regional borrowings from adjacent languages. Iraya from the lowland, living between the foothills and the plains, adopted some words from Tagalog. Iraya living in the foothills, or on the lower slopes of Ht. Halcon, adopted words from the closely related Alangan language.

Besides a generally used colloquial register called Ibaba, Iraya knows a quasi-liturgical speech register known as Ita'as. This type of speech is used in power songs^{[clarification needed]} used by shamans of Occidental Mindoro. Ita'as is only understood by Shamans, and other people do not recognize this speech. A recording of the power song can be found in the San Teodoro area of Oriental Mindoro.

The Iraya languages distinguishes 20 phonemes:

• 13 consonants: p, b, m, t, d, l, s, r, k, g, ŋ, ‘
• 3 semivowels: w, y, h
• 4 vowels: i, a, e [ɨ], o

The following charts illustrate the phonemes by articulation. The consonant [ŋ] is represented as ⟨ng⟩ in common writing, and the high central vowel [ɨ] is represented by ⟨e⟩. The consonant /s/ can have both a dental or alveolar point of articulation.

Declarative paragraph: The first sentence starts at a high pitch. Then, each of the next sentences have a lower pitch. The last sentence will have the lowest pitch.

Emotional or dramatic paragraphs: This is the opposite of declarative paragraphs. Each sentence becomes higher than the previous sentence, until the last sentence ends with a more or less higher pitch and long pause.

The following syllable types are used in the Iraya language. (C = consonant; V = vowel)

1. CV (e.g. ka.wu 'you'; ta.wa 'who')
2. CVC (e.g. na.kay 'why; what')
3. CCV (e.g. kwi.tis 'fireworks')
4. CCVC (e.g. pwis.tu 'place; put')

In consonant clusters, the Iraya language only uses /w/ or /r/ as the second consonant in an onset cluster, as in the two examples kwitis and pwistu presented above (the latter being a Spanish loanword).

Nominative (or subjective) and genitive (or possessive) cases are distinguished for pronouns. For example, the pronoun 'I' translated to aku in Iraya, and the pronoun 'my' is na'ay. The Iraya language has dual pronoun forms based on the numeral 'two'. The following table presents the Iraya pronominal paradigm.^[5]

Zorc (1974) lists the following demonstratives:^[6]

The two words bidu' and umaning both translate to 'how much, how many' but have different uses. Examples of these question words are given below:

• Bidu' mada dayu' ag gura'an? 'How far (how much distance) is it to town?'
• Umaning aku kuyay kawu? 'How much older am I than you?'^{[citation needed]}

The latter sentence uses umaning because it is counting age.