Last Updated: 2019-06-17
SLIGHTLY COMPROMISED: glottal stops not transcribed consistently
Background
Language Family: Austronesian / Malayo-Polynesian / Western Malayo-Polynesian / Meso Philippine / Central Philippine / Bikol / Coastal / Naga
- Central Bikol, or Bikol, is spoken throughout the Bikol provinces within the Philippines.
Phonology
Consonants
- Loans from Spanish and English have introduced /f/, /v/, /z/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /ɲ/, /ʎ/, /tʃ/, and /dʒ/ to Bikol, although not all speakers use those sounds (Mattes 2014, 8).
|
|
Place of Articulation
|
|
Manner of Articulation
|
Labial
|
Alveolar
|
Palatal
|
Velar
|
Glottal
|
|
Stops
|
p b
|
t d
|
|
k ɡ
|
ʔ
|
|
Nasals
|
m
|
n
|
|
ŋ
|
|
|
Fricatives
|
|
s
|
|
|
h
|
|
Flaps
|
|
ɾ
|
|
|
|
|
Approximants
|
ʋ
|
l
|
j
|
|
|
|
Note: For phonemes that share a cell, those on the left are voiceless and those on the right are voiced.
|
Vowels
- Although the orthography includes ⟨e⟩ and ⟨o⟩, [e] and [o] only exist as allophones of /i/ and /u/ respectively (Mattes 2014, 8).
|
|
Front
|
Central
|
Back
|
|
High
|
i
|
|
u
|
|
Mid
|
|
|
|
|
Low
|
|
a
|
|
|
Diphthongs
|
|
/iu/, /ui/, /ai/, /au/
|
Alphabet
- Glottal stops are not always reflected in the spelling of a word (Mattes 2014, 12). Occurrences in at least the intervocalic positions are predictable (i.e. phonetic), which isn’t problematic for the language (as we don’t account for them); however, occurrences of glottal stops elsewhere aren’t transcribed consistently, which compromises the language to some degree.
|
Grapheme
|
Phoneme
|
|
a
|
/a/
|
|
b
|
/b/
|
|
d
|
/d/
|
|
e
|
/i/
|
|
g
|
/ɡ/
|
|
h
|
/h/
|
|
i
|
/i/
|
|
k
|
/k/
|
|
l
|
/l/
|
|
m
|
/m/
|
|
n
|
/n/
|
|
o
|
/u/
|
|
p
|
/p/
|
|
r
|
/ɾ/
|
|
s
|
/s/
|
|
t
|
/t/
|
|
u
|
/u/
|
|
w
|
/ʋ/
|
|
y
|
/j/
|
|
’ ; -
|
/ʔ/
|
|
Digraph
|
|
|
ng
|
/ŋ/
|
|
aw
|
/au/
|
|
ay
|
/ai/
|
|
iw
|
/iu/
|
|
oy
|
/ui/
|
|
uy
|
/ui/
|
Syllable Structure
- Bikol syllable structure is CV(C), where V can be either a single vowel or a diphthong (Mattes 2014, 10).
Misc. Rules
- Epenthesis of [h] occurs between stem-final and suffix-initial vowels (Mattes 2014, 9).
- /u/ is realized as [o] in the final syllable of a word (Mintz 1971, 17).
- Glottal stops are always inserted between orthographically adjacent vowels (Mattes 2014, 12).
- Prefix-final /ŋ/ tends to assimilate, to varying degrees, to the first consonant of the stem (Mattes 2014, 9).
References
Mattes, Veronika. 2014. Types of Reduplication: A Case Study of Bikol. De Gruyter.
Mintz, Malcolm W. 1971. Bikol Dictionary. University of Hawai’i Press.