Tagalog-Maguindanao Vocabulary

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Great bodies of water separated us from our brothers. Time brewed the tongue that once we shared. An old book is there, waiting to be discovered. It is generous to share its content to a curious lad. And now, I want to share some of my observations about the fruit of that said book. This caught my interest because it is about the Maguindanao language which is one of the many languages in the Philippines.

This book is entitled, “A Grammar of the Maguindanao Tongue According to the Manner of Speaking it in the Interior and on the South Coast of the Island of Mindanao” and can be found here.

As I browsed in its pages, I notice some words are exactly the same as Tagalog‘s.

• Langit (heaven/sky)
• Lupa (earth)
• Mata (eye)
• Sakit (pain)

I also notice some words which resemble Tagalog words with minor difference to them. In the list below, the Tagalog words (starting with letter B) have a Maguindanao counterpart in which instead of B, U is used.

• Bata (child) – Uata
• Bato (stone) – Uatu
• Bahay (house) – Ualay

I found some word where in Maguindanao has /r/ sound instead of /d/ or /l/.

• Sulat (to write) – Surat
• Dugo (blood) – Rugu
• Kilay (eyebrow) – Kiray

Finally, there are some equivalents which have rather strange difference.

• Higa (to lie down) – Miga
• Buno (to wrestle) – Mbunu
• Dalawa (two) – Dua
• Siyam (nine) – Siau
• Sampu (ten) – Sapulu
• Hulog (to fall) – Ulug
• Lakad (to walk) – Lacao
• Kahoy (wood) – Kayo

If anyone is interested to see or participate in my Google docs about this language, you can find it here.

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