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Community-based Descriptive Orthography of Surigaonon Language

Article · December 2017

DOI: 10.7454/ajce.v1i2.91

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 Mariyel Hiyas Liwanag | ASEAN Journal of Community Engagement | Volume 1, Number 2, 2017

Community-based Descriptive Orthography of Surigaonon

Language
Mariyel Hiyas Liwanaga*
aUniversity of the Philippines Los Baños

Received: October 27th, 2017 || Revised: November 12th & November 26th, 2017 || Accepted: November 29th, 2017

Abstract
With the implementation of Mother Tongue-based Multilingual Education (MTBMLE) framework, there is
a dire need to create community-based standardization of orthography for native languages in the
Philippines, and this includes the Surigaonon language as only few languages in the Philippines have
educational materials written for teaching and learning the mother tongue. Moreover, the development of
such materials rarely involves community participation. This research aims to provide preliminary points
of discussion for language policymakers and create an alternative in developing materials through
community engagement. Using the Community-based Approach to Orthography Development by Catherine
Easton in 2003, this study asked seventy (70) Surigaonon speakers from different parts of the province to
spell out 78 items of Surigaonon words, phrases, and sentences. From this corpus, the researcher analyzed
the forms of several initially observed orthographic issues. Out of 18 consonants and 3 vowels that exist in
the language, five critical orthographic issues were identified. These key issues are significant in the
continuous development of Surigaonon orthography. The first two issues that arose from this study are the
inconsistent forms for the vowel sounds [ɪ] and [u]. Though the written form i is mostly used for the [ɪ]
sound, the [u] sound remains unpredictable as it is either spelled out u or o. The same case of
unpredictability occurs with the affricates [dʒ] and [tʃ]. The former is spelled out as either j, dj, dz, or ds
while the latter is spelled out as ts or ch. Lastly, the use of dash is erratic as a representation for a glottal
stop between vowels. This community engagement approach provides an alternative to the traditional
elicitation of data for language education materials. This methodology gives the community the access to
participate in language planning.

Keywords: community engagement; orthography; Surigaonon; language policy and planning; language
education material

1. Introduction
The Mother Tongue-based Multilingual Education (MTBMLE) framework of the
Philippine Department of Education (DepEd) under Department Order 16 of 2012 aims
to include the mother tongue as a subject area and to implement the use of mother tongue
as a language of instruction and discussion inside the classrooms for other subject areas
from pre-school to Grade 3. Initially, the program was offered in a limited number of
languages despite the Philippine ethnolinguistic groups having more than 180 languages.
As of 2016, DepEd teaches different subject areas in Grades 1 to 3 in 19 languages:
Akianon, Bahasa Sug, Bikol, Chavacano, Hiligaynon, Ibanag, Iloko, Ivatan, Kapampangan,
Kinaray-a, Maguindanaoan, Maranao, Pangasinan, Sambal, Surigaonon, Sinugbuanong
Binisaya, Tagalog, Waray, and Yakan (Republic of the Philippines Department of
Education, 2016).
With the implementation of the framework, development of language materials is
necessary, especially since the mother tongue is taught as a subject area. Included in these
materials is the standardization of language. Teresita Fortunato and Maria Stella Valdez
(1995:84) define standardization as the creation of rules for uniformity or basis for
judgment and the use of these rules in language use. The Philippine government for the
longest time has been attempting to provide language standardization for the national
language and the languages in the Philippines. The standardization of language,
specifically orthography, is the process of providing written symbols as representations

*Correspondence Author: [email protected]

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of sounds in oral communication of a language as defined by Fortunato and Valdez

(1995).
The national language Filipino has always been a subject of interest for standardized
orthography as evident in the history of language planning and policies. Fortunato and
Valdez (1995:84) narrate in their book the history of standardizing Filipino orthography
starting from the pre-Hispanic period. They recount that long before the arrival of
Spaniards in the Philippines, Filipinos already had their writing system called baybáyin
and most of the Filipinos knew how to read and write as their laws and literature were
written on tree barks, leaves, or bamboos. The baybáyin writing system has variants like
the Palawan scripts, Kulitan, Surat Mangyan, and Surat Tagalog (de los Santos, 2015) and
all are in the forms of syllabary writing. From the syllabary form of writing, the Spaniards
introduced the romanization of the Philippine writing system and came up with 29
alphabetic letters including the ñ; eventually, these 29-alphabetic letters were trimmed
down to 20 during the Commonwealth period under the Americans (Fortunato & Valdez,
1995:89). These 20 alphabetic letters became 31 in 1976 with the addition of 11 more
letters under the assumption of enriching the orthography of Filipino. Eventually,
according to Galileo S. Zafra (2005:254), the letters ll, rr, and ch were removed in the
revised 1987 The Alphabets and Orthographic Guide for Filipino [my translation of
‘Alpabeto at Patnubay sa Ispeling ng Wikang Filipino’] under Institute of Philippine
Languages. The 2001 revision of 1987 The Alphabets and Orthographic Guide for Filipino
still acknowledges the 28 alphabets for writing Filipino but installed new rules in using
the letters c, f, j, ñ, q, v, x, and z.
Despite the 1987 Constitution’s mandate for Filipinos to recognize the languages in the
Philippines, the emergence of standardization for other Philippine languages had only
intensified when MTBMLE was implemented under the K-12 framework of the
Department of Education (DepEd). The Commission of Filipino Language or Komisyon sa
Wikang Filipino (2016a, 2016b, 2016c, 2016d, 2016e), the language agency of the
government, has published orthography for different languages: Itawit, Kalanguya,
Malaweg, Ibaloy, Pangasinan.
As mentioned by Ibon Foundation, Inc. (2004), one of the myths in the field of research
is that people believe that this endeavor is reserved for intellectuals, the standardization
of orthography has also been the center of political issues for a considerable period. Rifts
between intellectuals of varying disciplines, language organizations and groups emerged
due to different standards of spelling. However, the issue of standardization has always
been attached to the language intellectuals, even though the language is significant to the
community at large. As argued by Tauli (in Victor, 2005), language is important to a
community as it is used for communication.
This preliminary study aims to create a Surigaonon orthography based on the
community engagement as a complement to all existing studies for the language. With
88,129 households as speakers, Surigaonon, according to the 2002 Census (in Dumanig,
2015), is the fourth most spoken language in Region XIII (CARAGA) composed of Surigao
Province (del Norte and del Sur), Agusan Province (del Norte and del Sur), and Dinagat
Islands. Surigaonon is alternatively called Jaun-jaun, Sinurigao, Waya-waya and has a
population of 400,000 speakers as of 2009 (Simons & Fennig, 2017).
Few research has been conducted regarding Surigaonon and standardization of the
language has been attempted by DepEd and other individuals. N. O. Tiukinhoy ‘s
unpublished master’s thesis entitled Isang pahambing na pagsusuri ng mga pandiwang
di-karaniwan sa wikaing Surigaonon at sa wikang Filipino sa larangan ng morpolohiya
ayon sa tatlong aspekto ng mga pandiwa [A comparative analysis of irregular verbs in
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Surigaonon and Filipino language in the field of morphology according to the three
aspects of verbs (translation mine)] focused more on the morphological processes
involved in Surigaonon irregular verbs. This is followed by Dumanig and Jubilado’s
(2006) morphophonemic study on the effects of word-formation to sounds. These studies
are theoretical and focus on word formation and its effect on sounds and other
morphemes. However, these studies remain significant additions to the body of
knowledge for Surigaonon.
Aside from theoretical studies, educational materials emerged for Surigaonon.
Language materials such as dictionaries were also produced during the 2000’s.
Fredesuendo Ong’s (2004) Surigaonon Words and Expressions is first among the locally
published dictionary. This bilingual dictionary contains terms and expressions in
Surigaonon and their English counterparts; each word was written using the alphabetic
system of Spanish. Therefore, the book follows the principle of using Spanish alphabets
in spelling. For example, the sound /kamo/ or ‘you’ are spelled out as camo (Ong, 2004).
Similarly, Samson Deliupa (2012) produced his English-Surigaonon Surigaonon-English
Dictionary. His dictionary contains more than 8,000 Surigaonon terms and more than
2,000 English words with their Surigaonon counterparts (Deliupa, 2012). The same
sound /kamo/ is written in his dictionary as kamo (Deliupa, 2012).
Dictionaries are not the only ones developed through the 2010’s as descriptive
linguistic studies have emerged as well. Francis Tom Paredes (2014) published Sinurigao:
Pormada, Plastada, Tunada, Pasabot with the aim to help teachers in teaching or using
Surigaonon as his booklet serves as a teaching aid across all educational levels. His book
contains a sound inventory of the language, parts of speech, punctuations, and
morphological and phrasal syntax. Additionally, I was also able to develop A Grammar
Sketch of Surigaonon that focuses on syntactical structures of basic sentences in
Surigaonon as a partial requirement for my master’s degree (Liwanag, 2015). However,
the grammar sketch that I have created focused mainly on syntax and only provided
snippets of Surigaonon phonological and morphological aspects. This research gap was
complemented by Francis P. Dumanig in 2015. In the very same year of the approval of
my grammar sketch, Dumanig (2015) also released his study Descriptive Analysis of
Surigaonon Language. He also noted the sound inventory present and described the
morphophonemic changes. His study noted 17 consonants /b/, /d/, /p/, /g/, /k/, /t/, /j/,
/m/, /n/, /ŋ/, /r/, /l/, /s/, /w/, /y/, /h/, and /ʔ/ and 3 vowels /i/, /a/, and /u/ for the
language. He also recognized that in spite of having three vowels noted in spoken
discourse, speakers use five vowel forms in their written discourse. This is part of the
issue recognized in the orthography of Surigaonon.
Additionally, DepEd tried to standardize Surigaonon language, especially the
standards of orthography, because of MTBMLE. Their working material called Magbasa
na Kita explained the old way of writing using Spanish alphabets, like Ong’s dictionary.
In Magbasa na Kita, often used letters were determined through word count of a 4,000-
word story and served as the base of the working orthography (Givertz, et al., 2013).
Given the limited number of linguistic and language education outputs, the establishment
of standardized Surigaonon has yet to be achieved and is strongly needed especially with
the ongoing implementation of MTBMLE. The call for authentic and democratic
standardization of Surigaonon language strongly requires community engagement in the
creation. Thus, this study aims to provide options from democratic consultations to have
a basis for the orthography developers in improving existing orthography material in
MTBMLE as it is necessary for Surigaonon language to remain a mother tongue in
CARAGA. Aside from the lack of mentioning or including of grassroots engagement, the
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module created by the Regional DepEd also remains preliminary, only introducing the
alphabetic letters of Surigaonon and excluding the grammatical rules. Though the
number of participants and the demographics can be considered limited, this study aims
to have a preliminary basis for an orthography development and to broaden the
democratic engagement by reaching out to other sectors of the community – including
the farmers and fisher folks, the professionals, the children, and other members of
Surigao del Norte.
In fact, several types of research from overseas have adapted orthography
development through community engagement. Kirk R. Person (2001) has published a
paper on a community-based approach on orthography development of Bisu in Chiang
Rai, Thailand using the maximum criteria developed by Susan Malone and Dennis
Malone: motivation for the leaners and acceptance of the society, representation, ease of
learning, transfer, and reproduction. Using Malone and Malone’s approach,
standardization of the vowels, consonants, tones, and external influences such as loans,
breaks, and variations were developed for Bisu language (Person, 2001). Catherine
Easton (2003) conducted a community-based approach for alphabetic design under
orthography development for Papua New Guinea. Her study’s framework and
methodological design were used for this study. Brendon Yoder (2017), using Catherine
Easton’s approach in the Alphabet Design Workshop, helped develop an orthography for
Abawiri. Yoder (2017) asked community leaders to write spontaneously using their basic
knowledge of Indonesian orthography, and their outputs were then compared. This study
uses the foundation approach of Easton (2003) and Yoder (2017).

2. Theoretical background
This research used the Community-based Approach to Orthography Development by
Catherine Easton in 2003. She used this approach to orthography development in Papua
New Guinea during the 1990s. This approach to orthography is applied so that the
community will have a sense of involvement in creating their orthography.

Writing or
reading of
language

Identification
Testing of
of problem
decisions
areas

Discussion of
Making of
options for
decisions
the problems

Fg. 1 Easton’s (2003) Orthography Development Approach

This approach by Easton (2003) is cyclical, following the process of 1) writing or

reading language, 2) identifying the problem areas, 3) discussing options for the
problems, 4) making decisions, and (5) testing the decisions. After the fifth part of the
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process, the developers return to the first part of the process. The first part (writing or
reading language) involves the production of wordlists, writing and reading stories, and
playing word games. This part is followed by the second part, isolating problem areas in
which inconsistencies in spelling and difficulty in reading and writing are determined.
These inconsistencies and difficulty are then provided with options or choices as
consulted. Lastly, decisions on orthography are decided either by the participants or
language community members. These decisions are eventually tested through
community feedback and development of materials for writing and reading. These
materials will then be used for identification of problem areas, and the cycle of
orthography development continues until such time that the language community has its
strong development of orthography.
Changes in attitude and methodology in the approach of orthography development
were observed in this process (Easton, 2003). The first change comes with the attitude of
the researchers. Easton (2003) explained that the researcher functions only as a
facilitator and accepts the whole data with their limitations and imperfections. As noted
in a Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) report (in Easton, 2003), “the ownership of the
orthography… is in the hands of the speakers of a language. They must make the decisions
regarding how the orthography should look how to spell the language.” The second
change occurs in the methodology. Traditionally, researchers develop or use generic,
random wordlist to generate data for analyses. In the Community-based Approach to
Orthography Development by Catherine Easton, wordlists are developed under the
direction of natives.
In this approach, the constituents are involved in the decisions of Surigaonon
standardization. This study provides the first three parts of the process for the language
policymakers to have a basis for making decisions on orthography.

3. Methods
In an initial linguistic research for the development of the language’s grammar sketch,
Variations of spelling for some words were noticed. With the initially observed variations
as a basis, a list of 78 words and sentences was developed together with Surigaonon
natives. These items were predetermined so that varieties in written form are to be noted.
The entries for the list contain vowels, consonants specifically affricate, and glottal stop
as these sounds are considered debatable among native speakers.
The list was counterchecked by Surigaonon natives before administration. Seventy
college students from different areas of Surigao del Norte were interviewed and asked to
participate. The process of gathering the written variations for the predetermined words
and sentences started with the researcher providing an explanation about the study. The
participants were also reminded at the beginning and during the data collection to spell
out the spoken words or sentences according to how they write these in their everyday
lives. The words or sentences were articulated by a Surigaonon native speaker while a
participant spelled out the word based on what s/he had heard.
All collected outputs from participants were then collated, and the variations of
orthographic form for each entry in the list were noted. From the collected data, the
researcher determined and presented all written variations for specific entries below.

4. Results and Discussion

On July 6, 2015, this study consulted 70 Surigaonon speakers from different parts of
Surigao del Norte and Dinagat Island. Even though the latter was already a separate
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province under the Republic Act 9355 in 2006, the speakers from the area still refer to
their language as Surigaonon.
Their initial reactions upon hearing the words “spelling of Surigaonon” were a mixture
of excitement and fear. Some fear that they might get wrong answers, to which the
researcher immediately explained that their answers would not be judged and tagged as
right or wrong so they could spell the words as they normally did. This gave them the
feeling of assurance in writing. This approach elicited 8,239 entries from 70 native
speakers. All speakers agreed to take part in further interviews and studies, depending
on their schedules as most of them attend classes or have part-time jobs.
The data from my previous fieldwork complemented the current data from the
participants. In my 2014 fieldwork in Surigao City as part of my master’s thesis, A
Grammar Sketch of Surigaonon, 19 consonants and semi-vowels for Surigaonon have
been documented. The following Surigaonon consonants are represented by their
expected orthographic form as can be observed from Table 1 below. The same rule of
Commission of Filipino Language that the form should follow the sound (Almario, 2013)
is followed by these consonants with exception to the affricates as these will be discussed
in-depth later on.

Table 1. Examples with definitions of Surigaonon consonants

[b] buyak (flower), abot (to pass), huy-ab (to yawn)
[k] koman (now), bakak (to lie)
[d] duwa (to play), kada (every), edad (age)
[g] gantang (measurement for rice), bugas (rice), bukag (container), bungkag
(to separate)
[h] hampaŋ (to play), bahandi (wealth)
[l] láong (to say), palihog (please), tinabal (dried fish)
[m] mingaw (sadness due to longing), hamok (plenty), hilam (mosquito)
[n] nawong (face), hupnig (to put in order), tanan (all)
[ŋ] ngaj-an (later), nganga (betelnut), nawong (face)
[p] panuhot (illness similar to arthritis caused by cold weather), sipa (to
kick), ihap (to count)
[r] rekado (ingredients), parehas (same), tukar (to play musical instrument)
[s] sulti (to talk), pastilan (what a pity), pahukas (dowry)
[t] tahi (to sew), hatod (to accompany), buhut (tobacco)
[w] waldas (to spend extravagantly), pawa (to clear a space), tuwaw (to cry)
[j] yaot (ugly), huyup (to blow), bayay (house), mananambay (quack doctor)

This result complements the documentation done by Dumanig (2015). Dumanig

(2015) mentioned that Surigaonon language has three vowels [a, i, u] though the English
alphabetic vowel forms [a, e, i, o, u] are used in spelling variably. This is particularly true
based on the collated data from the participants. The use of the form a is consistently used
for all [a] sounds, regardless of the position and the environment. This is observed from
the following Surigaonon words bakak (liar), bayay (house), abtik (fast), tanan (all),
mananambay (traditional healer), and sipa (kick).
However, the orthographic variations i and e are observed for the [ɪ] sound. For
example, the sound [ɪdɑd] (age) was spelled out by most of the participants as edad of its
Spanish origin. Though edad is the most common spelling, another form is also used by
some: idad. Another Spanish loan with different spelling in Surigaonon is [rɪkadɔ]
(ingredient). The Surigaonons follow the spelling rekado even though the variants recado
and rikado are also seen. This shows that not all Spanish loans are spelled out as is in their
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original language. Another example of these variations of [ɪ] sound is the spelling of the
word [hɪlɑm] with the most used form hilam (mosquito) and another form helam. This is
also the case for the following examples:

1. [ɪhap] (to come): ihap, ehap

2. [tahɪ] (to sew): tahi, tahe
3. [pastɪlan] (expression for loss
opportunity or empathy): pastilan, pastelan
4. [lɪmpyɔ] (to clean): limpyo, lempyo
5. [taghɪgugma] (to be loved): taghigugma, tag higugma, tag-
higugma, taghegugma

For these five examples above, the [ɪ] sound is often spelled out with the i form and
rarely with the e form. This notion is similar with the idea in the Orthography Guide for
Filipino Language in 2013 as released by Commission of Filipino Language that the form
should be based on how sound is articulated (Almario, 2013). Though variations exist for
the [ɪ] sound in the examples above, some words seem to have a fixed form like the words
sulti (to speak), sija (third person singular nominative), and nija (third person singular
accusative). The variations of i and e remain a debate among native speakers. Similarly,
orthographic variations o and u are observed for [u] sound as observed in the following
examples:

6. [buyak] (flower): buyak, boyak, buak

7. [abut] (to reach): abot, abut
8. [laʔung] (to say): laong, laung, la-ong
9. [kuman] (now): kuman, koman, ku-man
10. [bungkag] (to dig): bungkag, bongkag
11. [nawuŋ] (face): nawong, nawung
12. [wayuŋ] (face): wayong, wayung
13. [panuhut] (coldness in the body): panuhot, panuhut
14. [pahukas] (dowry): pahukas

However, the concept of Orthography Guide for the Filipino Language in 2013 as
released by Commission of Filipino Language that sound should be the basis for the form
(Almario, 2013) is not consistently observed across examples of [u] sounds. Unlike the [ɪ]
sound with the often used i form, the [u] sound does not have a consistently used form.
The first example [buyak] (flower), follows the Commission’s concept of sound as basis
for form. The same goes for examples (9) and (10). Respectively, the words [kuman]
(now) and [bungkag] (to dig) follow the general rule by the Commission. However, some
words do not subscribe to the same concept as seen in examples (7), (8), (11), and (12).
To elaborate, two morphological varieties [nawuŋ] and[wayuŋ] for face are spelled out
with o form instead of u.
Clearly, the rules for writing the Surigaonon vowels are blurred. The vowel [a] is
consistently written as a while the [i] sound has two distinct forms i or e. However, it is
notable that the more widely used form is i. Unlike the consistent use of a for [a] and the
more widely used i for [i], the [u] sound has inconsistent forms o and u. This is a point of
discussion for the language policymakers as the third part of the orthography
development process.
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This inconsistency of written forms is not only observable in vowels but also in specific
consonant sounds in Surigaonon, especially in affricates – the [dʒ] and [tʃ]. The [dʒ] sound
has a consistent orthographic form of j as seen in the first three examples below. The
word [gadʒud] in example (15) has a consistent use of j form for the [dʒ] sound. Similarly,
this is also the circumstance for [sɪdʒa] and [dʒawdʒaw] since the [dʒ] sound for both are
represented by the j form. However, the situation differs for examples (18) and (19).

15. [gadʒud] (really): gajud

16. [sɪdʒa] (third person singular): sija
17. [dʒawdʒaw] (to utter): jaw-jaw, jaw jaw, jawjaw
18. [dʒagan] (to run): jagan, djagan, dyagan
19. [ŋadʒʔan] (now): ngadj-an, ngaj-an, ngads-an,
ngadz-an

In (18) and (19), different forms represent the [dʒ] sound. For example (18), the sound
has three possible forms: j, dj, and dy. The majorly used one is the j form while the second
and the third are few yet realistically used by other people. This is slightly different from
example (19). In (19), the word [ŋadʒʔan] is typically spelled out as ngadj-an, ngaj-an,
ngads-an, or ngadz-an. Most participants used the dj form for it as opposed to the use of j
for [dʒagan]. Therefore, the need to settle how the [dʒ] sound is to be spelled out should
be decided by the language policymakers.
Another affricate that needs to be discussed in depth by language policymakers is the
[tʃ] sound. Similar to [dʒ], the [tʃ] sound has different forms in writing. The word [tʃapa]
(badge) is spelled out either as chapa or tsapa. Most of the participants spelled out the
word as chapa though some spell it out as tsapa. This orthographic outcome for the [tʃ]
sound, though, is different from the[tʃ] of the word [ɪtʃa] (throw). The latter word is
spelled out unanimously by all participants as itsa. This time, the [tʃ] sound is represented
by the form ts instead of ch. Initially, the notable aspect of these two distinguished forms
is that the ch is used for a Spanish loan word while the ts form is used for an indigent
word. However, upon taking into consideration another Spanish loanword [tʃamba]
(fluke), one can deduct that the initial note on the orthographic form of [tʃ] is considered
null as majority of the participants spelled out the second loan word [tʃamba] as tsamba
while only several of them used the variant chamba. Language policymakers and
researchers should gather more data to further analyze the orthographic form for these
two affricates [dʒ] and [tʃ].
Lastly, the inconsistency in the use of dash in Surigaonon orthography is observed in
the corpus of the study. The use of dash in Surigaonon often occurs between two vowels
or sometimes a consonant and a vowel. Examples for these circumstances are provided
below. First and oftentimes, the use of dash is observed as an orthographic counterpart
for the glottal stop [ʔ] between two vowels as observed from example (8) repeated here
as (20):

20. [laʔung] (to say): laong, laung, la-ong

As observed from the example above, the third variant la-ong was spelled out by some
participants to denote a glottal stop between the [a] and the [u] sound while majority left
out the dash and spelled the word continuously. However, the use of dash between two
vowels is inconsistent as seen in the word [tagsɪnbuʔbuʔan] below.
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21. [tagsɪnbuʔbuʔan]
(accusative form of to water): tagsinbubuan, tagsinbubu-an

Most of the participants spelled out the first variant and only few provided the format
of tagsinbubu-an. However, for the next example, the use of dash is evident and this is in
the case of a glottal stop between an approximant consonant sound and a vowel. In
example (22), most of the participants spelled out [hujʔab] (to blow) with a dash between
the approximant sound [j] and the vowel sound [a] and only one participant spelled out
the word without a dash.

22. [hujʔab] (to blow): huy-ab, hoy-ab, huyab

23. [tagʔɪtʃa] (accusative form of to throw): tag-itsa, tag itsa

The participants’ use of dash is also noted between a consonant and a vowel as seen in
(23) above. Majority of the participants used dash and only two of them used the second
form of having a space between the verb [ʔɪtʃa] and the aspect [tag]. An additional
example of consistency in the use of a dash between a consonant and a vowel is the form
used by all participant unanimously, which is the word [sudʔan] (viand). All participants
of the study spelled out this word as sud-an.
This use of dash is also a consistent part of the formula in writing for repeated sounds
as seen in examples (24) and (25) below.

24. [dʒawdʒaw] (to mutter incomprehensibly): jaw-jaw

25. [tagsɪnpɪntɪkpɪntɪk] (accusative form of to flick): tagsinpintik-pintik

Though the use of dash is consistent for repeated sounds, it remains inconsistent for
its other appearances especially as a form of a glottal stop between vowels or a consonant
and a vowel.
These findings are bases that language policymakers can use in order to make
decisions on the standardization of Surigaonon orthography and development of
MTBMLE materials.

5. Conclusion
Working on the orthography in Surigaonon is considered a young project especially
since people’s interest in studying the language has just piqued with the implementation
of MTBMLE. In this preliminary stage of community-based orthography development for
Surigaonon language, several issues were identified. Though the vowel sound [a] is
consistently used with the form a and majority of the [ɪ] sounds are widely spelled out as
i, the [u] sound remains inconsistently spelled out as either u or o. The orthographic form
for the affricates also remains unpredictable as the [dʒ] sound is spelled out mostly using
j and sometimes in a variation of dj, ds, or dz. The similar unpredictability can also be
observed in the [tʃ] sound as it is spelled out as either ts or ch. Lastly, the use of dash is
consistent for repeated sounds and for glottal stops between a consonant and a vowel.
However, it becomes an issue for glottal stops between vowels as these stops are either
represented by dashes or completely ignored.
With this preliminary identification of issues in Surigaonon orthography, the
researcher hopes this study will inform language policymakers of Surigaonon to take into
consideration how most of the speakers write the language. In addition, it is
recommended that the corpus of the study be broadened in terms of democratic
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Mariyel Hiyas Liwanag | ASEAN Journal of Community Engagement | Volume 1, Number 2, 2017

engagement by reaching out to other sectors of the community – including the farmers
and fisher folks, the professionals, the children, and other members of Surigao del Norte.

Acknowledgments
The author would like to offer her warmest and most sincere gratitude to the following:
Mr. Marc Ros, Prof. Iryn Cavite, Ms. Ava Villareal, and Prof. Judel Paredes of Surigao State
College of Technology, and Dr. Francis Dumanig. Salamat karajaw.

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