HomeTin-awvol. 2 no. 1 (2018)

A Dialectology of the Mansaka Language

Anthony Pol P. Fulache

 

Abstract:

The use of language is one of the greatest necessities of life. The greatest aspect of language is its nature to explain, entertain, interpret, teach, more so to interact, express one’s feelings, thoughts and opinion to be understood. Therefore, language plays a great role for a tribe to thrive for as long as everyone in the community speaks the same language. However, intermarriages make changes to language that oftentimes moving to another place. Thus, intermarriages endangered language. Dialects become endangered by many of the same social processes as lead to the loss of languages. The Mansaka ethnic group is found in the province of Compostela Valley. Mansakas gave distinct variation from one municipality to another. This study employed qualitative multiple case study design. The data collected showed the evidence of the existence of linguistic variation of Mansaka dialects. As observed, the variations involved lexico-semantics, and morphophonemic variation. Thus, four themes emerged these were intermarriages, education, peer pressure and advancement of technology. The findings of this study were intended for the possible contribution to the field of applied linguistics and the Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education of the Department of Education. This implies that this tentative Mansaka orthography can be used in preparing for teaching and instructional materials for Mansaka learners in the province of Compostela Valley and in the preservation of Mansaka’s language and culture.