The current status of the Butuanon language and its speakers in Northern Mindanao: Findings on ethnic identity, language attitudes, language ability, language use, and language change

• Main Author: Kobari, Yoshihiro Kobari
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2009
• Subjects: Butuanon language > Study and teaching; Language and languages > Study and teaching > Philippines; Linguistics > Research > Philippines; Applied Linguistics; Linguistics
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_doctoral/288; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/context/etd_doctoral/article/1287/viewcontent/CDTG004755_P.pdf
• Institution: De La Salle University

This study was an attempt to analyze the current status of the Butuanon language and its speakers in northern Mindanao under Philippine multilingualism. It incorporated Sasses (1992a) model of language death consisting of three levels of research: the external settings, the speech behavior, and the structural consequences. The specific research questions were formulated in the five areas of concern: ethnic identity, language attitudes, language ability, language use, and language change. The study utilized questionnaires, interviews and language tests (vocabulary and sentence translation) for 100 informants (10 males and 10 females from the five age groups, ranging from 11 to 79 years old) of Barangay Babag (one of the rural communities in Butuan City). The results revealed that the informants were multilingual with the general ranking of multilingual ability (Butuanon-Cebuano-Tagalog-English) and generally possessed positive attitudes towards their ethnolinguistic group and language. Although a little confusion in ethnonym selection for self-identification was observed between Butuanon, Bisaya and Lapaknon, their ethnic awareness between us and others was still intact and commonly realized by linguistic differences in interethnic contact. It seemed that the Butuanon language gained renewed interest as one of the ethnic markers in danger of potential extinction. Furthermore, knowing a reduced set of salient features appeared to be equated with speaking Butuanon competently and fluently. The language test results indicated the intergenerational distribution of language ability among the informants with various signs of diffusion, mainly under the influence of Cebuano structures. Based on the findings of the study, a Butuanon case model of language death was presented with the prospects of the Butuanon language and its speakers under the cultural and linguistic influence of Bisayanization in northern Mindanao.