Wiktionary:About Cebuano

This page explains considerations (beyond those covered by general policies) which apply to Cebuano entries and Cebuano translations of English entries.

Entry layout explained is the principal policy on formatting entries. This document supplements that policy.

Spelling
Cebuano entries should follow the spelling rules established by Bisaya magazine. The same set of rules are also adopted by the Komisyon Probinsiyal sa Sinugboanong Pinulongan of the province of Cebu and by the Philippines' Department of Education in 2014. The same rules are used in the textbook Talamdan sa Pagtudlo (Teacher's Guide), published by the Department of Education as a manual for teaching mother tongue classes in the grades one, two, and three in the Philippines' Central Visayas region. The spellings are detailed in Appendix:Cebuano spellings.

Lemmas
Following practice by most dictionaries, the lemma for Cebuano verbs should generally be the bare root; the few cases of affixed verb lemmas should generally be ones that are defined differently from the basic form or have figurative meanings.

Conjugation
(verbs only)

Alternative forms
As a descriptive dictionary, Cebuano entries in Wiktionary should also list alternative forms, that are soft redirects to the standard spelling, such as:


 * Dialectal spellings (e.g. Metro Cebu or Boholano spellings)
 * Historical, alternative, or superseded spellings

Cebuano entries are generally written in Latin script and without diacritics (except the Ñ found in proper nouns). Historically, kudlit kabadlit (basically the same as Tagalog baybayin) is used, but Cebuano presently accept only Latin script.

The main Cebuano entry should generally follow the orthography created by Bisaya, which is explained in.

Etymology
Many native Cebuano words are homographs, which may derive from different ways, so there may be multiple "Etymology" headers

[Part of speech]
Cebuano descends from Proto-Philippine, Proto-Malayo-Polynesian, and Proto-Austronesian. Those proto-languages are not attested, but reconstructed from evidence on related languages.

Cebuano words may derive from these methods:


 * Affixation
 * Compounds and blends.
 * Borrowings and inheritance
 * Neologisms

Affixed words
The origin of Cebuano words formed by adding affixes can be added using affix (abbreviated af), which is preferred over the older templates prefix and suffix. For infixes, use infix. For example:


 * - ceb
 * - ceb

Compounds and blends
Words that are compounds and blends can be specified using the af and blend templates.

Loanwords and inherited terms
Cebuano words that are inherited or borrowed fall in three major categories: inherited terms (from Proto-Philippine, Proto-Malayo-Polynesian, and Proto-Austronesian), early borrowings (from Sanskrit, Malay, Arabic, Chinese, Tamil), and modern borrowings (from Spanish, English and others, including borrowings from early modern Spanish). In detail:


 * Inherited terms - terms inherited from the reconstructed ancestors of Cebuano: Proto-Philippine, Proto-Malayo-Polynesian, and Proto-Austronesian. Words from those are tagged with inh. Some entries may refer to Proto-Central Philippine and Proto-Bisayan, but these proto-languages are not yet supported by Wiktionary.


 * Early borrowings - terms borrowed before Western contact from the 16th century onwards. This include borrowings from Chinese (usually from dialects of Hokkien and Cantonese), Sanskrit (usually via Old Malay or Kawi), Arabic, Persian (also usually via Old Malay), and Malay (usu. Old Malay). These should be tagged with der (for Sanskrit, Old Malay) or bor (for all others, unless borrowed via an intermediate language like Old Malay or Kawi).
 * Modern borrowings - terms borrowed since Western contact, from the 16th century onwards. Words were borrowed from Spanish since Spanish colonization, English since American colonization, and other foreign and Philippine languages from different times in history and contacts with other cultures. Early Spanish borrowings, especially from early modern Spanish, are usually corrupted as they were borrowed into Cebuano. These are tagged with bor.

Spanish or English in origin? This is a perennial problem encountered when dealing with modern Cebuano borrowings of Latinate origin where the etymon can either be English or Spanish; both languages having huge Latin-based vocabularies. This is due to several factors:


 * There is a myth lots of Spanish borrowings, especially those related to things introduced from the 20th century afterwards, are merely created out of the English. This is from a misunderstanding about the old rule of translating the English to Spanish, borrowing the Spanish and respelling it. Some people thought it to be equal to "Hispanization" of the English if the English and Spanish are cognate. Lack of awareness about Spanish, especially its history in the Philippines (such as its continued existence beyond 1898), and Spanish being often called K[in]atsila (Castilian) in Cebuano, often to the exclusion of other Spanish varieties, are also contributory.
 * Cebuano is also rife with Spanish-sounding pseudo-loans, and productive affixes from Spanish have been borrowed into Cebuano as well (e.g., which can be added to both native and foreign roots).

Spanish borrowings in Cebuano should be easy to spot by looking at their endings or pronunciation, but at times, it can be counterintuitive. Pseudo-loans from Spanish should generally be obvious by comparing them against the actual Spanish usage by looking up an English-Spanish dictionary.

Pronunciation
See for detailed information about the sounds of Cebuano.

IPA transcriptions of Cebuano can be created automatically through ceb-IPA template or entered manually using IPA. Pronunciations specific to certain Cebuano accents or dialects are marked with a before the IPA transcription, e.g. Urban Cebuano pronunciations are marked Metro Cebu. If there are no accent qualifiers, the pronunciation provided is assumed to be the standard across dialects.

Hyphenations of words should be generally by the syllable.

Core
Cebuano entries can have these headers:


 * Part of speech: Adjective, Adverb, Conjunction, Contraction, Interjection, Noun, Numeral, Particle, Pronoun, Proper noun, Verb
 * Morphological features: Circumfix, Infix, Prefix, Suffix
 * Symbols and characters: Diacritical mark, Letter, Number, Punctuation mark, Symbol
 * Phrases: Phrase, Prepositional phrase, Proverb

Headwords should preferably use standard templates using Module:ceb-headword as back-end, otherwise, use headwords created using ceb. Accented forms as a pronunciation guide, which are helpful to distinguish homographs are generally inserted there.


 * Adjectives: ceb-adj
 * Adverbs: ceb-adv
 * Nouns: ceb-noun
 * Proper nouns: ceb-proper noun
 * Verbs: ceb-verb

Diacritics
Diacritics are normally not used in written Cebuano, but are used for headwords in most Cebuano dictionaries to distinguish homographs. If no diacritics are provided, the word is assumed to be stressed in the second to last syllable.

Cebuano uses stress and/or final glottal stops to distinguish homographs, and is represented by marking a vowel with an:


 * acute: primary or secondary stress, except on the second-to-final syllable.
 * circumfix: primary stress and final glottal stop on last syllable.
 * grave: final glottal stop

These diacritics are also used to determine the pronunciation generated by ceb-IPA.

Labels
Dialectal, archaic or obsolete entries or senses should be marked

Verbs
As mentioned, Cebuano verb are usually the unaffixed root, but this creates a problem as verbs or specific verb senses can take only certain suffixes. There remains no solution to handle verb conjugation types, similar to those done in A dictionary of Cebuano Visayan. Where support should be added, it should be a template placed before or after the definition.

Conjugation
Place here verb conjugation tables (find at Category:Cebuano verb inflection-table templates).

Derived terms
List here the words that are morphological derivatives of the word in the same language. In Cebuano, affixed words and compound words that are lemma are considered derived terms.

Related terms
List here words that are etymologically related but are not derived words.

About the language
Cebuano (also commonly called Bisaya, though it can refer to the other related Visayan languages as well) is an Austronesian language, and one of the Philippine languages. While not an official language of the Philippines, it is one of the recognized regional languages of the Philippines under the 1987 constitution and is taught as a subject from kindergarten to grade 3 in areas where it is the primary native language. It is the second most-spoken language in the Philippines, with its native range concentrated in Central Visayas, Leyte Island and northern Mindanao; it is a second language for most of Mindanao.

Cebuano is one of the Visayan languages, and is related to Hiligaynon, Waray-Waray, Aklanon, Tausug and Surigaonon, with varying degrees of mutual intelligibility. It is a Central Philippine language, and alongside the aforementioned Visayan languages, is closely related to the Bikol languages (Bikol Central, Iriga Bicolano/Rinconada) and Tagalog.

There is no comprehensive dialectology for Cebuano, but it is generally divided into these dialects. Most of the dialectal division is based on the treatment of intervocalic /l/ in native vocabulary:


 * Cebu Cebuano
 * General Cebuano (standard, based on Sialo or Carcar-Dalaguete dialect)
 * Urban Cebuano
 * Northern Cebu Cebuano
 * Boholano Cebuano ("B[in]ol-anon")
 * Leyte Cebuano ("Kana")
 * Northern Leyte
 * Southern Leyte
 * Mindanao Cebuano (commonly called "B[in]isaya")
 * Cagayan de Oro Cebuano
 * Davao Cebuano
 * Surigao Cebuano
 * Zamboanga del Norte Cebuano

Resources

 * Diccionario bisaya-español (reference template: R:Diccionario bisaya-español), Cebuano-Spanish dictionary by Juan Felis de la Encarnación. Digital copy (from the Bavaria State Library Munich) available at Google Books.
 * Diccionario español-bisaya (reference template: R:Diccionario español-bisaya)
 * A dictionary of Cebuano Visayan (reference template: R:Wolff 1972), Cebuano-English dictionary by John U. Wolff. Now in public domain; all entries also ported to Pinoy Dictionary (see below). Dictionary uses a nonstandard spelling (most should be easily transcribed into standard orthography), and affixed forms or compounds are listed under their root, but it provides lots of usage examples. It also provides what conjugation a verb root can have.
 * Cebuano Pinoy Dictionary (reference or further reading template: R:ceb:Pinoy Dictionary) Cebuano-English dictionary by Cyberspace.ph, also hosts digitized entries from John U. Wolff's A dictionary of Cebuano Visayan (see above).
 * Diksiyonaryo.ph by the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino. Use R:Pambansang Diksiyonaryo when using as reference or as further reading. Cebuano entries are marked with Seb (Sebwano).