Maguindanao was a province of the Philippines located in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM). From 2014 to 2022, its provincial capital was Buluan, but the legislative branch of government, the Maguindanao Provincial Board, convened at the old provincial capitol in Sultan Kudarat. It bordered Lanao del Sur to the north, Cotabato to the east, Sultan Kudarat to the south, and Illana Bay to the west.
Cotabato City, officially the City of Cotabato, is a first class independent component city in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 325,079 people, making it as the most populated city under the independent component city status.
Kulintang is a modern term for an ancient instrumental form of music composed on a row of small, horizontally laid gongs that function melodically, accompanied by larger, suspended gongs and drums. As part of the larger gong-chime culture of Southeast Asia, kulintang music ensembles have been playing for many centuries in regions of the Southern Philippines, Eastern Malaysia, Eastern Indonesia, Brunei and Timor, Kulintang evolved from a simple native signaling tradition, and developed into its present form with the incorporation of knobbed gongs from Sundanese people in Java Island, Indonesia. Its importance stems from its association with the indigenous cultures that inhabited these islands prior to the influences of Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity or the West, making kulintang the most developed tradition of Southeast Asian archaic gong-chime ensembles.
Maranao is an Austronesian language spoken by the Maranao people in the provinces of Lanao del Sur and Lanao del Norte and the cities of Marawi and Iligan City in the Philippines, as well as in Sabah, Malaysia. It is a subgroup of the Danao languages of the Moros in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
Maguindanaon, or Magindanawn is an Austronesian language spoken by Maguindanaon people who form majority of the population of eponymous provinces of Maguindanao del Norte and Maguindanao del Sur in the Philippines. It is also spoken by sizable minorities in different parts of Mindanao such as the cities of Zamboanga, Davao, General Santos, and Cagayan de Oro, and the provinces of North Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, South Cotabato, Sarangani, Zamboanga del Sur, Zamboanga Sibugay, Davao del Sur, Davao Occidental, Bukidnon as well as Metro Manila. As of 2020, the language is ranked to be the ninth leading language spoken at home in the Philippines with only 365,032 households still speaking the language.
The Maranao people, also spelled Mranaw,Muranaw, Maranaw, and Mëranaw and recognized also as the Iranaon or the Iranaoans, is a predominantly Muslim Filipino ethnic group native to the region around Lanao Lake in the island of Mindanao. They are known for their artwork, weaving, wood, plastic and metal crafts and epic literature, the Darangen. They are belong to the proto-danao language speakers closely with the Iranun people and they are one of the major Bangsamoro people in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and even in the country Philippines. They are also the tribe of Muslim Filipinos who are led to spreading fastest the popularity of Muslim Filipinos in the Philippines and the country Islamic Faith.
The Philippine languages or Philippinic are a proposed group by R. David Paul Zorc (1986) and Robert Blust that include all the languages of the Philippines and northern Sulawesi, Indonesia—except Sama–Bajaw and the Molbog language—and form a subfamily of Austronesian languages. Although the Philippines is near the center of Austronesian expansion from Taiwan, there is relatively little linguistic diversity among the approximately 150 Philippine languages, suggesting that earlier diversity has been erased by the spread of the ancestor of the modern Philippine languages.
The Iranun are an Austronesian ethnic group native to southwestern Mindanao, Philippines. They are ethnically and culturally closely related to the Maranao, and Maguindanaon, all three groups being denoted as speaking Danao languages and giving name to the island of Mindanao. The Iranun were traditionally sailors and were renowned for their ship-building skills. Iranun communities can also be found in Malaysia and Philippines.
The Philippines is inhabited by more than 182 ethnolinguistic groups, many of which are classified as "Indigenous Peoples" under the country's Indigenous Peoples' Rights Act of 1997. Traditionally-Muslim peoples from the southernmost island group of Mindanao are usually categorized together as Moro peoples, whether they are classified as Indigenous peoples or not. About 142 are classified as non-Muslim Indigenous people groups, and about 19 ethnolinguistic groups are classified as neither Indigenous nor Moro. Various migrant groups have also had a significant presence throughout the country's history.
The Maguindanaon people are an Austronesian ethnic group from the Philippines. The Maguindanaon are part of wider political identity of Muslims known as Moro, who constitute the third largest ethnic group of Mindanao, Sulu and Palawan. The Maguindanaons constitute the ninth largest Filipino ethnic group and are known for being distinguished in the realm of visual art. They have been renowned as metalworkers, producing the wavy-bladed keris ceremonial swords and other weapons, as well as gongs. The Maguindanaons historically had an independent sultanate known as the Sultanate of Maguindanao which comprises modern day Maguindanao del Norte, Maguindanao del Sur, Zamboanga Peninsula, Davao Region and Soccsksargen. The name "Maguindanao/Magindanaw" itself was corrupted by Spanish sources into "Mindanao", which became the name for the entire island of Mindanao.
The agung is a set of two wide-rimmed, vertically suspended gongs used by the Maguindanao, Maranao, Sama-Bajau and Tausug people of the Philippines as a supportive instrument in kulintang ensembles. The agung is also ubiquitous among other groups found in Palawan, Panay, Mindoro, Mindanao, Sabah, Sulawesi, Sarawak and Kalimantan as an integral part of the agung orchestra.
The gandingan is a Philippine set of four large, hanging gongs used by the Maguindanao as part of their kulintang ensemble. When integrated into the ensemble, it functions as a secondary melodic instrument after the main melodic instrument, the kulintang. When played solo, the gandingan allows fellow Maguindanao to communicate with each other, allowing them to send messages or warnings via long distances. This ability to imitate tones of the Maguindanao language using this instrument has given the gandingan connotation: the “talking gongs.”
The Sultanate of Maguindanao was a Sunni Muslim sultanate that ruled parts of the island of Mindanao, in the southern Philippines, especially in modern-day Maguindanao provinces, Soccsksargen, Zamboanga Peninsula and Davao Region. Its known historical influence stretches from the peninsula of Zamboanga to bay of Sarangani until Davao Gulf. During the era of European colonization, the sultanate maintained friendly relations with British and Dutch traders.
The tudong is a style of headscarf, worn as interpretation of the Islamic hijab, prevalent amongst many Muslim women in the Malay-speaking world; Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia, and Singapore. Today, the tudong forms part of the standard dress code for many offices in Indonesia and Malaysia, as well as in school uniforms and formal occasions. Though initially considered a conservative form of dress, it is worn today by most moderate Muslim women in Malaysia and Indonesia.
Rukai is a Formosan language spoken by the Rukai people in Taiwan. It is a member of the Austronesian language family. The Rukai language comprises six dialects, which are Budai, Labuan, Maga, Mantauran, Tanan and Tona. The number of speakers of the six Rukai dialects is estimated to be about 10,000. Some of them are monolingual. There are varying degrees of mutual intelligibility among the Rukai dialects. Rukai is notable for its distinct grammatical voice system among the Formosan languages.
The Greater Awyu or Digul River languages, known in earlier classifications with more limited scope as Awyu–Dumut (Awyu–Ndumut), are a family of perhaps a dozen Trans–New Guinea languages spoken in eastern West Papua in the region of the Digul River. Six of the languages are sufficiently attested for a basic description; it is not clear how many of the additional names may be separate languages.
The Kamula–Elevala languages are a small family of the Trans–New Guinea languages spoken in the region of the Elevala River.
The Iranun language, also known as Iranon or Illanun, is an Austronesian language belonging to the Danao languages spoken in the provinces of Maguindanao del Norte and other part of Lanao del Sur and Lanao del Norte, coastal municipalities of Zamboanga del Sur from Tukuran to Dumalinao and Cotabato in southern Philippines and the Malaysian state of Sabah. It is the second most spoken language in Maguindanao after the Maguindanao language.
Malay spoken by a minority of Filipinos, particularly in the Palawan, Sulu Archipelago and parts of Mindanao, mostly in the form of trade and creole languages, such as Sabah Malay.
Shiek Abdulazis Guroalim Saromantang is a Maranao, an Ulama, and a specialist in Arabic sayings in the Qur’an. He was the first Filipino Muslim who translated Qur’an into Maranao language. He was a former mayor of Tugaya, Lanao del Sur.
