Southern Sorsogon language

Southern Sorsogon
Bisakol
Native to	Philippines
Region	Sorsogon
Native speakers	(185,000 cited 1975 census) [1]
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Philippine Central Philippine Bisayan Central Bisayan Warayan Southern Sorsogon
Language codes
ISO 639-3	srv
Glottolog	wara1299   Waray Sorsogon

Southern Sorsogon (also Waray Sorsogon, Bisakol, Gubat) is a Bisayan language spoken in the southern part of Sorsogon, Philippines, in the municipalities of Gubat, Barcelona, Bulusan, Santa Magdalena, Matnog, Bulan, and Irosin. ^[2] Although located in the Bicol Region, Southern Sorsogon belongs to the Warayan Bisayan subgroup, and is mutually intelligible to Waray which is spoken to the south on the neighboring island of Samar. ^[3] The other two Bisayan languages spoken in the Bicol Region are Masbate Sorsogon and Masbateño.

Phonology

Southern Sorsogon has the following phoneme inventory: ^{[3] [4]}

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
			ʊ
Open		a

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	voiceless	p	t		k	ʔ
	voiced	b	d		ɡ
Fricative			s			h
Nasal		m	n		ŋ
Lateral			l
Trill			r
Semivowel				j	w

Grammar

Personal pronouns

Southern Sorsogon has three personal pronoun sets. ^[3]

	nominative	genitive	oblique
1st person singular	aku	ku	akuʔ
2nd person singular	ikaw, ka	mu	imu
3rd person singular	siya	niya	kaniya
1st person plural inclusive	kita	ta	atuʔ
1st person plural exclusive	kami	mi	amuʔ
2nd person plural	kamu	niyu	iyu
3rd person plural	sira	nira	kanira

Deictic pronouns

Southern Sorsogon has three deictic pronoun sets. ^[2]

	nominative	genitive	oblique
this, here (near speaker & addressee)	ini	sini	dini
that, there (near addressee)	yuʔun	suʔun	duʔun
yon, over there (remote)	idtu, yadtu [5]	sadtu	didtu

Noun case markers

Southern Sorsogon has three noun case marker sets. ^[2]

	nominative	genitive		oblique
		definite	indefinite
Common	an	san	sin	sa
Personal singular	si	ni		kan
Personal plural	sira	nira		kanda

Verbs

Verbs in Southern Sorsogon are inflected for focus and aspect. ^[6]

	completed	progressive	anticipative	infinitive	imperative
Actor focus	nag-/⟨un⟩ naN-	nag-CV- naN-CV-	má- maN-CV-	mag-/⟨un⟩ maN-	pag-/∅ paN-
Patient focus	⟨in⟩	C⟨in⟩V-	CV- -un	-un	-a
Locative focus	⟨in⟩ -an	C⟨in⟩V- -an	CV- -an	-an	-i
Instrument focus	⟨in⟩	C⟨in⟩V-	i-CV-	i-	-an

Vocabulary

Numbers

Southern Sorsogon has the following numbers: ^[2]

English	Tagalog	Southern Sorsogon
one	isá	sayúʔ
two	dalawá	duwá
three	tatló	tulú
four	apat	upát
five	limá	limá
six	anim	unúm
seven	pitó	pitú
eight	waló	walú
nine	siyám	s(i)yám
ten	sampoʔ	napúluʔ

See also

• Waray language
• Waray people
• Masbateño language
• Bisakol languages
• Visayans

References

1. Southern Sorsogon at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. MacFarland, Curtis D. (1974). The Dialects of the Bikol Area (Ph.D. dissertation). University of New Haven.
3. Zorc, David Paul (1977). The Bisayan Dialects of the Philippines: Subgrouping and Reconstruction . Canberra, Australia: Dept. of Linguistics, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University. doi: 10.15144/PL-C44 . ISBN   0-85883-157-0.
4. San Jose, Dominic Bryan S.; Pilar, John Gerald A. (2023). Phonological idiosyncrasies of the Southern Sorsogon dialect in Bulan, Philippines.
5. Jamora, Michael John A. (2011). “A Preliminary Study of the Lexical, Morphological, and Syntactic Variation of the Sorsoganon Languages”. In Proceedings of the 11th Philippine Linguistics Congress. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Department of Linguistics. Accessed 10 March 2025 at the UP Department of Linguistics website: https://linguistics.upd.edu.ph/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/11PLC-Proceedings-.pdf.
6. Escalante, Antonio H. (1996). "A Study of South Sorsogon Verbs". In Ernesto A. Constantatino (ed.). Three Studies on Philippine Morphology. The Archive, Publication 11. Diliman: University of the Philippines. pp. 139–230.