Visayan 1/linguistic characteristics

Pronunciation

Consonants are pronounced the same as in English except for:

• g is always pronounced like a hard g in English (as in "get").
• ng is the same sound as the ng in fang. In Visayan the ng sound can occur at the beginning of a word (ngalan).

Although there are five vowels in Visayan, there are only three vowel sounds: a, e/i, and o/u.

• a is always pronounced like the a in apple.
• e and i are either pronounced like the second vowel in taxi (gabii) or like the vowel in it (pansit). e should always be pronounced as the e in bed.
• In vowel-consonant syllables, o and u are pronounced like the vowel in the English word cute (ugma). In consonant-vowel syllables, o and u are pronounced like the vowel in the English word boat (e.g. ko); u should always be pronounced as the oo in look.

Visayan has three dipthongs:

• aw (ikaw) is pronounced like the English cow.
• ay (balay) is pronounced like the English sky.
• oy and uy (kahoy) are pronounced like the English boy.

Contractions

Contraction	Original	English
akog	ako og	me and
akong	ako ng	mine
among	amo ng	ours
di	dili	not
ka	ikaw	you
ilang	ila ng	theirs
imong	imo ng	yours
iyang	iya ng	his, hers
kadtong	kadto ng	that (over there)
kag	ka og	you and
kamig	kami og	us and
kamog	kamo og	all of you
kanang	kana ng	that and
kining	kini ng	this and