What is Cebuano? Why learn Cebuano?

The aim of this blog is to provide reference for those who want to study conversational/practical Cebuano. 


What is Cebuano? Why learn Cebuano?

Cebuano speaking regions in the Philippines .
(photo: Wikipedia)

Cebuano is an Austronesian language spoken in the Philippines by about 20 million people, that is about 25% of the population. It is the most widely spoken member of the Visayan languages; a language closely related to Bahasa Melayu, Bahasa Indonesia, and other Filipino languages. It has the largest native language speaking population of the Philippines despite not being taught formally in schools and universities. It is the lingua franca of the Central Visayas and Mindanao. (ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cebuano_language)


It is spoken in Cebu, Bohol, Negros Oriental, western parts of Leyte, some parts of Samar,Negros Occidental, Biliran islands, southern region of Masbate island and Mindanao. Some dialects of Cebuano have different names for the language. Ethnic groups from Bohol may refer to Cebuano as Bol-anon while Cebuano speakers in Leyte identify their dialect as Kana. Speakers in Mindanao and Luzon refer to the language simply as Bisaya. (ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cebuano_language)


Because it is spoken in many different regions, the spelling might/would/could differ depending on the resources or region where you are but you can still be understood.


Although some words might be different from region to region, this is minimal and nothing to worry about. It's just like British English and American English. Some of the words used are different, such as aubergine and eggplant. An example in Visayan is the word for dragonfly. In some regions, they say tapirot , while in others they call it alindahaw . We'll talk about the differences in the coming posts.

I'll be posting audio files for pronunciation of vocabulary, conversations, exercises for follow ups, short stories, poems and songs.  Plus a lot more to help you learn Cebuano.

Different resources have been used to make this blog happen. They will be noted at the end of every post.

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•  (ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cebuano_language)