Пангасинан: язык Филиппин

Austronesian language spoken in the Philippines

Pangasinan (Pangasinense) is an Austronesian language, and one of the eight major languages of the Philippines. It is the primary and predominant language of the entire province of Pangasinan and northern Tarlac, on the northern part of Luzon's central plains geographic region, most of whom belong to the Pangasinan ethnic group. Pangasinan is also spoken in southwestern La Union, as well as in the municipalities of Benguet, Nueva Vizcaya, Nueva Ecija, and Zambales that border Pangasinan. A few Aeta groups and most Sambal in Central Luzon's northern part also understand and even speak Pangasinan as well.

Pangasinan is the official language of the province of Pangasinan, located on the west central area of the island of Luzon along Lingayen Gulf. The people of Pangasinan are also referred to as Pangasinense. The province has a total population of 2,343,086 (2000), of which 2 million speak Pangasinan. Pangasinan is spoken in other Pangasinan communities in the Philippines, mostly in the neighboring provinces of Benguet, La Union, Nueva Ecija, Tarlac, Zambales, and Nueva Vizcaya, and has varying speakers in Metro Manila, Cavite, Laguna, Mindoro Palawan and Mindanao especially in Soccsksargen, Davao Region, Bukidnon and Misamis Oriental.

Austronesian speakers settled in Maritime Southeast Asia during prehistoric times, perhaps more than 5,000 years ago. The indigenous speakers of Pangasinan are descendants of these settlers, who were probably part of a wave of prehistoric human migration that is widely believed to have originated from Southern China via Taiwan between 10 and 6 thousand years ago. The word Pangasinan means 'land of salt' or 'place of salt making'; it is derived from the root word asin, the word for 'salt' in Pangasinan. Pangasinan could also refer to a 'container of salt or salted products'; it refers to the ceramic jar for storage of salt or salted products or its contents.

Pangasinan has the following vowel phonemes: lists a number of affixes for nouns. Benton describes affixes in Pangasinan as either "nominal" (affixes attached directly to nouns) and "nominalizing" (affixes which turn other parts of speech into nouns). Benton also describes "non productive affixes", affixes which are not normally applied to nouns, and only found as part of other pre existing words. Many of these non productive affixes are found within words derived from Spanish.

Most of the loan words in Pangasinan are Spanish, as the Philippines was ruled by Spain for more than 300 years. Examples are lugar ('place'), podir (from poder, 'power, care'), kontra (from contra, 'against'), birdi (verde, 'green'), ispiritu (espíritu, 'spirit'), and santo ('holy, saint').