Mansaka language

Mansaka (Mansaka: Minansaka^[1]) is an Austronesian language of Mindanao in the Philippines. It may be intelligible with Mandaya.

Mansaka
Minansaka
Native to	Philippines
Region	most parts of Davao de Oro, Mindanao
Native speakers	(58,000 cited 2000)[1]
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Philippine Central Philippine Mansakan Mandayan Mansaka
Language codes
ISO 639-3	msk
Glottolog	mans1262
ELP	Mansaka

Mansaka is spoken in western Baganga, and into central-west Davao de Oro province, continuing south back into Davao Oriental Province as far south as Pujada Bay and other provinces that borders the province of Davao de Oro.^[1]

They call themselves Mga Mansaka. The word "Mansaka" literally means "The climbers" in the Mansaka language, from the suffix Man-, meaning "the peoples" in this case, and the word Saka which means "to climb" which , overall, means "The Climbers". The main reason for this is that they live onto high mountains, mainly relying onto their crops and livestock, mainly rice, corn, coconuts, taro, a very specific specie of a root crop called cocoyam or in Minansaka, "karlang", wild pigs, cows and carabaos.

Grammar

The Mansaka Grammar has a simple grammar like any other Austronesian languages. It has the common Singular-Plural forms, the first, second and third persons, past, present and future, and uses suffix, prefix and infixes to construct words and to show their different forms

Grammar

GRAMMATICAL NUMBERS

The Mansaka language uses only two (2) grammatical numbers. These are Singular (one) and Plural (many).

Singular

Singular nouns and pronouns were usually their 'simple forms'

Ex:

Sg: yang katumbal kamanga

yang can be a definite article or a word used to answer someone or something, followed by the word "katumbal" which means "chilli", then followed by the verb "kamanga" which came from the root word "kamang", "to come", added with the prefix "-a" to make the verb imperative So, the sentence means "Get that chilli"

Plural Singular nouns and pronouns can be pluralized by the word mga.

Ex:

Pl: Mga otaw sang Ginoo

Mga pluralizes otaw which is the equivalent of the Bisaya word "tawo" which means 'man'. Sang on the other hand is equivalent to the English word "in, on, or at" and Ginoo, equivalent to the Bisaya word "Ginoo", means "Lord", commonly referring to the Christian Lord. Overall, the word can be translated onto: "O, peoples of the Lord"

PERSONS

Grammatical persons were present in the Mansaka language.