Northern Luzon languages

The Northern Luzon languages (also known as the Cordilleran languages) are one of the few established large groups within Philippine languages. These are mostly located in and around the Cordillera Central of northern Luzon in the Philippines. Among its major languages are Ilocano, Pangasinan and Ibanag.

Northern Luzon
Cordilleran
Geographic distribution	Cordillera Central (Luzon)
Native speakers	12,928,780 (2020)[1]
Linguistic classification	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Philippine (?) Northern Luzon
Subdivisions	Ilocano Cagayan Valley Meso-Cordilleran Northeastern Luzon Dicamay Agta Arta
Language codes
Glottolog	nort3238
Geographic extent of Northern Luzon languages based on Ethnologue

Internal classification

Lawrence Reid (2018) divides the over thirty Northern Luzon languages into five branches: the Northeastern Luzon, Cagayan Valley and Meso-Cordilleran subgroups, further Ilokano and Arta as group-level isolate branches.^{[2][note 1]}

• Northern Luzon
  • Ilocano
  • Arta
  • Dicamay Agta † (unclassified)
  • Cagayan Valley
    • Isnag
    • Ibanagic
      • Atta
      • Ibanag
      • Itawis
      • Yogad
    • Gaddang-Cagayan
      • Central Cagayan Agta
      • Gaddang
      • Ga'dang
  • Northeastern Luzon^[3]
    • Dupaningan Agta
    • (core)
      • Dinapigue Agta
      • Casiguran Agta, Nagtipunan Agta
      • Pahanan Agta, Paranan
  • Meso-Cordilleran^[4]
    • Northern Alta
    • Southern Alta
    • South-Central Cordilleran
      • Central Cordilleran
        • Isinai
        • North Central Cordilleran
          • Kalinga-Itneg
            • Itneg
            • Kalinga
          • Nuclear Cordilleran
            • Ifugao
            • Balangao
            • Bontok-Kankanaey
              • Bontok-Finallig
              • Kankanaey
      • Southern Cordilleran
        • Bugkalot
        • West Southern Cordilleran
          • Pangasinan
          • Nuclear Southern Cordilleran
            • Ibaloi
            • Iwaak
            • Kallahan
            • Karao

Reconstruction

Proto-Northern Luzon
Reconstruction of	Northern Luzon languages
Reconstructed ancestors	Proto-Austronesian Proto-Malayo-Polynesian Proto-Philippine
Lower-order reconstructions	Proto-Central Cordilleran Proto-Southern Cordilleran

Phonology

Reid (2006) has reconstructed the Proto-Northern Luzon sound system as follows, with phonemic stress:^[5]

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	*i	*ɨ	*u
Open		*a

Consonants

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop	voiceless	*p	*t		*k	*ʔ
	voiced	*b	*d	*j	*g
Fricative			*s
Nasal		*m	*n		*ŋ
Lateral			*l
Approximant		*w		*y

The sound inventory of Proto-Northern Luzon shows no innovations from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian that would set it apart from other Philippine languages. There are however two phonological innovations that characterize the Northern Luzon languages:

• Loss of final *ʔ (< *q)
• Metathesis of *s and *t, e.g. Proto-Northern Luzon *saŋit < Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *taŋis 'weep', *Rasut < *Ratus 'hundred'.

Vocabulary

Lexical innovations only found in Northern Luzon languages include: *dutdut 'feather, body hair', *kəməl 'squeeze', *lətəg 'swell', *yəgyəg 'earthquake', *takdəg 'stand', *ʔubət 'buttocks'. Semantic shifts are observed e.g. in *ʔatəd 'give' (cf. Proto-Philippine *hatəd 'escort') and *laman 'wild pig' (cf. Proto-Philippine *laman 'flesh').^[3]

Footnotes

1. † indicates that the language is extinct.

Ethnic groups

See also: Igorot and Ilocano people

See also

• Northeastern Luzon languages