| Molbog | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Philippines, Malaysia |
| Region | Palawan (southern part) Sabah (Banggi and north coast of Borneo) |
| Ethnicity | Molbog |
Native speakers | (6,700 in the Philippines cited 1990)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | pwm |
| Glottolog | molb1237 |
 Areas where Molbog is spoken in the Philippines and the north coast of Borneo | |
Molbog is an Austronesian language spoken in the Philippines and Sabah, Malaysia. The majority of speakers are concentrated at the southernmost tip of the Philippine province of Palawan, particularly the municipalities of Bataraza and Balabac, as well as in neighboring municipalities such as Rizal and Brooke's Point. These two early municipalities were considered bastions of environmental conservation in the province. Apart from that, it is also found in the municipality of Mapun, in the province of Tawi-Tawi, spoken by a small portion besides the Jama Mapun language. Almost all Molbog speakers are Sunni Muslims.
The classification of Molbog is controversial.[2] Thiessen (1981) groups Molbog with the Palawanic languages, based on shared phonological and lexical innovations.[3] This classification is supported by Smith (2017).[4] An alternative view is taken by Lobel (2013), who puts Molbog together with Bonggi in a Molbog-Bonggi subgroup.[5] Ethnically, the Molbog was previously a sub-group of the larger Palaw'an people, and later became as it is due to Islamic influences from the Tausug and Sama-Bajau peoples.[6] Its speakers are also found on the north coast of Borneo and Banggi Island in Sabah, Malaysia.[7]
Phonology
Consonants
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | k | ʔ | |
| voiced | b | d | (dʒ) | ɡ | ||
| Nasal | m | n | (ɲ) | ŋ | ||
| Fricative | s | h | ||||
| Flap | ɾ | |||||
| Lateral | l | |||||
| Approximant | w | j | ||||
- The sounds [dʒ, ɲ] occur as a result of loanwords from Spanish, Malay or dialects of the Sama language.
- /h/ only occurs marginally. While it was generally lost in inherited words, it is retained in some words e.g. luhaʔ 'tears', probably through re-borrowing.[8]
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Mid | o | ||
| Open | a |
References
- ^ Molbog at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ^ Blust, Robert (2010). "The Greater North Borneo Hypothesis". Oceanic Linguistics. 49 (1): 44–118. doi:10.1353/ol.0.0060. JSTOR 40783586. S2CID 145459318.
- ^ Thiessen, Henry Arnold (1981). Phonological reconstruction of Proto Palawan. Anthropological Papers, no. 10. Manila: National Museum of the Philippines.
- ^ Smith, Alexander (2017). The Languages of Borneo: A Comprehensive Classification (PDF) (PhD thesis). University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.
- ^ Lobel, Jason William (2013). "Southwest Sabah Revisited". Oceanic Linguistics. 52 (1): 36–68. doi:10.1353/ol.2013.0013. JSTOR 43286760. S2CID 142990330.
- ^ "View ICCA Site". 5 May 2021.
- ^ Lobel, J.W. (2016). North Borneo Sourcebook: Vocabularies and Functors. University of Hawaii Press. pp. 1–273. ISBN 978-0-8248-5782-0.
- ^ Zorc, R. David; Thiessen, H. Arnold (1995). Molbog: introduction and wordlist. Darrell T. Tryon (ed.), Comparative Austronesian dictionary: an introduction to Austronesian studies: Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 359–362.
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