Abstract
This study investigated the lexical variations in Inabaknon as used by three generations of speakers, the old, middle-aged and young. The ethnolinguistic type of investigation was employed using Speech Elicitation Guide and a Word Checklist to collect the language data needed in the study. The most number of words collected were common to all the three generations of informants. The old generation had more unique words or words that they alone used than the other two generations. Some of the words were of Spanish and Samarnon origin and Catholicism had a great influence on the language. The middle generation shared most of their vocabularies with the old and the young generations. The language of the young generation is influenced by their exposure to the different technological media. They had also the most number of absent Inabaknon lexicon. Some of these are words they can understand but are no longer active in their vocabulary. Some words are already unintelligible to the youth.
Highlights
A language spoken in an island named Capul, Northern Samar in the Philippines, is one of the eight distinct Sama-Badjao Southern Proto Philippine languages,[2] a sub-group belonging to the Austrenesian family of languages
The objectives were as follows: 1) list down the words that are commonly used by the older, middle and younger generations; 2) find out the words used by the older generation which are not commonly used by the middle and the younger generations; 3) identify the words used by the middle generation which are not commonly used by the Linguistics and Literature Studies 6(6): 312-316 older and the younger generations; 4) find out the words used by the younger generation which are not commonly used by the older and the middle generations; and 5) find out the variations in the lexicon observed between and among the older, middle and younger generations of Inabaknon speakers
Sixty six or 5.94 percent of the words were known only to the old generation. This shows that the old generation used words which the other two groups did not know or use
Summary
A language spoken in an island named Capul, Northern Samar in the Philippines, is one of the eight distinct Sama-Badjao Southern Proto Philippine languages,[2] a sub-group belonging to the Austrenesian family of languages. It is a very distinct language making it so different from the other Visayan languages of the nearby towns. The coming of Spanish Catholicism in 1596 made the island of Capul one of the centers of evangelization for Christianity This brought about a heavy Spanish influence upon the Inabaknon on the old native speakers of the language [5]. In spite of the above development, the older folk still preserve their native language through constant use and close association with their kind
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