LANGUAGE DISTANCE AMONG BAGOBO SPEECH VARIETIES: A PHILIPPINE LEXICOSTATISTIC STUDY

Ana Marie V. Villanueva, Tessie G. Miralles

Abstract


Language distance quantifies how speeches differ. This study described and compared language distance among Bagobo varieties — Obo Manobo, Klata, and Tagabawa — using a qualitative, descriptive-comparative design. Focus group discussions were held with 30 Bagobo respondents (10 from each subtribe), purposively identified via cultural gatekeepers as native speakers, aged 40 and above, and long-term residents, who provided equivalent Bagobo cognates for each entry in the 207-word Swadesh List. Lexicostatistic analysis derived from WordSurv7 software revealed high language distance among the varieties, that Obo Manobo and Tagabawa formed a closely related pair, a relationship confirmed by their classification as Manobo “languages of a family,” in contrast to the more distant Klata, classified as a Bilic language at the “families of a stock” level, and uniformly low potential mutual intelligibility, challenging long-held assumptions of their ethnolinguistic connectedness. Given these findings, relying on a single Bagobo speech as an auxiliary medium of instruction alongside Bisaya in Davao (DepEd Order No. 020, s. 2025) may disadvantage Bagobo learners, underscoring the need for linguistically inclusive, context-based teaching aligned with SDGs 4, 10, and 16.

 

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language distance, mutual intelligibility, lexicostatistics, education

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.46827/ejel.v11i1.6502

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