LANGUAGE LOSS

IN WARAY
ni Voltaire Q. Uyzon
Tagapagtalakay: Mary Rose L. Ombrog
Rationale
A lost language is a lost civilization.
“Ninety percent (90%) of the world’s oral
languages may be lost in the next hundred years”
(Cornille, 2000) “at the rate of two languages each
month” (Headland, 2003).
Ang Pilipinas ay isa sa mga bansa na
mayroong humigit-kumulang 187 na wikang
ginagamit na maaaring maglaho sa pagdaan ng
panahon at nais ng pag-aaral na ito na alamin kung
mapapabilang ba ang wikang Waray sa mga ito.
Rationale

Replacement of Waray Concepts by foreign

terms through the process called unbounded code
switching (Landweer, 2000 as quoted by
Wohlgemuth, 2001, Schmitt, 2001). Unbounded
code switching is the phenomenon by which
language choice changes without notable pattern
or consistency, (Landweer, 2000; Schmitt, 2001).
Rationale
The Waray Language is not used in the
academe, in books and magazines, much less in
any field that requires intellectualization. The
Waray language is a low prestige language. It is
used, in Calvet’s (1998) term as “low variety” type
of communication.
Rationale

“Ang wika ay instrument ng pag-iisip. Sa

pamamagitan ng wika ay umuunlad ang kaisipan.
Sa pag-unlad naman ng kaisipan ay umuunlad a
ng wika. Ngunit kapag ang wika ay naging sagabal
sa pag-iisip, dahil sa hindi pagkakagamit nito, ang
pag-iisip ay nababansot o nababaog at
nagbubunga naman ng kulturang bansot”,
(Constantino, 1996).
Objectives of the Study
This study aims to achieve two (2) main objectives:
1. To methodologically assess the vocabulary usage
of Waray children and use the assessment as a
diagnostic tool in order to determine the degree to
which traditional Waray vocabulary is being
corrupted by English and Tagalog.
2. To identify the present state of Waray language as
used by Waray children of this generation. That is, to
determine if the Waray language is endangered or
not.
Research Respondents

The researcher chose Grade V pupils

coming from Rizal Central School and Barugo
Central School. The researcher chose pupils
coming from these schools so that the
respondents will be able to represent children
coming from the middle and upper social strata.
Each school will be representated by equally 56
pupils.
Research Instrument

The research instrument used in this study is

a survey questionnaire which is called a “word
stimulus”. The questionnaire is divided into 4 parts;
livingroom sub-domain, bedroom sub-domain,
dining room sub-domain and kitchen sub-domain.
Interpretation and Presentation of Data
The bar graph below shows the data gathered
from the answers of the respondents for the Living
room domain:
NO. OF RESPONDENTS WHO GAVE CORRECT WARAY WORDS TO

45

40

35

30
WORD STIMULUS

25

20

15

10

0
window door curtain floor stairs wall JJ

URBAN RESPONDENTS RURAL RESPONDENTS

Interpretation and Presentation of Data
The table below shows the data gathered from the
answers of the respondents for the Living room
domain:
WORD STIMULI INTRUDER WORDS RECALLED NUMBER
CURTAIN KURTINA 35
FLOOR SAHIG; TILES 34
DOOR GATE;DARAANAN;PINTUAN 11
WALL DINGDING 10
WINDOW JALOUSIE 2
STAIRS 0
Interpretation and Presentation of Data
The bar graph below shows the data gathered
from the answers of the respondents for the
Bedroom domain:
NO. OF RESPONDENTS WHO GAVE CORRECT WARAY WORDS TO

45

40

35

30
WORD STIMULUS

25

20

15

10

0
mirror pillow bed lamp mat blanket

URBAN RESPONDENTS RURAL RESPONDENTS

Interpretation and Presentation of Data
The table below shows the data gathered from the
answers of the respondents for the Bedroom
subdomain:
WORD STIMULI INTRUDER WORDS RECALLED NUMBER
BLANKET BLANKET; BLANGKETA; JACKET; 9
BED FOLDING BED 1
PILLOW THROW PILLOW 1
LAMP 0
MAT 0
MIRROW 0
Interpretation and Presentation of Data
The bar graph below shows the data gathered from
the answers of the respondents for the Dining-place
domain:
NO. OF RESPONDENTS WHO GAVE CORRECT WARAY WORDS TO WORD

45

40

35

30

25
STIMULUS

20

15

10

0
drinking glass chair table fork platter blanket

URBAN RESPONDENTS RURAL RESPONDENTS

Interpretation and Presentation of Data
The table below shows the data gathered from the
answers of the respondents for the Dining room
domain:
WORD STIMULI INTRUDER WORDS RECALLED
DRINKING GLASS --
CHAIR ARMCHAIR
TABLE TABLE
FORK FORK
PLATTER PINGGAN
Interpretation and Presentation of Data
The bar graph below shows the data gathered
from the answers of the respondents for the
Kitchen domain:
NO. OF RESPONDENTS WHO GAVE CORRECT WARAY WORDS TO

35

30

25
WORD STIMULUS

20

15

10

0
stove firewood washing area chopping area earthen jar coconut grater

URBAN RESPONDENTS RURAL RESPONDENTS

Interpretation and Presentation of Data
The table below shows the data gathered from the
answers of the respondents for the Kitchen
subdomain:
WORD STIMULI INTRUDER WORDS RECALLED NUMBER
STOVE GAS(GAS RANGE); STOVE; 14
SAINGAN; SHELLANE
EARTHEN JAR JUG 1
WASHING AREA KITCHEN 1
FIREWOOD 0
COCONUT GRATER 0
CHOPPING BOARD 0
Summary
These are the words in Waray that are going to be
lost: “sada”, “biray”, “salog”. Though nealy one-half of rural
and urban respondents still know the Waray words such as
“suga”, “biray”, “salog”, “banig”, “taplak”, “baso”, “lingkoran”,
“lamisa”, “sug-angan”, “panhugasan”, “tadtaran”, “kaguran”,
and molinohan”, these terms are at the brink of oblivion due to
the fact that the respondents unconsciously gave intruder-
words to these terms.
Summary
Furthermore, the respondents, especially the urban
respondents, show no loyalty to the Waray Languange.
Though urban respondents with higher scores in giving the
correct Waray equivalent per given word stimulus, their
unconscious disloyalty is detrimental to the Waray Langauge.
This manifests in unbounded codeswitching among the
respondents.
Conclusion

The researcher concludes from the collected

data that some words of the Waray language are
being replaced with intruder words from English or
Filipino.
Recommendation
The following are the given recommendation
of the researcher to the study:
1. The University of the Philippines in the Visayas
Tacloban College (UPVTC) and Leyte-Samar
Heritage Center must lead in making researchers
so that the Waray language could be taught in
school.
Recommendation
The following are the given recommendation
of the researcher to the study:
2. More researches should be done to validate the
findings of the study and more comprehensive
researches might take into consideration the
phonology, the morphology, the syntax, the
semantics, the vocabulary and the pragmatics of
Waray language.