Welcome to Kapampangan .net !

If you have any interest in buying this domain name, check the Namecheap Marketplace. Thanks!

Introduction to Kapampangan

Language Name: Kapampangan. It has also been called Pampanga, Pampango, Pampangan, or Pampagueño, but the name Kapampangan has been used most often in the linguistic literature, and is also preferred by native Kapampangans.

Location: Kapampangan is spoken mainly in Pampanga province, but also in parts of Tarlac, Nueva Ecija, Bulacan, and Bataan provinces, Central Luzon, the Philippines.

Family: Austronesian language family, Malayo-Polynesian branch, Western Malayo-Polynesian subbranch, Northern Philippine, Bashiic-Central Luzon-Northern Mindoro, Central Luzon, Kapampangan.

Related Languages: Kapampangan is classified as one of the Northern Philippine languages, although this classification is by no means definitive, since Kapampangan is not similar to TAGALOG to the south, nor to ILOCANO to the north in many respects.

Dialects: There are at least two major dialects; in the western dialect, final -ay has frequently changed to -e, final -aw to -o (Forman 1971a). Anicia Del Corro has worked on Kapampangan dialects in the 1980’s, and classified the dialects into Northern, Eastern, Central, Western, and Southern. Both Forman (1971a) and Gonzalez (1981) think that there are only minor differences among the dialects.

Number of Speakers: 2 million (Ethnologue, 13th edition, 1997, SIL).

Origin and History: Little is known about the pre-Hispanic history of the language, except the existence of a Kapampangan syllabary (Forman 1971a). The first recorded pedagogical grammar in Kapampangan was Arte, Vocabulario, y Confesionario Pampango by Diego Ochoa (circa 1580). Augustinian friar Diego Bergaño wrote several important works, including Arte de la Lengua Pampanga (1729) and Vocabulario de la Lengua Pampanga en Romance (1732).

One remarkable style of Kapampangan literature is called the crissotan, named in honor of famous playwright and poet Juan Crisostomo Soto (1867-1918), which is a debate in Kapampangan verse (Zapanta-Manlapaz 1981).

Orthography: Generally, the Tagalog-based orthography is used for writing Kapampangan, although the Spanish-based orthography may sometimes be considered authentic and preferred. In addition, one may find minor spelling variations mostly due to personal preferences. The Tagalog alphabet consists of the following letters (in alphabetical order): A B K D E G H I L M N NG O P R S T U W Y.

Kapampangan has the following consonants and vowels shown in the tables by their orthographic symbols. The voiceless velar stop may get voiced and fricativized between vowels in some words (e.g. kéka ‘2sg oblique pronoun’). The glottal stop is not always indicated in writing or publication, but in this overview, it is represented with a grave accent (`) on the final syllable, or a circumflex accent (^) if the word has final stress.

Two pairs of vowels, [i, e] and [u, o], may be contrastive or may be alternants in the same word (e.g. ku ‘1sg pronoun’ vs. ko ‘2pl pronoun’; kuya ~ koya ‘elder brother’). The mid variants [e] and [o] may occur word-finally in interrogative or exclamatory utterances (e.g. E ku balù. ‘I don’t know’ vs. E me balò? ‘Don’t you know him?’).

Adjectives may be monomorphemic or formed with a root and affixation. A large number of adjectives are formed by adding the prefix ma- (plural manga-). The comparative degree is marked by mas, borrowed from Spanish (e.g. mas maragul ‘bigger’). Superlative adjectives are formed with the prefix peka- (pekamaragul ‘biggest’). Adjectives may be intensified by the prefix ka-, in place of ma- (karagul ‘so big’), or by the repetition of an adjective (Matas yang matas. ‘He/She is very tall.’)

Kapampangan has a three-way spatial demonstrative system (proximal = near the speaker; medial = near the listener; distal = far from both). However, spatial demonstrative adverbs distinguish two degrees of distals (visible vs. invisible).

handsome abs.3sg art.abs.sg Dan

Here are some examples of the noun phrase. (lk = linker, which is realized either as =ng (after vowels, n, and the glottal stop) or a): ing kótse ku (art.abs.sg car erg.1sg) ‘my car’; ing báyu ku=ng kótse (art.abs.sg new erg.1sg=lk car) ‘my new car’; iní=ng anák na=ng Jun (this.abs.sg=lk child erg.3sg=art.erg.sg Jun) ‘this kid of Jun’s’; ing dimdám ku kang Aida (art.abs.sg heard erg.1sg art.obl.sg Aida) ‘what I heard from Aida’.

eating.af abs.3sg=lk chicken

‘He/She is eating chicken.’ (Root: kan ‘eat’)

eating.pf erg.1sg+abs.3sg art.abs.sg chicken

‘I am eating the chicken.’ (Root: kan ‘eat’)

give.to.df erg.2sg+abs.3sg=lk money that.abs.sg=lk child

‘(You) give some money to that kid.’ (Root: din ‘give’)

pray.for.bf erg.2sg+abs.3sg

‘(You) pray for him/her/it.’ (Root: adî ‘pray)

Penyúlat ke ing lápis.wrote.with.if erg.1sg+abs.3sg art.abs.sg pencil‘I wrote with the pencil.’ (Root: súlat ‘write’)

neg erg.3pl already abs.1pl.incl like

‘They don’t like us any more.’

exist one lk king lk fond art.obl.sg story

neg.exist=lk food art.obl.sg house

‘There is no food in the house.’

neg.exist abs.3sg

‘He is absent.’ (The special third-person form yu is used instead of ya)

exist abs.3sg=lk sibling lk man art.abs.sg Tony

‘Tony has a brother.’

flower: sampága tree: dútung

water: danúm sun: aldó

three: atlú fish: asán

long: makábà good: máyap

yes: wa no: alî

big: máragul small: malatî

bird: áyop dog: ásu

town: balén house: balé

(1) Atín ku=ng balíta=ng tínggap ku nápun.

exist abs.1sg=lk news=lk received erg.1sg yesterday

‘I have news that I received yesterday.’

neg erg.1sg know=lk came abs.2sg here

(3) Nung bísa kayú=ng mulí atád da kayú.

if want abs.2pl=lk go.home escort erg.1sg abs.2pl

(4) Kítang da nung nánu=ng milyári kayá.

asked erg.3pl comp what=art.abs.sg happened obl.3sg

‘They asked what happened to him.’

caus-big abs.3sg=lk tomato

‘He grows tomatoes.’ (causative)

The pioneering organization promoting the perpetuation of Kapampangan literature and the research on Kapampangan history and language is the Akademyang Kapampangan (AKKAP), founded in 1937 by Zoilo J. Hilario, Monico R. Mercado and Amado M. Yuzon. AKKAP’s periodical is titled Ing Susi (‘The Key’).

Today, there are many individuals and various groups interested in preserving and promoting Kapampangan language and culture. One of such groups is the Batiauan Foundation, whose mission is to launch and fund projects aimed against the decline in the prestige and use of the Kapampangan language. Kapampangan people’s efforts are also centered on some web sites (e.g. Kapampangan Homepage: www.balen.net). (I owe to Dave Nepomuceno and Mike Pangilinan much of the sociolinguistic information here.)

Kapampangan > Tagalog Dictionary