Isogloss of Mandaya lexemes: Looking into their linguistic variations

Abstract

The Philippine ethnologue has a dearth of data on the dialects of the dominant ethno-linguistic group in Davao Oriental, Philippines, the Mandaya.  These are among the indigenous people inhabiting in the area. In an attempt to propagate their existence, this qualitative study which employs an ethnographic approach has presented a linguistic analysis on the lexical categories of the Mandaya language. This was conducted in the six municipalities and one city in the province of Davao Oriental; Mati City, Tarragona, Manay, Caraga, Baganga, Cateel, and Boston. Results reveal that their lexicon is similar with the different Englishes and other languages of the world. The Mandaya exhibited language variation from Mati to Boston, Davao Oriental. These lexemes show morphological, phonological, and even orthographical variations among the seven localities. The distinctions of the Mandaya lexemes mark their geographical and social identity, since people who are most likely to talk to one another may possess similar linguistic utterance. Hence, variations of this ethno-language are attributed to geographical and social factors.