A fishing village in Bolinao Township, Pangasinan

Language information: Kapampangan (also know as Pampango) is the primary indigenous language of the provinces of Pampangan, Tarlac, Nueva Ecija, Bulacan and Bataan in Central Luzon, the Philippines. It is used as a native language by well over two million people. Its genealogically closest relatives are the Sambal languages of Zambales province and the Bolinao language spoken in the township of Bolinao, Pangasinan. Kapampangan has been serving as a literary language at least since Spanish colonial times. This includes a work by Amado M. Yuzon, a Nobel Prize nominee of the mid-20th century.
     Like several other languages of the Philippines, Kapampangan used to be written with the Baybayin script (which is more popularly known as Alibata), one of several syllabaries used on the Philippine Islands since pre-colonial times. Its closest relative appears to be the Tagbanwa script of the Philippines’ Palawan Island. These scripts appear to be at least partly derived from the Jawi script of Java, Bali and Sumatra, which is derived from the Brahmi-derived Pallava script of Southern India. Even now, some Baybayin letters resemble letters in other Filipino and Indonesian scripts, in the Lao, Khmer and Cham scripts as well as in South Indic scripts such as the ones used for Malayalam, Telugu and Kannada. In its pre-colonial form, the Baybayin script omits all syllable-final consonants. The colonial Spanish administration introduced a revised version that sought to remedy this. Though there are people who wish to continue the Baybayin tradition, the script is now practically defunct and is used mostly for decorative purposes.

Genealogy: Austronesian > Malayo-Polynesian > Western > Philippines > Central

Historical Lowlands language contacts: English

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