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Buhi is one of the towns in the province of Camarines Sur in Bikol Region. The Buhi
dialect, commonly known as ‘Boînən’ (or Buhi-non for non-speakers) and mainly spoken in
the town of Buhi, belongs to the group of Rinconada dialects. The others are Bula, Baao,
Boînən is considered by many Bikolanos quite different from the other Bikol dialects
and it carries some peculiar sounds which non-Buhinons find difficult to learn. According to
popular knowledge, the inhabitants of Buhi were those who escaped from the eruptions of
Mayon Volcano who were from Albay and other towns affected by the volcanic eruptions.
Hence, Boînən is a mixture of Bikol dialects mainly influenced by the dialects of Albay and
Rinconada. The inhabitants cannot give explanation of the origin of the peculiar sounds of
Buhi dialect that which makes it unique among all other Bikol dialects. Portugal (1999?)
devised certain symbols to represent these sounds and there are already native speakers
who adapted her symbols in their writings. They are used both in the phonemic
transcriptions and orthography of Buhi words. Lobel (2000), however, used an IPA symbol
to represent these peculiar sounds. McFarland used a barred ‘g’ - a non IPA symbol (Pikes)
but it is the equivalent to IPA’s / / vd. velar fricative. These sounds, nonetheless, have also
similarities in dialects spoken in Iloilo, Aklan and the Ilocos; and no invented symbols were
necessary to represent the peculiar sounds. Since, the invented symbol used by Portugal
has to be written manually, I would rather adopt the symbols used by Lobel. Moreover, the
latter justified that “it is a / / voiced velar fricative, or close enough that it does not need an
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A. There are 26 sounds in Boînən, 15 of which are consonants, 4 are vowels and
7 are diphthongs. /w/ and /y/ are either semivowels or semiconsonants. /h/
sound does not occur in this dialect and // sound occurs in its place in the
initial position; and yet, the name of the town ‘Buhi’ has an /h/ sound and this
is a single case.
new
calm
path
retrieve
əə cut
that, pick
like
smaller mosquito
laugh
destroy
who
slow
mess up
falling
snake
imitate
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THE CONSONANT CHART
1.) The unvoiced stops /p/, /t/ and /k/ are unaspirated.
2.) /t/, /d/, /s/, /n/ and /l/ are dental consonants, not alveolar as in English,
PLOSIVES
FRICATIVES
NASALS
LATERALS
FLAP
GLIDES
because the tongue touches the back of the teeth in the Buhi articulation.
3.) /r/ is a flap not a retroflex or trilled. It’s the Tagalog /r/.
5.) Sounds which are foreign to Boînən and are borrowings from Spanish and
English are:
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// /ts/, e.g. ‘chinelas’ //tsinelas2 (slippers)
//
, e.g. English hospital → Buhi ospital ‘hospital’
LOW
Boînən has a four-vowel system. Portugal (?) claims that her dialect has a
schwa sound /ə/ instead of the common // in the Philippine languages. While Lobel
(2000) and Yamada (2002) consider the sound in question as pĕpĕt but both use the
symbol /ə/ to represent it. After listening to native speakers of Boînən, I think it is more
like a pĕpĕt rather than a schwa sound. Moreover, Conant (1912) stated in his studies
that this original indifferent vowel (pĕpĕt //) existed in Philippine languages and has
“evolved into various and more or less definite vowel sounds.” Bikol is one of these
languages and Boînən has retained the // sound. Reid (1973) has also written on this
The [u] sound is an allophone of the phoneme //. Portugal absolutely abstains
from the use of /u/ in her orthography unless it appears in a loanword. Nevertheless,
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This is the orthography for ‘slippers’ but commonly pronounced as transcribed above. Like Tagalog, Buhi dialect
does not have the / / sound but have adopted it because of loanwords. However, the orthography adopts the local
way using (ts).
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B. The Diphthongs
‘to shout’
‘sound of plunging water’
‘to tip’
‘headache’
‘to snatch’
‘soot’
‘to look back’
‘spurting water’
‘to give’
‘eyebrow’
‘sit beside’
‘align’
‘to sail’
‘limp’
‘whistle’
‘palm leaf’
‘straight’
The seven Boînən diphthongs are not a combination of two vowels but a
Portugal ( ?), in her book Buhi Dialect, noted seven more diphthongs that
are combinations of vowels and the peculiar Buhi sound. She invented the
nucleus and formed 7 more diphthongs. On the other hand, Lobel (2000)
considered the unique sound as a voiced velar fricative //; hence, a consonant.
I think that it sounds more like // whose sound is close to /g/ and /l/.
C. Consonant Clusters
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Consonant clusters exist in the Buhi dialect but they are Spanish loan
system. Nonetheless, the /e/ which is not naturally part of its vowel system is
retained. There are also limited consonant clusters which are originally
‘fried’
‘plate’
‘plate’
‘rug’
‘towel’
Initial position
Medial position
‘arm’
‘contract’
‘blouse’
‘congress’
‘widow’
‘pupil’
‘cream’
‘to add flavor’
‘class’
‘conclusion’
‘money’
‘kiosk’
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‘drama’
‘dwarf’
‘faucet’
‘glory’
‘gloves’
4. a’k‘I’ ‘accept’
7. ‘therefore’ ‘capable’
8. ‘turn’ ‘elbow’
Vowel length and stress are phonemics because they are not
predictable and they are not conditioned by their environments. The shift of stress in
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III. The peculiar Boînən sounds // and // or //
For some, especially for those who would try to compile a dictionary of
Boînən, this dialect has an “exotic” sound // which does not exactly match with any
this language do not agree on the way some Boînən words should be written.
Claveria (2002) affirms that Buhinon indeed contains what has been called “exotic”
sounds which cannot be written phonetically with the characters of the ordinary
alphabet. However, he asserts that as a Buhinon, he does not quite understand why
they are called exotic. In fact, he stated that it may be exotic to others but not to
so-called exotic sounds without adding new symbols to the ordinary alphabet. It has
been proposed that an inverted ‘e’ be used to represent the schwa or neutral vowel
sound for Buhinon. But if this sound is represented in English, he maintained that,
we could do the same thing in writing Buhinon. He added that the advantages of
using the ordinary alphabet in writing Buhinon are obvious. One would not need a
special kind of typewriter or word processor. One does not need to leave spaces for
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I have gathered a list of Buhi words with the particular // sound; they are shown
side by side with Standard Bikol and Tagalog in the following table. I intend to make a
comparison between the Bikol words and Buhinon where // occurs. I shall continue
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