Tboli language

Tboli (təˈbɔli), also Tau Bilil, Tau Bulul or Tagabilil, is an Austronesian language spoken in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, mainly in the province of South Cotabato but also in the neighboring provinces of Sultan Kudarat and Sarangani. According to the Philippine Census from 2000, close to 100,000 Filipinos identified T'boli or Tagabili as their native language. Tboli is classified as a member of the South Mindanao or Bilic branch of the Philippine language families. The closest language to it is Blaan. Both are also related to Bagobo, and Tiruray. Tboli is spoken in the following areas (Ethnologue). South Cotabato Province: Mount Busa area and west Sarangani Province: Celebes seacoast, Katabau west to provincial border Sultan Kudarat Province: Kraun area and Bagumbayan municipality Dialects are Central Tboli, Western Tboli, and Southern Tboli (Ethnologue). list seven vowel phonemes, namely /a i e ɛ ə o ɔ u/ and 15 consonant phonemes shown in the chart below. Note that Tboli lacks /p/ as a phoneme and has /f/ instead, which is a typological rarity among Philippine languages. Final stress is the norm in Tboli rootwords; however, the stress shifts to the previous syllable if the final vowel is a schwa. Unlike most other Philippine languages and Austronesian languages in general, Tboli permits a variety of consonant clusters at the onset of a syllable. This is evident in the name of the language, /tbɔli/, but also in other words like /kfung/ 'dust', /sbulon/, 'one month,' /mlɔtik/ 'starry,' /hlun/ 'temporarily,' /gna/ 'before,' and others. observe impressionistically there is a very short schwa pronounced in between the consonant cluster. However, these consonant clusters have not yet been analyzed acoustically. Unlike other Philippine languages, Tboli does not make use of case-marking articles. Plurality is marked by the article kem preceding the noun; kudà 'horse' (sg.), kem kudà 'horses.' Tboli pronouns indicate person, number, clusivity, and grammatical role.