Kapampangan Language Guide

Official language in
Philippines
Script
Latin

Where it's spoken

Michael Forman's grammar notes describe Kapampangan, also known as Pampango, Pampangan and Pampangueño, as an Austronesian language of the Philippine type spoken in the central plain of Luzon. According to the same notes, the centre of the speech community is the Province of Pampanga, a substantial portion of the Province of Tarlac consists of Kapampangan-speaking communities, and small portions of Nueva Ecija, Bulacan and Bataan are likewise Kapampangan.

The Philippine Constitution makes Filipino and, until otherwise provided by law, English the official languages, and the regional languages the auxiliary official languages in the regions. A study of mother-tongue education lists Kapampangan among the eight major regional languages, the ones with the greatest number of speakers.

Forman's preliminary information pointed to two major dialects, following roughly the Rio Grande and the political district divisions of the province. In the western dialect, final -ay has frequently changed to -e and final -aw to -o. He writes that none of these variations seems to prevent a high degree of mutual intelligibility.

The orthography book of the Commission on the Filipino Language says that the language spoken in Pampanga and its people are both called Kapampangan, and that the name Pampanga developed from Capangpangan, which means the bank of a river. The app's card Amanung Kapampangan means "Kapampangan language".

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Script & pronunciation

Forman's grammar notes describe three writing systems for Kapampangan: a syllabary derived from India, the alphabetic writing introduced by the Spanish, and a revision of the alphabetic system inspired by Tagalog. He says that many contemporary Kapampangans were unaware that the syllabary had ever existed, and that many adult speakers accepted only the friars' Spanish-based spelling as "true" Kapampangan. In that spelling, he writes, initial velar stops are written qu and gu before high vowels but c and g before low vowels, and he lists variants such as Capampangan and Capangpangan.

The orthography book of the Commission on the Filipino Language lists a Kapampangan alphabet of twenty-eight letters, which includes k, and describes three diacritic marks: an acute accent for stress or length, and a grave and a circumflex accent for the glottal stop.

This app's cards spell the /k/ sound with k, as in Kapamu saguli pu ("Just a moment"), and write no accent marks. They carry no separate romanization. The app's card Kulitan describes Kulitan as a reconstructed traditional script and says that this app writes Kapampangan in the ordinary Latin alphabet.

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Grammar essentials

Forman writes that, in very many Kapampangan sentences, the particle ing acts as a pivot: what precedes it is the predicate, and the phrase it marks is the subject, or topic. In the app's Nukarin ya pu ing gate? ("Where is the gate?"), the phrase ing gate comes last.

Forman's table of short personal pronouns includes ku, ka and ya under "limited number" and kamí, kayú and la under "unlimited number"; a note of his equates limited number with singular and unlimited number with plural. He says that long-form pronouns occur as single-centered predicates in certain non-verbal clauses and as emphasized topics, and that short forms occur elsewhere. The app's card Aku ("I / me") calls it the stand-alone pronoun that shortens to ku inside a sentence.

Forman writes that an overt verb phrase is negated with the preposed é-, and that the negative alí occurs as a substitute for a verb phrase. The app's card E ke ayintindyan pu ("I don't understand") has a note saying that "E" negates the verb, and its card Ali ("No") has a note saying that "Ali" and "ala" are different words, "ala" being the opposite of "atin" (there is). For existence, Forman gives atí(n) and its negative counterpart aláq.

Forman describes two markers of attribution, a and -ng: a occurs after a head word that ends in a consonant, and -ng after a head word that ends in a vowel. His examples include máyap a gatpanápun ("good afternoon") and máyap a béngi ("good evening"), which he writes with accent marks. The app's cards Mayap a gatpanapun ("Good afternoon") and Mayap a bengi ("Good evening") are written without accent marks. The app's Amanung Kapampangan ("Kapampangan language") has the -ng form.

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Politeness & etiquette

In Forman's list of greetings, máyap a béngi puq is glossed "Good evening, sir/ma'am." and máyap a gatpanápun puq "Good afternoon, sir.", so both end in a particle that he writes puq. In his example sentences the same particle is also written pu or púq, and several of those sentences are glossed with "sir", as in "Are those yours, sir?".

Several of the app's cards contain pu, as in Salamat pu ("Thank you") and Komusta na kayu pu? ("How are you? (polite)"). The note on its card Opu ("Yes (polite)") calls it the polite "yes" to elders and strangers and gives "Wa" as the plain "yes". The note on its card Ika ("You") says that, with elders and strangers, the plural "kayu" is used for one person as an honorific.

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