Boondock Awards, Culture and Tradition, History

Boon Award: The Ibaloi Dictionary Project

20 Comments

We are giving our next Boon “You Are Doing a Good Thing” Award to the people behind the Ibaloi Dictionary Project. We learned about this project from the blog of our good friend, Danilova Molintas.

So why are we giving a Boon Award to this group? Because instead of simply crying about the fact that their language might die (and we must admit that this blog is also guilty of this “crying but doing nothing else” thing), the group is actually doing something to address the problem. Let’s hope that the other ehtno-linguistic groups in the Cordillera will follow suit.

From Cemarban’s comment in Dani’s blog, we learn more about the people behind this worthy endeavor:

This project, Ibaloi Dictionary, was conceived by Ibaloi based around the globe.They learned that most of the “now Ibaloi generation” back home no longer speak the dialect and at the brink of extinction. Dr. Morr Pungayan, an Ibaloi linguist , and a columnist of the Baguio Midland Courier is spearheading this project with the help of volunteers based in Baguio and Benguet and around the world.

Good luck guys. We hope we have more people like you and less people who waste public funds on cars and silly things.

For more on the Boondock Awards, click here.

INFO SOURCE: Dani Molintas’ Blog.

20 thoughts on “Boon Award: The Ibaloi Dictionary Project”

  1. I would like to send in soon a List of Nabaloi Words that I really want to understand — ex. jujuban, sadi, oreng-ao, among others.

    I always feel frustrated not finding anyone who knows Nabaloi.

  2. When I was in Baguio, I bought a small book called Nabaloi in 12 Lessons by Prof. Eufronio Pungayan. Maybe he goes by the nickname of Morr. But it’s a very thin book (about 30 pages) so an extensive dictionary is probably overdue.

  3. I have that book by Morr, Wil. I found it a difficult one to follow.

    I also have Otto Scheerer’s Nabaloi Dialect (written in the early 1900s) which is better, but it badly needs updating.

    Now, does anybody know what “oreng-ao” means, aside from being the old name of Teachers Camp, of course?

  4. Hi Chi,
    Wow, you know more Ibaloi than I do. Hopefully FBI will answer your question about oreng-ao. I didn’t even know that it was the old name of Teacher’s Camp. Thanks.

    Hi Wil,
    Good for you that you have a book like that. Pahiram. Thanks 🙂

  5. ang galing talaga ng mga Molintas, go for it, hihihi, sobrang nakakahiya ako hindi man lang ako marunong mag-ibaloi but my father is an ibaloi, ilokano ng igorot ang natutunan namin, hihih

  6. Hei everyone! I must have been born too late kase i don’t know even one of the words that ma’am Chi mentioned…lolz…altho I am a full blooded Inibaloi (Igorot, hence FBI=).)
    I also don’t have the books that you mentioned.

    Sir Wil;)
    You are right Dr. Pungayan is more known Morr Pungayan. If I’m not mistaken his fullname is Dr. Eufronio L. Morr Tadeo Pungayan. (Am I right?)…hehehe

    God bless you’ll!

    Djin a.k.a. FBI

  7. Hi Lord,
    So you’re one of the “now generation who don’t speak your language” 🙂 Well, it’s not yet too late for you. Maybe you might want to join the group and learn Nabaloi while helping make a dictionary. Thanks 🙂

    Hi FBI,
    Baka malalim na word yung “orengao” so no one knows it. I was looking at the words compiled so far by the group and can’t also find it there. Thanks 🙂

  8. Good for them! 🙂 How many words did they come up so far?

    Sir Bil, konting impormasyon lang:)

    Linguists would call Inibaloi or any of our local vernaculars a language. Dialect refers to sort of a different version of a certain language (e.g. the Benguet dialect of Kankana-ey, the Sagada dialect of Kankana-ey, British diealect of English, North American dialect of English, etc.) but all of those dialects are just varieties of the Kankana-ey language or the English language respectively. As defined by wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialect) “A dialect (from the Greek word διάλεκτος, dialektos) is a variety of a language characteristic of a particular group of the language’s speakers.[1] The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns,but a dialect may also be defined by other factors, such as social class.[2]”

    … but your use of the word is probably the most popular usage,and the wikipedia actually include tat usage in their definition. but personally I prefer calling our local tongues ‘Languages’ because some people refer to them as ‘dialect’ with a little bit of condescension in their tone.

    Peace!

    g

  9. I think the Nabaloi Dictionary will get written down faster if it is done the “Wikipedia way.” Anyone at all who has a knowledge of this language will be able to contribute a bit to the online project and/or editors.

    A high school classmate of Jack C., Ms. Carolyn Weygan-Hildebrand, has sent us an example of the electronic dictionary of Hawaiian language — http://wehewehe.org/

    Let’s draw some inspiration from this.

  13. hi everyone!
    so any news now on the nabaloi-english dictionary?is it done yet?where can we avail of it?

  14. People, i got some good news, which some of you may have heard already. there is already what we call the Mother tongue-based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) that is being slowly creeping into the phil education system. there has been a deped order 74 series 2009 institutionalizing mtb-mle. there are pilot schools that started teaching their students in their local language already. the pioneer of this is in Lubuagan, Kalinga..Bicol is also starting with complete materials…there is one elem school in Lengaoan, Buguias which started teaching their kindergarten using kankanaey. they have started making children’s stories in kankanaey…i still have to hear of a school from an ibaloi community teaching children in ibaloi. although of course, we’ve always been explaining concepts in ibaloi when children do not understand it but the deped order just legalizes it..the idea of mtb-mle program is to teach children in the local language/mother tongue from grades 1-6 (in the phils, up to grade 3 only) and introduce the second language (maybe ilokano, filipino, english) in grade 3…the goal here is to have children who are proficient in ibaloy, ilokano, filipino, english. in short, mutilingual and multicultural. knowing our culture and respecting others’..

    by the way, anthropologically speaking, ALL languages are equal. no language is superior than the other. the language is enough for its own culture.so, ibaloy, kankanaey are also called LANGUAGES, no longer dialects…

    i heard from dr pungayan that he has written an ibaloy national anthem.anyone who has a copy of this, can you pleeeaaase give me one. thank you!

  15. May God bless all the language development workers in the Cordilleras! Especially the Bible Translators… we owe much from the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) for that… and the mother tongue Bible translators working for a complete Bible in the language of the people in the Cordilleras…

    Kudos also to the works of Morr Pungayan…

  16. I just discovered and am very glad that there is an ongoing project on Nabaloi Dialect Dictionary and I wish I could help with this suggestion that we make new alphabet/s for better pronounciation of NABALOI terms. Example: gk as in gkotgkot (TO SCRATCH) and kotkot(to dig with bare hands); Gkait(companion) and Kait(to scoop as in rice) so to differ in spelling and easier to read and learn.
    As for the name ORENG-AO there could have been misrendering of terms through the ages but I’ll try to research on it too. It could be a name of a certain herb that was common in that place now teachers camp.
    More as we continue to communicate…

  17. There had always been a difficulty in differentiating between DIALECT and LANGUAGE, here is my observation if you may agree; LANGUAGE could EITHER be SPOKEN or SIGN while DIALECT COULD ONLY BE SPOKEN. I have never heard a term such as SIGN DIALECT only SIGN LANGUAGE. In other words LANGUAGE could mean any MODE OF EXPRESSING ONESELF while DIALECT is THE VERBAL MODE OF EXPRESSING ONESELF.

  19. Wara met day IBALOY DICTIONARY shi Mt. Cloud Bookshop, askang ni Hill Station shi Vallejo Hotel–ta pow ni Session Road. Dingka nen era Lee Ballard–hard bound tan soft bound. PhP1,500 kwansha met.

    I dont know how to write Ibaloy. I learned Ibaloy from listening to relatives speak it. When I did field work in Kabayan, I surprised myself by speaking it to the village folks. But It was awkward at first but it became better as I stayed longer and adjusted. Haha. Hatan i istoryak.

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