Reading Ilocano Words

Level 1

ng represents one nasal consonant. Doubled consonants matter, and ordinary writing need not mark stress.

How It Works

This guide uses modern Philippine Ilocano spelling. Its five vowel letters are a, e, i, o, u. Read ng as one nasal consonant and preserve doubled consonants: consonant length can distinguish words or grammatical forms.

Native affixes and dependent pronouns normally join their hosts. Thus ag- + adal + -ak gives agadalak. An analysis hyphen does not require a written hyphen. Established glottal-stop spellings retain hyphens where appropriate; the KWF guide also specifies boundaries for certain compounds, repeated words, names, and retained foreign spellings.

Stress accents are optional in ordinary writing. Constantino's q represents a glottal stop in phonological notation, rather than an ordinary spelling of native words. His bracketed transcriptions also show pronunciation details. Preserve established o/u spelling and modern ay spelling even where regional pronunciation differs. Pronunciation variation alone is not a spelling error.

Examples (4)

  1. Nangina ti asin.

    The salt is expensive.

    Ng represents one nasal consonant.

  2. Dakkel ti kahon.

    The box is big.

    Preserve doubled k.

  3. Agadalak iti Ilokano.

    I will study Ilocano.

    The prefix and dependent pronoun are joined; the unreduplicated ag- form has contemplated aspect.

  4. dagiti ubbing iti balay

    the children in the house

    A noun-phrase fragment illustrating the established plural ubbing.