The Philippines is home to staggering ethnolinguistic diversity, with more than 180 languages spoken across the Southeast Asian nation’s 7,600+ islands. Naturally, when you have this many distinct languages spoken in a single country, a lingua franca is necessary to tie the nation together, and the Philippines finds its lingua francas in English and Tagalog. But that doesn’t mean the rest of the languages don’t have a place in the country. Many Filipinos learn these lingua francas as second languages, speaking their local language natively.
One of these local native languages is Binukid, or Bukid, native to the indigenous population of the province of Bukidnon, located in northern Mindanao. Binukid boasts around 150,000 speakers, around 10% of Bukidnon’s population. Though the Binukid natives are the indigenous inhabitants of the region, Cebuano settlers make up the majority of the population, and Cebuano functions as the regional lingua franca. This puts Binukid at risk of endangerment as the combined effects of English, Tagalog, and Cebuano erode away at the language’s prominence. At TranslationServices.com, we’re passionate about minority languages, so we decided to put together our own Binukid translation team.
Why not ask us about a free Binukid translation quote today?
A quick rundown of what Binukid is like
Binukid literally means “in the style of the mountain,” referring to the mountainous terrain of Bukidnon. Speakers of Binukid are proud of their native language and homeland, no matter which of the various dialects they speak. The Malaybalay dialect, however, is considered the standard and prestige dialect. Like most other languages in the Philippines, Binukid is classified as a Philippine Austronesian language, specifically hailing from the Manobo sub-branch. Binukid speakers use the Latin alphabet to write their language, adding a few accent markers to indicate a word’s stress.
In Binukid, the verb usually comes first in a sentence, which is common in Austronesian languages. However, in negative sentences, the negation marker comes first, followed by bound pronouns and then the verb. In Binukid’s pronominal system, the order of pronouns is dictated by a person hierarchy, not by grammatical meaning, so the first-person pronoun always comes first, whether it’s the subject or object. This results in a complicated chart of different pronouns, including a special class that acts more as a person-specific topic marker, coming at the beginning of a sentence, even before the verb.
A proud Binukid translation team to cover all your translation needs
Binukid and English are worlds apart, but our Binukid translators work tirelessly to bring these two worlds together. As proud Binukid native speakers, they’re eager to use their knowledge to help bridge communication gaps and translate both to and from Binukid. Our services are available for a diverse range of materials—for example, we can translate business materials both for native Bukidnon businesses looking to branch out and for foreign companies who want to make a splash in Bukidnon. We can translate academic or educational materials both for Binukid-speaking scholars who want to make a name for themselves internationally and for international academics who want to connect with Binukid colleagues. We can also translate creative and digital material in both directions, whether that means translating traditional Binukid folklore for the world to enjoy or translating websites, apps, and games into Binukid so speakers and learners of this proud Austronesian language have more opportunities to use it.
We’d love to get started with your Binukid translation project—so simply tell us what you want!