The sheer linguistic diversity of Southeast Asia surprises most people unfamiliar with the region. In fact, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia have the most languages of any countries in the world, and the Philippines isn’t far behind. There are between 120 to 187 languages spoken in the Philippines, depending on how one classifies them, and Bisayan languages account for the majority in the southern portion of the island country. In fact, depending on how it’s classified, Bisaya can even be considered the biggest native language in the Philippines.
At the most conservative estimate, Bisaya is spoken by more than 21 million people as a native language. More liberal estimates would put the figure several million people higher. Bisaya is difficult to classify because it more accurately describes a subgroup of Philippine languages rather than a single language, and the speakers of prominent Bisayan languages such as Cebuano, Hiligaynon, and Waray-Waray often refer to their language simply as Bisaya. But no matter how you classify Bisaya, TranslationServices.com is here to help. We’re proud to offer translation services for various Bisayan languages, including Cebuano, Hiligaynon, Waray-Waray, Karay-a, and more.
Why not request a quote for our Bisaya translation services today? Quotes are always free, after all!
Why don’t we learn more about Bisaya?
Native to the Visayas region of the country, Bisayan languages are spoken in much of the southern Philippines, finding widespread second-language usage in the southern island of Mindanao. Cebuano, spoken across Central Visayas and much of Mindanao, is the biggest Bisayan language, even rivaling Tagalog in number of native speakers. Hiligaynon dominates in Western Visayas and Soccsksargen, while Waray-Waray is the primary language of Eastern Visayas. All Bisayan languages are written in the Latin alphabet today, although most were previously written in a native script closely related to Tagalog’s baybayin.
Like most languages in the Philippines, Bisaya occupies the Philippine branch of the expansive Austronesian language family. Bisayan languages are grammatically complex, with a famous trigger system that dramatically alters the focus of a given sentence. Bisaya languages typically have three noun cases—direct, indirect, and oblique—and may even differentiate between definite (“the”) and indefinite (“a/an”) nouns. As is common in Austronesian languages, Bisaya tends to place the verb at the beginning of a sentence, in a default word order of verb-subject-object.
We’re here to serve all your Bisaya translation needs.
Our Bisaya translation team covers a wide range of Bisayan languages, so we’re confident that no matter what you’re looking for, you can find it with us. Whether you need translation services for Cebuano, Hiligaynon, Waray-Waray, Karay-a, or another Bisayan language, we have translators on standby for you. And we translate both to and from Bisaya, allowing us to expertly cater to your translation needs.
Let’s say you want to translate an academic paper in Cebuano so you can publish it in an international journal. Or maybe you’re looking for Hiligaynon translation services so you can share literature with the rest of the world. Or, perhaps, you have a historical document in Waray-Waray you want translated into English. We’re available for all these translation jobs! Going in the other direction, you may want to translate promotional material into Hiligaynon to cater to locals, or academic content into Waray-Waray to connect with local scholars. Maybe you’re looking to translate your book, game, website, or other interesting content into Cebuano. No matter what, our Bisaya translation team is eager to help.
Send us a message today to get started with your first Bisaya translation project.