|
|
-
Kapampangang is one of the languages of the Philippines.
-
The native speakers of Kapampangan are found in the provinces of Pampanga
and Tarlac as well as Bataan and Bulacan.
-
Kapampangang is one of the eight major ethno-linguistics groups in the
country.
-
The position
of Kapampangan among the Northern Philippine language family is not clear.
It's been grouped by SIL as a member of the geographically disjointed
Bashiic-Central Luzon-Northern Mindoro language subfamily. This includes
languages like Ivatan (spoken north of Luzon), Yami (spoken in Taiwan),
and Iraya of the island of Mindoro.
-
The word Kapampangan is derived from the rootword pampang
which means river bank.
-
Very little is
known about the language prior to the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th
century.
-
Two
19th-century Kapampangan writers are hailed as being the equivalent of
William Shakespeare in Kapampangan literature. Father Anselmo Fajardo was
noted for his works Gonzalo de Córdova and Comedia Heróica de la Conquista
de Granada. Another writer, Juan Crisostomo Soto, was noted for writing
many plays. He authored Alang Dios in 1901. The Kapampangan poetical joust
"Crissotan" was coined by his fellow literary genius Nobel Prize nominee
for peace and literature in the 50's, Amado M. Yuzon to immortalize his
contribution to Pampanga's Literature.
-
The Philippine
Census of 2000 states that 2,312,870 out of 76,332,470 people speak
Kapampangan as a native language.
-
While
Kapampangan nouns are not inflected, they are usually preceded by case
markers. There are three types of case markers: absolutive (nominative),
ergative (genitive), and oblique.
-
Unlike
English
and
Spanish
which are nominative-accusative languages, Kapampangan is an ergative-absolutive
language. It's a common misconception that Kapampangan is frequently
spoken in the passive voice.
|
