youronlyone, 1 month ago

It's easier to use Hangeul and Kana to write pronunciations of Filipino words, than to use Filipino diacritical marks.

1. Last we were taught about Filipino diacritical marks was in Grade 4 or 5 (early 90s). I don't know why, but after that diacritical marks were totally forgotten.

2. Tracking it down, IIRC, it was late 90s / early 00s when it was officially removed by the KWF.

3. Sometime 2010, the KWF brought diacritical marks back, though limited.

4. In 2014 (or was it 2016?) the KWF introduced a new diacritical mark, the Filipino schwa. It didn't exist before. There are only like 4 Philippine languages with a schwa vowel. They added it in Filipino so words from those Philippine languages can be integrated into the Filipino language.

Here's my problem, no matter how many times I read the KWF document on Filipino diacritical marks, I can't get my head around it. 🤪 I understood it differently, or I remembered them incorrectly. 🤷🏽‍♂️ Or! I've been pronouncing a lot of words wrongly! 🤦🏽‍♂️

However, when I use Hangeul and Kana, I don't have to worry about diacritical marks. Both scripts have stable pronunciations, not like Latin characters where we have to use diacritical marks.

The only catch, the reader should be able to read Hangeul or Kana scripts, which most don't. 🤔 So, back to trying to get a grasp of Filipino diacritical marks. 🤯

---

Am I right that the Filipino diacritical marks represent the sound?

Examples:

• e = neutral = abrupt soft stop?
• è = high to low = abrupt hard stop? (paiwa?)
• é = low to high = malumay? (malumanay?)
• ê = low to high to low = ??
• ë = the new Filipino schwa (no idea, since I don't speak the few Philippine languages where a Filipino schwa is needed).

Any experts out there?

(In the revived diacritical marks, we no longer use ē. IIRC, it used to represent a long vowel sound.)

#Wika #Language #Filipino #Tagalog #Latin #Hangeul #Kana #LearningFilipino #MatutoMagFilipino @pilipinas @philippines @pinoy