Months of the Year in Siargaonon

12 words and phrases, recorded by a native speaker of Siargaonon (Surigaonon), the language of Siargao Island in the Philippines. Part of Conversations & The Wider World.

Hearing it spoken

Written Siargaonon can only take you so far — the sounds are what give a speaker away. Two rules matter more than any other: the letter J is always hard, as in the English "jump" (never softened to a "y"), and many words that use an L in neighbouring languages use a Y here — ulo becomes uyo, balay becomes bayay. The pronunciation guide covers both in detail.

Every phrase on this page can be heard aloud, drilled with flashcards and quizzes, and scheduled for review in the free app.

Twelve Borrowed Words, Reshaped

All twelve months came from Spanish, but they did not arrive unchanged. Say them out loud and you can hear Siargaonon reworking them to fit its own mouth.

Nobyembre has a b where Spanish writes a v — the sound simply is not used here, so it shifted to the nearest one that is. Disyembre and Septembre smooth out the Spanish vowel clusters. Hunyo and Hulyo take a spelling that matches how they are actually said rather than how Spanish spells them.

This is what borrowing looks like when a language is healthy. The word comes in, the language files off the corners, and it stops being foreign. Nobody in Siargao hears Abril as a Spanish word.

Why the Months Were Borrowed at All

A twelve-month calendar is an administrative object. It arrived with record-keeping, church schedules and taxes, and the names came bundled with it. Vocabulary tied to paperwork is borrowed far more readily than vocabulary tied to daily life — which is why the months are Spanish while the words for morning, night, today and tomorrow are not.

If you want to see the contrast directly, read the time of day page next. Almost nothing there came from anywhere else.

Keep exploring

Is a word missing, or is something here wrong? This record is incomplete by definition — a living language is bigger than any one speaker. Tell us and it will be reviewed and added.