Time of Day in Siargaonon

8 words and phrases, recorded by a native speaker of Siargaonon (Surigaonon), the language of Siargao Island in the Philippines. Part of Everyday Life.

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.

A Day Cut Into Four

Buntag, Hapun, Gabi-i and Duyum carry the day from morning through to night. These are not borrowed words. Unlike the weekdays and the months, which arrived with the Spanish calendar, the parts of the day that people actually live in stayed Siargaonon.

They are also the words the greetings are built from. Marajaw na buntag is good morning, and once you know the frame, good afternoon and good evening follow without learning anything new.

Ka-, the Prefix That Means Last

Look at Kabi-i for last night and Kahapun for yesterday. Both begin with the same ka-, and both point backwards. Strip it off and you are left with the plain time word.

Two examples is not a rule you should apply blindly to every word, but the pattern is real and it is the kind of thing worth noticing while you learn, because it turns a list to be memorised into a system that makes sense.

Kuman for This

Kuman na duyum is tonight — literally this night. The same Kuman gives you today when it sits with the word for day. It is the word for the stretch of time you are currently inside, and what follows it decides how long that stretch is.

Tungay-duyum is midnight, built from the middle of the night rather than from a clock reading. Time here is described by where the sun is, not by what a dial says — which is worth remembering when someone tells you a time and you were expecting a number.

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.