Chapter 1

The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Dictionary of Cebuano Visayan This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title: A Dictionary of Cebuano Visayan Author: John U. Wolff Release date: June 24, 2012 [eBook #40074] Most recently updated: September 30, 2023 Language: English Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40074 Credits: Jeroen Hellingman, Scott Robertson and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net/ for Project Gutenberg *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A DICTIONARY OF CEBUANO VISAYAN *** TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE This text-only version of John U. Wolff’s Dictionary of Cebuano Visayan uses letters with Unicode combining diacritics, such as ā̀, a lower case letter a with a macron and grave accent. These letters may not render correctly on all computers. THE CORNELL UNIVERSITY SOUTHEAST ASIA PROGRAM The Southeast Asia Program was organized at Cornell University in the Department of Far Eastern Studies in 1950. It is a teaching and research program of interdisciplinary studies in the humanities, social sciences, and some natural sciences. It deals with Southeast Asia as a region, and with the individual countries of the area: Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. The activities of the Program are carried on both at Cornell and in Southeast Asia. They include an undergraduate and graduate curriculum at Cornell which provides instruction by specialists in Southeast Asian cultural history and present-day affairs and offers intensive training in each of the major languages of the area. The Program sponsors group research projects on Thailand, on Indonesia, on the Philippines, and on the area’s Chinese minorities. At the same time, individual staff and students of the Program have done field research in every Southeast Asian country. A list of publications relating to Southeast Asia which may be obtained on prepaid order directly from the Program is given at the end of this volume. Information on Program staff, fellowships, requirements for degrees, and current course offerings will be found in an Announcement of the Department of Asian Studies, obtainable from the Director, Southeast Asia Program, 120 Uris Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14850. A DICTIONARY OF CEBUANO VISAYAN Compiled by JOHN U. WOLFF Cornell University, Southeast Asia Program and Linguistic Society of the Philippines 1972 Copyright © by Cornell University. Copyright is claimed until 1982. Thereafter, all portions of this work covered by this copyright will be in the public domain. Distributed in the Philippines by the Linguistic Society of the Philippines, and outside of the Philippines by the Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University. The work was developed under a contract with the United States Office of Education, Department of Health, Education and Welfare. However, the contract does not necessarily reflect the position or policy of that agency, and no official endorsement of these materials should be inferred. Publication of this work was aided by a grant from the Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University and by The Asia Society, New York City. PREFACE This work is a dictionary of Cebuano Visayan, the language of the central part of the Philippines and much of Mindanao. Although the explanations are given in English, the aim of this work is not to provide English equivalents but to explain Cebuano forms in terms of themselves. It is meant as a reference work for Cebuano speakers and as a tool for students of the Cebuano language. There is a total of some 25,000 entries and an addenda of 700 forms which were prepared after the dictionary had been composed. This dictionary is the product of eleven years work by more than a hundred persons. The work was edited by me and is my responsibility, but the sources are entirely native, and all illustrations are composed by native speakers. The personnel who wrote up the entries are listed in Section 2.1, p. ix. The manuscript went through five versions, the final on an IBM selectric composer. The whole composition was done in Cebu City in five months’ time by Pacifico Briones, Nicolasito Catingan, Florecita Florido, Donata Laingo, and Grace Mendoza. The drafting and splicing were done by Carlito Gubaynon and Felismeno Simplicio. The proofreading and editing was done by me together with Mrs. Elizabeth Say, Mrs. Fe Cuenca, Richard Quiñanola, and my wife Ida Wolff. In the earlier stages of gathering, transcribing, and indexing materials a huge number of people participated, too numerous to mention by name. The entire dictionary through the final composed product was compiled from notes on index cards in the course of twenty-six months. My thanks go especially to the staff listed above and on p. ix for their cooperative spirit. Without their willingness to work overtime, this dictionary could not have been completed. The work was supported from 1963 to 1966 by funds from Cornell University faculty research grants; 1966–7 by Office of Education contract No. 1-7-002672-2040; 1967–1968 by a Cornell University faculty research grant; 1968–1969 by a grant from the American Council of Learned Societies and by a grant from the Cornell University Philippine Project; 1969–1971 by Office of Education Contract No. 0-9-097718-3350. My trip to the Philippines was financed in 1966–1969 and again in 1970–71 by a Fulbright-Hayes faculty research grant. Without these sources of funds this dictionary could not have been completed. This dictionary by no means exhausts the Cebuano language, and we hope in future years to produce an expanded and improved version with illustrations. To this end we welcome and would be most grateful for suggestions for corrections and additions. J.U.W. Southeast Asia Program Cornell University Ithaca, New York August 1971 FOREWORD The Southeast Asia Program takes particular pleasure in helping to make this Cebuano dictionary available. The language is, of course, of importance in itself, not only because of its wide use in the Philippines, but also because of its value to linguists and historical research. In addition, we are especially pleased that this dictionary is a joint publication of the Southeast Asia Program and the Linguistic Society of the Philippines. We owe a special debt of gratitude to the Rev. Teodoro Llamzon, S. J., president of the Linguistic Society of the Philippines, for his gracious help and cooperation in attending to the many details involved in such a cooperative venture. We are also grateful to the Asia Foundation, which provided a partial subsidy to make publication possible. We are confident that Professor Wolff’s research on Cebuano and the compilation of this work, covering a period of eleven years, has resulted in a useful reference work and in an important contribution to our knowledge of Philippine languages and cultures and to linguistics in general. Robert B. Jones Ithaca, New York December, 1971 CONTENTS PREFACE iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi