Language Preservation and Documentation of Hanunoo: Saving the Mangyan Language

This paper examines the ethnolinguistic vitality of the Hanunoo Mangyan language in Oriental Mindoro, Philippines. This study argues that cultural identity and social interaction can either make or break language use. This means that individuals with strong identity affiliation will likely have higher minority language literacy. However, social interaction outside the community will somehow impact language use and even identity pride. Results of the survey indicate that the Hanunoo Mangyan language is still safe as it is still widely spoken in the communities. The language serves as a source of identity and a sense of pride, which primarily is the driving force for the language to survive. Although, one must not discount the fact that the communities in the study are gearing towards multilingual parity as their members make use of several languages in different social encounters. This clearly poses language attrition when language preservation is not given a priority. An e-dictionary app was developed to document the Hanunoo Mangyan language.