A comparative analysis of Eskayan and Boholano-Visayan (Cebuano) phonotactics: implications for the origins of Eskayan lexemes

Abstract

When the Eskaya community first came to light on the island of Bohol in the southern \nPhilippines, much speculation centred on the group’s origins but there was no detailed \nanalysis of their unusual language and script. Eskaya people consider their language to \nhave been the deliberate creation of a legendary ancestor, a narrative that is consistent \nwith the fact that Eskayan appears to be a near total relexification of Boholano-Visayan, \nthe dominant language of Bohol. This paper outlines the phonotactic differences between \nthe two languages, revealing that Boholano-Visayan native roots are disyllabic and take \nthe form C (G) V (G)/(C) while Eskayan roots range from one to five syllables with the \nform C (C)/(G) V (G)/C (C). This structural discrepancy is less stark when borrowed \nterms are taken into consideration. In effect, the legendary creator did not confabulate \nnew terms from scratch but relied on the nativised structures of Spanish and English \nwords as lexical models.

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