How Eskayan is used Today

The chapter introduces the linguistic ecology of the Philippines, and the place of Eskayan as it is spoken on the island of Bohol. Today, the dominant language of Bohol is Boholano-Visayan, but English and other languages are also used. Ritual languages and speech disguise games are known in various parts of the island. The Eskayan language, meanwhile, is spoken in just five small villages in the southeast. Eskayan is not used as a language of everyday communication but in circumscribed domains: prayer, singing, speech-making, and the reading and writing of Eskaya literature. These domains coincide with the domains of English use in lowland Bohol. Writing is the most significant domain of Eskayan language use in the handwritten reproduction of traditional Eskaya literature. This literature is the basis for making grammaticality judgments. Eskaya written practices are informed by literacy ideologies: that writing is sacred, natural, biological, and truthful and that it constitutes the most authentic embodiment of language.

Grammar · Grammaticality · Ideology · Linguistics · Political science · Prayer · Reading (process) · Sociology · Communication · History · Philippine History and Culture