BOIE’NEN [bɔ̆ɪ̆ɛ̋’n̆ɜ̆n] LANGUAGE
ABOUT THE BOIE’NEN LANGUAGE
Boie’nen [bɔ̆ɪ̆ɛ̋’n̆ɜ̆n] (ISO 639-3: UBL) is an Austronesian language of the Malayo-Polynesian branch spoken principally in the municipality of Buhi, Camarines Sur, Philippines. It belongs to the Inland Bikol subgroup of the Greater Central Philippine branch.
Although the municipality is officially known as Buhi, the preferred endonym adopted in this dictionary is Boie’nen, reflecting the language’s indigenous phonological system. Historical records indicate that the town name passed through several colonial spellings—Buy, Buji, and eventually Buhi—according to changing Spanish orthographic conventions.
Boie’nen is characterized by its agglutinative morphology, aspect-prominent verbal system, voice-oriented clause structure, suprasegmental distinctions, honorific vocabulary, gender-absent pronouns, four-vowel system, phonemic glottal contrasts, and the distinctive posterior continuant phoneme /X/.
HOW THIS DICTIONARY IS ORGANIZED
This dictionary employs a structured organizational system designed to reveal the grammatical architecture of Boie’nen while maintaining clean machine sorting within the Living Dictionaries platform.
Entries are organized according to the following hierarchy:
This arrangement allows grammatical particles, morphemes, phonemes, graphemes, and lexical entries to coexist in a single searchable dictionary while preserving both linguistic transparency and machine-sort consistency.
Dictionary Content
The autonymn BOIE’NEN was proposed by Alfonso Claveria to Ethnologue as well as asked for the recognition that Boie’nen has its own dialects. His inspiration for doing this came from Judge Benjamin Claveria who wrote Our Buhi Language in the 41st KJS Anniversary Magazine of Buhi that he and his son uploaded online eventually. All the Boie’nen interpretations of popular Bicol Songs in said article of Judge Claveria will be included in this Dictionary with adaptation in line with the writing convention of this dictionary.
Dual Phonetic Convention
This dictionary employs a dual phonetic convention in representing Boie’nen pronunciation.
Two forms of phonetic notation may appear:
1. Broad Phonetic Representation
Broad phonetic forms are intended for:
These forms use simplified IPA notation reflecting the major phonological structure of the word.
Example:
/beteng/ → [bɛ.tɘŋ ~ bɛ.tɜŋ]
This level highlights the characteristic Boie’nen pepet vowel without excessive phonetic detail.
2. Narrow Playback-Oriented Representation
Some entries may additionally include a narrower phonetic rendering specifically adjusted for compatibility with digital IPA playback systems such as IPA Reader.
These forms may contain:
Example:
[b̪:ɛ̆̚.’t̪::ʊ̈ŋ̊̚]
These narrow renderings are not intended as standard orthographic or pedagogical notation, but rather as playback-oriented approximations designed to reproduce Boie’nen pronunciation more faithfully in external speech engines.
Purpose of the Dual System
The Boie’nen sound system contains phonetic qualities that are not always reproduced accurately by standard IPA playback tools or by English-oriented phonetic assumptions.
In particular:
may require additional phonetic detail for closer digital approximation.
The dictionary therefore distinguishes between:
| Type | Function |
| Broad phonetics | linguistic readability and analysis |
| Narrow playback phonetics | digital pronunciation approximation |
Note on the Boie’nen Pepet
The Boie’nen vowel written e represents a central vowel traditionally compared to the Austronesian pepet. Unlike the English schwa, this vowel may occur in stressed syllables and functions as a full phonemic vowel.
Its common realizations include:
/e/ → [ɛ ~ ɘ ~ ɜ]
Alfonso Alexander Tayag Claveria is the primary mover of this dictionary project. He is a native-born (1953) Boie’nen. He had extensive discussions with the first-referenced material‘s author below, the late Dr. Dominga Portugal (2000), about her book.
He made written communications with Professor Yukihiro Yamada, circa 2000, who mailed him from Japan a copy of his Buhi Vocabulary List (1972), consisting of 513 lexemes, with his own “pen-and-Ink” revision on his ”list” for what he penned as the “ordinary writing” of Boie’nen with just the use of the then ubiquitous manual-typewriter keyboard.
Karl Alexis Taburnal Claveria co-manages this dictionary.
Maria Luisa Taburnal-Claveria provides general and miscellaneous support for this project.
Paz-Valerie Claveria-Blanca, support staff.
Erika-Mae Claveria-Santos, support staff.
Threatened Language
Boie’nen is a critically threatened language primarily by language convergence or language blending.
Boie’nen remained practically an isolate language (Bicol’s linguistic lake) even during the almost four centuries of Spanish colonization. This may be attributed to the harsh controls the Spaniards imposed to the native communities freedom of geophysical mobility evinced by the family-name indexing edict of
November 1849 when the appointed Governor-General, Narciso Clavería y Zaldúa – spurred by increasing complaints from the Regidor or Treasury Account – issued a decree that forced the natives to adopt Spanish surnames in a bid to make the census easier
https://narrastudio.com/blogs/journal/remnants-of-our-colonized-names#:~:text=The%20pre%2Dcolonial%20Filipino%20identity,to%20make%20the%20census%20easier.
REFERENCES:
These were favored for this dictionary amongst the many other extant scholarly papers on Boie’nen.
Dr. Portugal (2000) - she was a native-born Boie’nen and her work provided it the very first and most extensive lexical and phonological studies.
An Asian himself from Japan; he most accurately identified the most unique Boie’nen phonemes particularly the IPA RHO notation [ ʁ ] or the Voiced-Uvular Fricative that he represented with the Latin letter “X” and named it Phoneme-X.
Portugal, Dominga L. J. Buhi Dialect (Boînen) San Francisco: D. J. Portugal Publications (2000)
Mintz, Malcolm W., Bikol Grammar Notes, University of Hawaii 1971
Boie’nen Master Wordlist (1966 Draft)
Olson, K. S., Ballenas, E. T., & Borromeo, N. M. (2009). Buhi’non (Bikol) Digital Wordlist: Presentation Form. Language Documentation & Conservation, 3(2), 213-225
BOIE’NEN-WORDS CONSERVATORY This Old-Boie’nen Dictionary Project is an initiative that aims to preserve and protect Boie’nen words, phrases from falling out of use, becoming obsolete, or being lost over. This aims to document, archive, and promote the use of endangered Boie’nen words to start with; identify various dialects of Binoie’nen, as well as to create a safe space for language preservation and revitalization using the digital-age’s crowd-sourcing approach from Facebook‘s Boie’nen-English Dictionary Project group page.
Boie’nen Word Conservatory strives to safeguard the linguistic diversity of Boie’nen culture, ensuring that the unique characteristics, nuances, and expressive powers of Binoie’nen are not lost.
Boie’nen Words Conservatory’s immediate objectives:
Some similar organizations and initiatives dedicated to language preservation and documentation:
• The Endangered Languages Project
• The Language Conservancy
• The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) Committee on Intangible Cultural Heritage
• The UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger