The Northern Luzon languages (also known as the Cordilleran languages) are one of the few established large groups within Philippine languages. These are mostly located in and around the Cordillera Central of northern Luzon in the Philippines. Among its major languages are Ilocano, Pangasinan and Ibanag.
| Northern Luzon | |
|---|---|
| Cordilleran | |
| Geographic distribution | Cordillera Central (Luzon) |
| Linguistic classification | Austronesian
|
| Subdivisions | |
| Glottolog | nort3238 |
 Geographic extent of Northern Luzon languages based on Ethnologue | |
Internal classification
Lawrence Reid (2018) divides the over thirty Northern Luzon languages into five branches: the Northeastern Luzon, Cagayan Valley and Meso-Cordilleran subgroups, further Ilokano and Arta as group-level isolate branches.[1][note 1]
- Northern Luzon
- Ilocano
- Arta
- Dicamay Agta † (unclassified)
- Cagayan Valley
- Northeastern Luzon[2]
- Meso-Cordilleran[3]
- Northern Alta
- Southern Alta
- South-Central Cordilleran
Reconstruction
| Proto-Northern Luzon | |
|---|---|
| Reconstruction of | Northern Luzon languages |
Reconstructed ancestors | |
| Lower-order reconstructions | |
Phonology
Reid (2006) has reconstructed the Proto-Northern Luzon sound system as follows, with phonemic stress:[4]
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | *i | *ɨ | *u |
| Open | *a |
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | voiceless | *p | *t | *k | *ʔ | |
| voiced | *b | *d | *j | *g | ||
| Fricative | *s | |||||
| Nasal | *m | *n | *ŋ | |||
| Lateral | *l | |||||
| Approximant | *w | *y | ||||
The sound inventory of Proto-Northern Luzon shows no innovations from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian that would set it apart from other Philippine languages. There are however two phonological innovations that characterize the Northern Luzon languages:
- Loss of final *ʔ (< *q)
- Metathesis of *s and *t, e.g. Proto-Northern Luzon *saŋit < Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *taŋis 'weep', *Rasut < *Ratus 'hundred'.
Vocabulary
Lexical innovations only found in Northern Luzon languages include: *dutdut 'feather, body hair', *kəməl 'squeeze', *lətəg 'swell', *yəgyəg 'earthquake', *takdəg 'stand', *ʔubət 'buttocks'. Semantic shifts are observed e.g. in *ʔatəd 'give' (cf. Proto-Philippine *hatəd 'escort') and *laman 'wild pig' (cf. Proto-Philippine *laman 'flesh').[2]