Guarding Mangyan culture: DLSU creates first Hanunoo e-dictionary

Photo courtesy of DLSU

MANILA, Philippines — Faculty members and students of De La Salle University (DLSU) have developed a mobile app and a website that features the first Hanunoo Mangyan e-dictionary.

The e-dictionary, a product of the research titled “Language Preservation and Documentation of Hanunoo: Saving the Mangyan Culture”, aims to “promote and preserve the language and to add impetus to future collaborative work with the speech community,” DLSU said in a statement on Tuesday. 

The research was made by faculty members of DLSU’s Department of English and Applied Linguistics, College of Computer Studies, and Behavioral Sciences Department while the e-dictionary was developed by the College of Computer Studies students Beatris Mariell Choo, Robee Khyra Mae Te, and Jan Kristoffer Cheng. 

It was the Department of Science and Technology-National Research Council of the Philippines which funded the research.

A team composed of faculty members and students from De La Salle University (DLSU) has developed a mobile app and a website featuring the first Hanunoo Mangyan e-dictionary. Photo courtesy of DLSU

Hanunoo is one of the eight ethnolinguistic groups comprising the Mangyans of Mindoro island. The other ethnic groups are Iraya, Alangan, Tadyawan, Tau-buid, Bangon, Buhid, and Ratagnon.

DLSU faculty members Dr. Rochelle Irene Lucas (project leader), Dr. Joel Ilao, Dr. Melvin Jabar, and Dr. Ethel Ong selected Hanunoo for the research and e-dictionary project. 

According to the multi-disciplinary team, they are eyeing to develop similar dictionaries for the other Mangyan languages in the future.

DLSU said its research initiative was a response to the call of former Education Secretary Bro. Armin Luistro, FSC, for higher education institutions to adopt one indigenous Philippine language for preservation and revitalization.

KGA