How Plural Ideas Are Expressed in Waray

There are two ways of expressing plural ideas in the Waray language. The first one is easier -- you just add the word "mga" (ma-nguh) before any word. Take a look at these examples:

pagkaon (food)

bata (child) - mga bata (children)
kahoy (tree) - mga kahoy (trees)
harok (kiss) - mga harok (kisses)
sangkay (friend) - mga sangkay (friends)
bugto (sibling) - mga bugto (siblings)
lalaki (man) - mga lalaki (men)
babaye (woman) - mga babaye (women)
daraga (unmarried/young lady) - mga daraga (unmarried/young ladies)
ulitawo (unmarried/young man) - mga ulitawo (unmarried/young men)
urupod (relative) - mga urupod (relatives)
patud (cousin) - mga patud (cousins)
mananap (insect) - mga mananap (insects)

mga pagkaon

The second way of doing it is by adding a prefix and a suffix to the root word. Normally, the prefix KA and the suffix AN are added to the word; hence, bata becomes kabataan and kahoy becomes kakahoyan. Harok (kiss), however, cannot be expressed in plural form using this style. You either say harok or mga harok, but NOT kaharokan.

bata (child) - kabataan (children)
kahoy (tree) - kakahoyan (trees)
bugto (sibling) - kabugtoan (siblings)
sangkay (friend) - kasangkayan (friends)

kadaragan-an ug kaulitawhan (young ladies and young men)

There is a slight variation with how the words lalaki, babaye, and daraga are expressed in plural form in Waray. Instead of the suffix AN, the letter N is added to the root word before adding AN: kalalakin-an, kababayen-an, kadaragan-an.

lalaki (man) -kalalakin-an (men)
babaye (woman) - kababayen-an (women)
daraga (unmarried/young lady) - kadaragan-an (unmarried/young women)

ulitawo (unmarried/young man) - kaulitawhan (unmarried/young men)
patud (cousin) - kapaturan (cousins)
urupod (relative) - kaurupdan (relatives)
mananap (insect) - kamamanampan (insects)

With ulitawo, the letter "O" is replaced with letter "H" before adding the suffix AN: kaulitawhan. Moreover, "D" in patud is dropped and is replaced with the letter "R" before the suffix AN is added. "O" is likewise dropped in urupod when expressed in plural form. The way mananap, changes to its plural form is even more complicated. "M" is inserted between the two final letters (A and P); hence, mananap becomes kamamanampan.

One piece of advice: if you think the second style is complicated, you just stick to the simpler one: add "mga" to any Waray noun (place it before the word) and you will have it in plural form.

Canvass and Compare Prices Before Registering Your Domain Name

Sooner or later, you will consider the idea of buying your own domain name. If you are obsessed (this is too strong a word, I know, but I always like to exaggerate things) with your Google and Alexa rankings, I suggest that you do it early. Buy your own domain name while you still haven't reached a Google Page Rank of 3/10. Why? Domain age is one area that's considered when evaluating a site. The older your site is, the higher its importance in the World Wide Web -- or so I "heard" from other bloggers. The moment you register your own domain name, your site's age returns to 0 (zero) and you lose everything like Facebook Likes, Google PR, Alexa Traffic Rank, and backlinks; hence, it's good to do it early and to do it right.

Before you make that very important decision, look around and compare the prices available on the web. Do a Google or a Yahoo search and you will see that prices of domain names range from $1.99/year to $10/year. I'm not promoting any particular webhost here, but I just want to tell you that there are sites that sell domain names at $1.99. I didn't know this at the time I registered mine. Good luck!

Misay nga Mambanon -- A Waray Parody of Mocking Bird Hill

Here's a Waray song I learned from my father. In the early 1970's he was assigned in San Antonio, Northern Samar as a PACD (Presidential Assistant on Community Development) officer and it was there that he learned the song.

Image source

I became familiar with the Mocking Bird Hill (by Patti Page) tune because of Misay nga Mambanon (Spotted Cat). I'm posting here the lyrics of the song. You may play the youtube video -- audio actually, because except for that static photo there's nothing else to see -- while singing Misay nga Mambanon.


MISAY NGA MAMBANON

Hala la, hala la
Kupkop la, kupkop la
Basi ka takasan san akon mantika
Hala la, hala la
Kupkop la, kupkop la
Basi ka takasan san akon mantika

Misay, misay, misay, misay nga mambanon
Sinaka kagab-i an suga ginparong
Dayon ko la buhat ngan panginanuon
Salbahis nga misay kinupkop la dayon

Hala la, hala la
Kupkop la, kupkop la
Basi ka takasan san akon mantika
Hala la, hala la
Kupkop la, kupkop la
Basi ka takasan san akon mantika

To the "Warays" out there, I hope you'll include this in your list of favorite Waray songs. Waray na la translation nga ak gin-api kay di kaya.

You might also like:
Misay: A Waray Folk Song (with voice clip and English translation)

How to Change the Title of your Blog -- A Beginner's Guide

Changing the title of a blog is easy. Once you learn how to do it, you can change it anytime because it can be done swiftly without using any complicated codes. You can do it in just three steps. Here they are:

1. On your Dashboard, click SETTINGS.



2. On the TITLE, write the new name or title of your blog.


3. Click SAVE SETTINGS.

How to Start a Blog at Blogger.com -- A Beginner's Guide

So, you finally decided to have your own blog, but you don't know how to go about it. In this post, I'll do a step-by-step guide on how to set-up a blog at Blogger.com. You may 'right-click' the pictures to better  understand this tutorial.

• Type www.blogger.com in the address bar of your web browser, and click "CREATE YOUR BLOG."

• Click "More options."

• Create your Google account by filling out this form.
  
  
  

• After accomplishing the form, click "Next Step." Don't forget to read the Blogger's Privacy and Terms [formerly this was Terms of Service (ToS)] before clicking "I agree."  (I have heard about bloggers who were suspended from using Google Adsense because they violated some items in the ToS. Blogger operates in this manner -- you violate its stipulations and your account gets suspended.) Click "Continue to Blogger."

• You will be asked to confirm your Google+ profile.  For this demo blog, I'm choosing the limited Blogger profile option. 

• Click "Continue to Blogger," and click "Create new blog."

• Write your desired title and address.  The title is the name of your blog, e.g., Student Interns. The address is its Uniform Resource Locator or URL, e.g., http://studentinterns.blogspot.com.   

• Choose the theme of your blog, and click "Create Blog!"

• Now, you're ready to write your first blog post. 

• Write the title of your first blog post in the title bar. 

• Click "PUBLISH" after you have written everything you want to say in this maiden post.

Related Posts:

How to Add a Gadget on Blogger -- A Beginner's Guide

How to Change the Title of Your Blog -- A Beginner's Guide

Socialgo.com: No Longer A Free Webhosting Site

Socialgo.com once hosted the two websites I made for my high school students. I liked it because of the many features that it offered to its users, specifically my students.

About a month ago, I prepared a Powerpoint presentation for a group of Education students where I talked about the advantages of integrating technology with classroom activities. I was able to access the two sites and to take several screenshots of their pages.


As of this writing, however, the VSULHS Literary Minds and the VSULHS Budding Writers can no longer be accessed. They completely disappeared from the world wide web. I checked Socialgo.com's home page and I didn't find the familiar "Login" button. Instead, there's that "pricing and sign-up" button: that means we have to pay before we can avail of Socialgo.com's services.


For classroom teachers who want to build websites for their students, you may try team blogging at Blogger.com or at Wordpress.com. It's not easy setting up a team blog especially when your students are not tech savvy, but this is the only option that I can think of at this time. Why Blogger.com and Wordpress.com? Both sites allow publishing without any fees; hence, you need not worry about the possibility that your posts might suddenly disappear without any trace.

Waray Words -- Edru and Yatot

Edru. I love the sound of this Waray word especially when the rolling of the letter R is exaggerated.

tomrichmond.com

Not everyone can afford to get near an edru. Only the rich can have that luxury of traveling and of going somewhere. When one boards an edru, it entails money on the part of the traveler. What is an edru? It's the Waray word for AIRPLANE.

sangrea.net

Edru involves flying; yatot, crawling. While the rich can afford to fly, one crawls when he/she is as poor as a rat. Well, figuratively. What is yatot? That's RAT in Waray.

Two Waray Words -- Ohataw and Ipo

Ohataw is a food container. It's a concave vessel whose shape is round. In some parts of Samar and Leyte, it is called yahong. Ohataw is a soup bowl.

tabatchnik.com

Ipo is another Waray word for misay/misai. It is also called iding, iring, misay, or uding by other Waray speakers. All these five nouns are Waray terms for cat.

carricaturesbysusan.com

I know my mother tongue very well, yet I haven't come across any Waray word for kitten. Whether it's a cat or a kitten, it's always called ipo. To refer to a kitten, Waray speakers -- especially those from Northern Samar -- usually call it anak sa ipo (a cat's offspring).

This Site Has A New URL

I immediately bought my own domain name after I discovered that the two sites I made for my students could no longer be accessed. Well, that's the major drawback of using free webhosting sites.

Technically, this blog is only a day old and that means I have to start all over again in order for me to regain its original rankings. My Page Rank of 1/10 (it's not much, but I had to wait for several months before this site got ranked by Google) is now back to N/A. All the backlinks are gone and there's no data available for www.warayblogger.com at Alexa.com.


The good thing about not having the "blogspot" in a blog's URL is that, it's shorter and it can easily be remembered. That and my blog's security -- meaning, it won't be deleted without any warning -- are enough to keep me going. And to make me continue blogging. Oh, I also have my own email address at warayblogger.com. Yes, that's right, www.warayblogger.com is now officially mine.