Southern Alta language

Southern Alta is spoken primarily in the Sierra Madre of eastern Nueva Ecija and in nearby coastal areas of Quezon Province. History Prior to 1937, no information is available on the early history of the language. Endangerment of the language Today, Southern Alta risks becoming extinct in the near future. With only 1,000 speakers, or less, the language is categorized as critically endangered. Due to Southern Alta not being a common spoken language in the Philippines, it is likely that the language will soon be lost and will not continue to be passed down, eventually becoming a "dead language". ==Phonology==

• The phonemes /tʃ dʒ r/ only appear in loanwords. • The phonemes /t d n/ are dental. • /h/ does not appear word-finally. • /b/ and /d/ are palatalized [bʲ dʲ] when preceding /Vk/. • The consonants /p b t d k s m n ŋ l/ can be geminated. • /u/ is in free variation with [ɔ]. • Vowels are lengthened when in a stressed syllable. Additionally, the following diphthongs can be found: /au/, /ɔu/, /ai/, /ɔi/, /ei/. Stress is phonemic, but unpredictable. == Grammar ==

There is not much known about the language of Southern Alta because it is a little known language of the Philippines. The only data previously available on Southern Alta is an unpublished wordlist of 350 words collected by Wesley Petro (1974), formerly of New Tribes Mission. == Vocabulary ==

To get a better understanding of a few words, as well as the language of Southern Alta, below is a table of words in English and how that word would be translated in Southern Alta. Unique forms – Southern Alta. Northern and Southern Alta are distantly related languages. Below is a table that shows similarities between words spoken in both Southern Alta (ALTS) and Northern Alta (ALTN). Uniquely shared lexical items – Northern and Southern Alta. ==References==