Ilocano

Ilocano is an Austronesian language of the Northern Luzon subgroup, native to the narrow coastal plain of northwest Luzon in the Philippines. Its name comes from the native word iluko, meaning people of the bay, and its speakers once called their tongue Samtoy, our language here.

Before the Spanish arrival Ilocanos wrote in baybayin, an Indic-derived syllabary; the Ilocano edition of the Doctrina Cristiana, printed in 1621, was the first Philippine book to mark final consonants with a virama mark.

Under Spanish rule the Latin alphabet and Spanish-based spelling took over, and Ilocano spread as the lingua franca of northern Luzon, used as a second language by the Cordilleran mountain peoples. In the nineteenth century Ilocano migrants settled the Cagayan Valley and parts of Mindanao, carrying the language across the archipelago.