Bikol/Grammar

Word connectives or “ligatures” are a unique part of the Bikol language that are used to link two words together.

There are a variety of grammar patterns that require words to be connected by ligatures.

The first pattern to learn, is that you should connect nouns and the adjectives that describe them using ligatures.

For example, in the phrase: “beautiful maiden”, the words “beautiful” and “maiden” should be connected with a ligature in the Bikol language.

Two types of ligatures:

1.) If the first word ends in a vowel, the ligature -ng is attached to the end of that word to connect it to the next word.

Example:
daragang magayon (beautiful maiden)

2.) If the first word ends in any consonant including the letter "N", the word na is used to connect two words.

Example:
magayon na daraga (beautiful maiden)

Quiz:
1.) halangkaw + harong (tall house)
2.) kamot + maati (dirty hand)
3.) turog + ikos (sleeping cat)
4.) naglulukso + aki (jumping child)
5.) mayo + kwarta (no money)