Congratulations to Instructors Vincent Christopher Santiago and Noah Cruz on both getting their MA in Linguistics degrees!

Santiago’s thesis is titled “A Grammatical Sketch of Porohanon.” In this study, which is supervised by Assoc. Prof. Aldrin Lee, the structure of the vigorous language of Porohanon, spoken in the Camotes Islands, is analyzed through the Radical Construction Grammar framework, a syntactic theory that simultaneously acknowledges the notion of language- and construction-specific syntactic components and takes typological features into consideration. He has previously presented on the phonology, markers, sentences, and culture of Porohanon. 

Some of his recent publications include “Isang Multi-criterial na Pag-iiba ng Pangngalan at Pandiwa sa Romblomanon/Ini” published in the Philippine Social Sciences Review and “Tracing the Provenance of Marinduque Toponyms” (co-authored with UP Diliman Department of History Instructor Emmanuel Jayson Bolata) published in Social Science Diliman: A Philippine Journal of Society and Change. 

Cruz’s thesis, “Ang Pagtatasa sa Sigla ng mga Wika at Diyalekto sa Pilipinas: Kalagayan at Patutunguhan,” supervised by Assoc. Prof. Tuting Hernandez and partially funded by the OVCRD Thesis and Dissertation Grant, re-evaluates the effectiveness of existing language vitality scales especially when used in the context of Philippine languages. He also examines the cases of Kinaray-a in Visayas, Ayta Magbukun in Bataan, and Kapampangan Mabatang, and proposes an alternative assessment tool that was designed based on input from the multi-site fieldwork and critical review of literature. He has given a related talk in the Pambansang Kongreso sa Nanganganib na Wika in 2022 and published a part of his MA thesis in Daluyan. 

Like Santiago, Cruz’s work has also been presented at the Philippine Indigenous Languages Lecture Series (PILLS), where he described the role of vigorous languages like Kinaray-a in the discussion on language endangerment. 

Santiago and Cruz, along with the other MA Lingg graduates of 2024, are also featured in Season 02 Episode 01 of the Oral History Project.

Taos-pusong pagbati, Sir Vincci at Sir Noah!

Published by UP Department of Linguistics