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“Goodbye” in every Philippine language

Goodbye across 9 languages, and what the differences tell you.

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Side by side

Goodbye in 9 Philippine languages and English
LanguageGoodbye
EnglishGoodbye
TagalogPaalam
IlocanoAgpakadaakon
CebuanoAyo-ayo
HiligaynonHalong
WarayPag-iha
BikolPaaram
KapampanganMako na ku
PangasinanOnla ak la

What the pattern shows

Cebuano 'ayo-ayo' and Hiligaynon 'halong' both mean 'take care' rather than 'farewell'; a bare word for goodbye is uncommon in the Visayan languages, and 'bye' is what people actually say.

No two languages here use the same word. That is unusual even on this list, and it is the clearest possible answer to whether these are dialects of one another.

More greetings

Where this comes from

This row is one of 84 concept pages drawn from a parallel set of everyday vocabulary held across nine languages. You can browse all of them, download the whole set under CC BY-SA 4.0, or paste text to find out which language it is.

Compiled from published general reference and pending review by native speakers. If something here is wrong in a language you speak, please tell us.