“Why” in every Philippine language
Why across 8 languages, and what the differences tell you.
Last updated
Side by side
| Language | Why |
|---|---|
| English | Why |
| Tagalog | Bakit |
| Ilocano | Apay |
| Cebuano | Ngano |
| Hiligaynon | Ngaa |
| Waray | Kay ano |
| Kapampangan | Baket |
| Pangasinan | Akin |
1 language is missing here because we could not confirm a form, not because the language lacks the word.
What the pattern shows
Kapampangan 'baket' looks like Tagalog 'bakit' and means the same thing — but it is also the Ilocano word for an old woman or a wife, so the same string means two unrelated things depending on which language you are reading.
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.
Watch out
baket does not mean the same thing everywhere:
- An old woman; a wife in Ilocano
- Why in Kapampangan
Kapampangan baket is the ordinary word for why and looks like Tagalog bakit, which means the reader assumes the Ilocano sense is a typo.
akin does not mean the same thing everywhere:
- Mine in Tagalog
- Why in Pangasinan
Both are extremely common function words, so this turns up in short sentences where there is no context to disambiguate.
More question words
The whole category as a word list: Ilocano Question Words · Tagalog Question Words
Where this comes from
This row is one of 161 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.