Molbog is an
Austronesian language spoken in the
Philippines and
Sabah,
Malaysia. The majority of speakers are concentrated at the southernmost tip of the Philippine province of
Palawan, specifically the municipalities of
Bataraza and
Balabac. Both municipalities are considered as bastions for environmental conservation in the province. The majority of Molbog speakers are Muslims.
The classification of Molbog is controversial.[2] Thiessen (1981) groups Molbog with the
Palawanic languages, based on shared phonological and
lexical innovations.[3] This classification is supported by Smith (2017).[4] An alternative view is taken by Lobel (2013), who puts Molbog together with
Bonggi in a
Molbog-Bonggi subgroup.[5]
The sounds [dʒ,ɲ] occur as a result of loanwords from Spanish, Malay or dialects of the
Sama language.
/h/ only occurs marginally. While it was generally lost in inherited words, it is retained in some words e.g. luhaʔ 'tears', probably through re-borrowing.[6]
^Thiessen, Henry Arnold (1981). Phonological reconstruction of Proto Palawan. Anthropological Papers, no. 10. Manila: National Museum of the Philippines.
^Zorc, R. David; Thiessen, H. Arnold (1995). Molbog: introduction and wordlist. Darrell T. Tryon (ed.), Comparative Austronesian dictionary: an introduction to Austronesian studies: Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 359–362.