Bisayan languages in the context of "Sulu Province"

The Visayas (/vəˈsaɪəz/ və-SY-əz), or the Visayan Islands (Visayan: Kabisay-an, Cebuano pronunciation: [kabiˈsajʔan]; Filipino: Kabisayaan [kɐbɪsɐˈjaʔan]), are one of the three principal geographical divisions of the Philippines, along with Luzon and Mindanao. Located in the central part of the archipelago, it consists of several islands, primarily surrounding the Visayan Sea, although the Visayas are also considered the northeast extremity of the entire Sulu Sea. Its inhabitants are predominantly the Visayan peoples.

The major islands of the Visayas are Panay, Negros, Cebu, Bohol, Leyte and Samar. The region may also include the provinces of Palawan, Romblon, and Masbate, whose populations identify as Visayan and whose languages are more closely related to other Visayan languages than to the major languages of Luzon.

Philippine English is a variety of English native to the Philippines, including those used by the media and the vast majority of educated Filipinos and English learners in the Philippines from adjacent Asian countries. English is taught in schools as one of the two official languages of the country, the other being Filipino, a standardized form of Tagalog. Due to the influx of Philippine English teachers overseas, Philippine English is also becoming the prevalent variety of English being learned in East Asia and Southeast Asia as taught by Filipino teachers in various countries such as South Korea, Japan, and Thailand among others. Due to the highly multilingual and bilingual nature of the Philippines, code-switching such as Taglish (Tagalog-infused English) and Bislish (English infused with any of the Bisayan languages) is prevalent across domains from casual settings to formal situations. Philippine English is similar and related to American English but in nativized form.

Cebuano (/sɛˈbwɑːnoʊ/ se-BWAH-noh) is an Austronesian language spoken in the southern Philippines by Bisaya people and other ethnic groups as a secondary language. It is natively, though informally, called by the generic name Bisayâ (Cebuano pronunciation: [bisəˈjaʔ] ), or Binisayâ ([bɪniːsəˈjaʔ]) (both terms are translated into English as Visayan, though this should not be confused with other Bisayan languages) and sometimes referred to in English sources as Cebuan (/sɛˈbuːən/ seb-OO-ən). It is spoken by the Visayan ethnolinguistic groups native to the islands of Cebu, Bohol, Siquijor, the eastern half of Negros, the western half of Leyte, the northern coastal areas of Northern Mindanao and the eastern part of Zamboanga del Norte due to Spanish settlements during the 18th century. In modern times, it has also spread to the Davao Region, Cotabato, Camiguin, parts of the Dinagat Islands, and the lowland regions of Caraga, often displacing native languages in those areas (most of which are closely related to it).

While Tagalog has the largest number of native speakers among the languages of the Philippines today, Cebuano had the largest native-language-speaking population from the 1950s until about the 1980s. It is by far the most widely spoken of the Bisayan languages.

Cuyonon is a regional Bisayan language spoken on the coast of Palawan and the Cuyo Islands in the Philippines. Cuyonon had been the lingua franca (language used for communication) of the province of Palawan until recently when migration flow into the region rapidly increased. Forty-three percent of the total population of Palawan during the late 1980s spoke and used Cuyonon as a language. Later studies showed a significant decrease in the number of speakers due to an increase of Tagalog-speaking immigrants from Luzon.

The Cuyonon language is classified by the Summer Institute of Linguistics as belonging to the Central Philippine, Western Bisayan, Kuyan subgroup. The largest number of speakers lives in the Cuyo Group of Islands, which is located between northern Palawan and Panay Island.

Visayans (Cebuano: mga Bisayà [bisaˈjaʔ]) are a Philippine ethnolinguistic family group or metaethnicity native to the Visayas, to the southernmost islands south of Luzon, and to a significant portion of Mindanao. They are composed of numerous distinct ethnic groups. When taken as a single group, they number around 33.5 million. The Visayans, like the Luzon Lowlanders (Tagalogs, Bicolanos, Ilocanos, etc.) were originally predominantly animist-polytheists and broadly share a maritime culture until the 16th century when the Spanish Empire enforced Catholicism as the state religion. In more inland or otherwise secluded areas, ancient animistic-polytheistic beliefs and traditions either were reinterpreted within a Roman Catholic framework or syncretized with the new religion. Visayans are generally speakers of one or more of the distinct Bisayan languages, the most widely spoken being Cebuano, followed by Hiligaynon (Ilonggo) and Waray-Waray.

Waray (also known as Waray-Waray or Bisayâ/Binisayâ and Winaray/Waray, Spanish: idioma samareño meaning Samar language) is an Austronesian language and the fifth-most-spoken native regional language of the Philippines, native to Eastern Visayas. It is the native language of the Waray people and second language of the Abaknon people of Capul, Northern Samar, and some Cebuano-speaking peoples of western and southern parts of Leyte island. It is the third most spoken language among the Bisayan languages, only behind Cebuano and Hiligaynon.

Hiligaynon, also often referred to as Ilonggo or Binisayâ/Bisayâ nga Hiniligaynon/Inilonggo, is an Austronesian regional language spoken in the Philippines by about 9.1 million people, predominantly in Panay Island, Negros Occidental, and Soccsksargen, most of whom belong to the Hiligaynon people. It is the second-most widely spoken language in the Visayas and belongs to the Bisayan languages, and it is more distantly related to other Philippine languages.

It also has one of the largest native language-speaking populations of the Philippines, despite it not being taught and studied formally in schools and universities until 2012. Hiligaynon is given the ISO 639-2 three-letter code hil, but has no ISO 639-1 two-letter code.

Aklanon, also known as Akeanon or Inakeanon, is an Austronesian language of the Bisayan subgroup spoken by the Aklanon people, the locals of the province of Aklan on the island of Panay in the Philippines. Its unique feature among other Bisayan languages is the close-mid back unrounded vowel [ɤ] occurring as part of diphthongs and traditionally written with the letter ⟨Ee⟩ such as in the autonyms Akean and Akeanon. However, this phoneme is also present in other but geographically scattered and distant Philippine languages, namely Itbayat, Isneg, Manobo, Samal and Sagada.

The Malaynon dialect is 93% lexically similar to Aklanon and has retained the "l" sounds, which elsewhere are often pronounced as "r".

Central Visayas (Cebuano: Tunga-tungang Kabisay-an; Tagalog: Gitnang Kabisayaan; Filipino: Gitnang Visayas), designated as Region VII, is an administrative region in the Philippines. With only two provinces: Cebu and Bohol, as well as three highly urbanized cities: Cebu City, Lapu-Lapu, and Mandaue, it has the fewest number of provinces out of any region in the country. Despite this, it is the most populous region in the Visayas, with a population of 6,545,603.

The regional center, as well as its largest city, is Cebu City. The Cebuano language is the region's lingua franca. The region is also dominated by the native speakers of three Visayan languages: Bantayanon, Boholano and Porohanon.