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What’s with this “Wren” thing?
The oldest extant version of the fable
we
are presenting here appeared in 1913 in the first volume of a two-volume anthology
of Low
Saxon folktales (Plattdeutsche
Volksmärchen “Low German Folktales”)
collected by Wilhelm Wisser (1843–1935). Read
more ...
Tausug
Tausug
outriggers (vinta) come with colorful sails.
Language information:
The Tausug language is natively known as Bahasa Sūg or Bahasa Tausūg, also as Basa Sūg or Basa Tausūg. It is currently
used by about a half million ethnic Tausug and, mostly as a secondary language,
by
about
as
many
people
belonging
to neighboring
ethnic groups.
The native Tausug area is the Philippine province of Sulu which consists of an
archipelago in which the island of Sulu as its largest member. These islands
are situated in
the way of a strong ocean current that flows between the Sulu Sea and the Sulawesi
(Celebes) Sea through the narrow between Mindanao and Borneo. The name Tausug
means something like “people of the current.” This group of islands
may be seen as representing a sort of bridge between the Southern
Philippines
and
the island of Borneo, specifically with the region of Sabah which now belongs
to Malaysia and is home to some Tausug-speaking communities as well, known
there as Suluk. While they represent the majority in Sulu, Tausug people represent minorities
not only in Sabah but also in the Philippine provinces of Zamboanga del Sur,
Basilan and Tawi-Tawi. Sulu province may be seen as representing a bridge
between the predominantly Christianized and
predominantly
Islamicized
regions
of the Nusantara, the Malaiic linguistic and cultural sphere encompassing aboriginal Taiwan,
Philippines, Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia and Singapore, Malaysia’s mainland, and Southern Thailand.
While
there are some Christians among the Tausug, the majority of Tausug people are
Muslim. Many of them are not only
proficient
in neighboring
and dominant languages (such as Tagalog, Cebuano, Malay and English) but have
some command of Arabic as well.
Like
Malay and
Balinguingui Sama, Tausug is traditionally written using the Jawi derivative of the Arabic alphabet, though these days both languages are more
commonly written by means of a Roman-based writing system.
Genealogy: Austronesian > Malayo-Polynesian > Western > Philippines > Central > Visayan > Southern > Butuan-Tausug
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