Ilonggo

About Hiligaynon (Ilonggo)

Hiligaynon, often called Ilonggo after the people of Iloilo, is spoken by about 8 million people in the Western Visayas of the Philippines (Panay, Guimaras and Negros Occidental) and in parts of Mindanao. It is one of the Visayan languages, related to Cebuano (see Bisaya) and more distantly to Tagalog. Speakers often describe it as a soft and gentle-sounding language.

Hiligaynon is written in Latin letters much as it sounds. Maayong aga means good morning and salamat means thank you, as in Tagalog.

FamilyAustronesian, Visayan
Speakersabout 8.2 million (2007)
Where spokenPhilippines (Western Visayas, parts of Mindanao)
ScriptLatin alphabet
Codehil (ISO 639-3)

Speaker number: Nationalencyklopedin (2007), via Wikidata. Retrieved 26 September 2026.

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