Chavacano writing system

Chavacano orthography
Chavacano words of Spanish origin are written using the Latin script with some special characters from the Spanish alphabet: the vowels with the acute accent (á, é, í, ó, ú), the vowel u with trema (ü), and ñ.

Chavacano words of local origin are also written using the Latin alphabet and are spelled in the manner according to their origin. Thus, the letter k appear mostly in words of Austronesian origin or in loanwords from other Philippine languages (words such as kame, kita, kanamon, kaninyo).

Some additional characters like the ñ (eñe, representing the phoneme, a letter distinct from n, although typographically composed of an n with a tilde), the digraph ch (che, representing the phoneme ), the ll (elle, representing the phoneme ), and the digraph rr (erre with strong r) exist in Chavacano writing.

The Chavacano alphabet has 29 letters including the special characters.

As a general rule, words of Spanish origin are written and spelled using Spanish orthography (e.g. ', '). Words of local (Philippine languages) origin are written and spelled using local orthography, but only when those words are pronounced in the local manner (i.e. manok, kanon). Otherwise, words of local origin are written and spelled in the native manner along Spanish spelling rules (i.e. jendeh, cogon).

In the old times, all Chavacano words, regardless of origin, were written according to the Spanish orthography (kita = quita, kame = came). Furthermore, some letters were orthographically interchanged because they represented the same phonetic values. (i.e. gente = jente, cerveza = serbesa)

It is uncommon in modern Chavacano writings to include the acute accent and the trema in writing and these are usually only used in linguistic or highly formalized texts. Also, the letters ñ and ll are sometimes replaced by ny and ly in informal texts.

The use of inverted punctuations (¡! and ¿?) as well as the accent marks, diaeresis, and circumflex have become obsolete even in standard texts among modern dialects.

Alphabet
The Chavacano alphabet has 30 letters including , , <ñ> and :

a, b, c, ch, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, ll, m, n, ñ, o, p, q, r, rr, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z

Letters and letter names
Other letter combinations include rr (erre), which is pronounced or, and ng, which is pronounced. Another combination was ñg, which was pronounced but is now obsolete and is only written as ng.

Some sounds are not represented in the Chavacano written language. These sounds are mostly in words of Philippine and foreign origin. Furthermore, the pronunciation of some words of Spanish origin have become distorted or Philippinized in modern Chavacano. Some vowels have become allophonized ('e' and 'o' becomes 'i' and 'u' in some words) and some consonants have changed their pronunciation. (i.e. escoger became iscují in informal speech; tiene ; Dios ; Castilla became instead of ).

Glottal stops, as in Filipino languages, are not also indicated (â, ê, î, ô, û). These sounds are mainly found in words of Philippine origin and are only indicated in dictionaries (i.e. jendê = not; olê = again) and when they are, the circumflex accent is used.

Other pronunciation changes in some words of Spanish origin include:


 * f ~
 * j, g (before 'e' and 'i') ~ // (in common with dialects of Caribbean and other areas of Latin America and southern Spain)
 * ch ~
 * rr ~
 * di, de ~ (when followed or preceded by other vowels: Dios ~ /jos/ ; dejalo ~ /jalo/)
 * ti, te ~ (when followed or preceded by other vowels: tierra ~ /chehra/; tiene ~ /chene/)
 * ci, si ~  (when followed or preceded by other vowels: conciencia ~ /konshensha/)

[b, d, g] between vowels which are fricative allophones are pronounced as they are in Chavacano.

Other sounds

 * -h (glottal fricative in the final position); sometimes not written
 * -g ; sometimes written as just -k
 * -d ; sometimes written as just -t
 * -kh []; only applied to loanwords of Arabic origin, mostly Islamic terms

Sounds from English

 * “v” pronounced as English “v” (like: vase) (vi)
 * “z” pronounced as English “z” (like: zebra) (zi)
 * “x” pronounced as English “x” (like: X-ray) (ex/eks)
 * “h” like: house (/eitsh/); sometimes written as 'j'