Abstract The centuries-long Spanish colonial period (1565–1898) fundamentally reshaped the Philippine linguistic ecosystem, resulting in extensive lexical borrowing across indigenous languages. This study examines the structural mechanisms of lexical nativization, the process of linguistic acculturation through which foreign words are modified to conform to native phonological, orthographic, and morphological systems. Drawing on Hockett’s Theory of Phylogenetic Change and Haugen’s framework of linguistic borrowing, this paper analyzes the structural transformations of Hispanic loanwords preserved within contemporary vernacular media. Utilizing a descriptive-matrix qualitative design, the study investigates the loanword modifications embedded within the prototype online Visayan song "Kuntis sa Hambog." A corpus of 20 Hispanic loanwords, comprising 11 nouns, 5 verbs, and 4 adjectives was extracted and systematically evaluated across separate grammatical matrices. The findings reveal distinct patterns of linguistic acculturation: Orthographic and Phonological Adaptation: While certain lexical items retain their original Spanish spellings, the majority undergo profound native phonetic re-spellings. These include the simplification of consonant clusters, the reduction or deletion of syllables, and the transformation of diphthongs into glide-vowel sequences. Morphological Derivation: Borrowed roots are actively integrated into Malayo-Polynesian morphosyntactic structures, undergoing native Cebuano affixation and morphological reduplication to fulfill native tense, aspect, and focus requirements. Ultimately, this study demonstrates that linguistic borrowing in Cebuano Visayan is not a passive receipt of foreign models, but an active, creative process of Filipinization. The paper concludes that digital platforms and popular music serve as living repositories that capture ongoing language evolution. It thus recommends expanded parallel investigations across diverse media genres and distinct regional Philippine languages to further map the country's dynamic linguistic cartography.
Maria Morena E. Dela Peña (Fri,) studied this question.