http://wjel.sciedupress.com World Journal of English Language Vol. 12, No. 6; 2022 Published by Sciedu Press 435 ISSN 1925-0703 E-ISSN 1925-0711 Intratribe Variation in Language Among Obo-Manobo: An Ethnolinguistic Study Jerson Sabang Catoto 1 1 Cotabato Foundation College of Science and Technology, Philippines Correspondence: Jerson Sabang Catoto, Cotabato Foundation College of Science and Technology, Philippines. Received: July 18, 2022 Accepted: September 6, 2022 Online Published: September 13, 2022 doi:10.5430/wjel.v12n6p435 URL: https://doi.org/10.5430/wjel.v12n6p435 Abstract Obo-Manobo, one of the tribes in Mindanao Philippines, inhabiting some municipalities in the Province of North Cotabato, has ethnic or indigenous language which is not sufficiently analyzed and documented. To account varieties in language and to come up with the glossary of terms, the researcher used the Metalinguistic knowledge from the interviews, focus group discussions, observations and translation of the Swadesh Word List and from the lexical databases such as the word lists of Obo-Manobo accounted by the SIL. The study revealed distinct variations in the Obo-Manobo language from the culture bearers of Kidapawan City, Magpet and President Roxas in the Province of North Cotabato. Obo-Manobo has lexical varieties in the way they name and describe things, person, places, events and concepts (noun and adjectives); use the main verb, prepositions and conjunctions. These are all accounted in the glossary of terms – the output of this study. Keywords: language documentation, lexical variation, Obo Manobo, Cotabato Province, Philippines 1. Introduction Cultural diversity is essential to human heritage of which language is one of the components (UNESCO, 2003). Language, apart from being a medium of communication, also embodies the unique cultural wisdom of people; hence, the loss of any language is therefore a loss of humanity (Wamalwa & Oluoch, 2013). It has been projected that every two weeks or so, the last elderly man or woman with full command of a particular language dies. At that rate, as many as 2500 native languages will have become extinct by the year 2100 (Moore, 2006). With the trend of language endangerment and even language death, this manifests that linguistic diversity is gradually replaced with homogeneity. There is a need to maintain diversity in language because diverse languages are expressions of identities; and languages are in themselves repositories of history. Forming an integral part of the sum of human knowledge, language is a vital and critical channel through which relationships are commenced and sustained (Crystal, 2000). Languages are often seen as symbols of ethnic and national identity and that when a language dies out, a unique way of looking at the world also disappears (Fishman 1989; Nettle & Romaine 2000; Dalby 2002). This common scenario about the language is an issue which should be addressed. The United Nations has a number of policy papers and guidelines for governmental action plans on the UNESCO website under the heading of safeguarding „intangible cultural heritage‟ (UNESCO 2003). Kube (2006) and Himmelmann (2006) opined that one of the ways to protect the language is through language documentation. Language documentation as a field of linguistic inquiry and practice in its own right is primarily concerned with the compilation and preservation of linguistic primary data and interfaces between primary data and various types of analyses based on these data (Himmelmann, 2006). The Obo-Manuvu as one of the tribes in Mindanao Philippines has an ethnic or indigenous language which is not sufficiently analyzed and documented. If this is the case, Batibo (2009) suggested that there must be systematic description and codification of the indigenous languages would empower these languages for public use, preserve them for future generation as well as give them more utilitarian value. Considering the aforementioned premises, the urgency to conduct a study exploring the lexical varieties of the Obo-Manobo language was established. Studying the varieties of the language is one of the objects of language documentation (Himmelmann, 2006). The Obo-Manobo inhabits different municipalities in North Cotabato,