Trilingual Thematic Visual Dictionary of a Philippine Negrito Ethnolinguistic Community

This study seeks to make an initial documentation of the Lopez Agta language in the lexical level by producing a trilingual thematic visual dictionary using direct elicitation and name-the-picture tasks and focus group discussion as data gathering, and validation methods respectively. This linguistic documentation resulted in the identification of 370 lexical items illustrated, divided into eight themes, and written in three languages: Agta, Filipino, and English. With the implementation of the Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) in the Philippine basic education, this material would be useful for the literacy education of the natives specifically in widening their vocabulary not only in their native language but also in the language of the bigger linguistic community where they also belong. Likewise, this dictionary is of great importance in both language preservation and may also be used for future language revitalization programs.