It is spoken by the Visayan ethnolinguistic groups native to the islands of Cebu, Bohol, Siquijor, the eastern half of Negros, the western half of Leyte, the northern coastal areas of Northern Mindanao and the eastern part of Zamboanga del Norte due to Spanish settlements during the 18th century.

The term Cebuano derives from "Cebu"+"ano", a Latinate calque reflecting the Philippines' Spanish colonial heritage.

Cebuano speakers in certain portions of Leyte, Northern Mindanao, Davao Region, Caraga, and Zamboanga Peninsula objected to the name of the language and claimed that their ancestry traces back to Bisayâ speakers native to their place and not from immigrants or settlers from Cebu.

[10] During the Spanish Colonial Period, the Spaniards broadly referred to the speakers of Hiligaynon, Cebuano, Waray, Kinaray-a, and Aklanon as Visaya and made no distinctions among these languages.

However, in a journal published in 2020, the number of speakers is estimated to be 15.9 million which in turn based it on a 2019 study.

[13] Cebuano is spoken in the provinces of Cebu, Bohol, Siquijor, Negros Oriental, northeastern Negros Occidental (as well as the municipality of Hinoba-an and the cities of Kabankalan and Sipalay to a great extent, alongside Ilonggo), southern Masbate, western portions of Leyte and Biliran (to a great extent, alongside Waray), and a large portion of Mindanao, notably the urban areas of Zamboanga Peninsula, Northern Mindanao, Davao Region, Caraga and some parts of Soccsksargen (alongside Ilonggo, Maguindanaon, indigenous Mindanaoan languages and to the lesser extent, Ilocano).

The earliest record of the Cebuano language was first documented in a list of words compiled by Antonio Pigafetta, an Italian explorer who was part of Ferdinand Magellan's 1521 expedition.

[20] Cebuano written literature is generally agreed to have started with Vicente Yap Sotto, who wrote "Maming" in 1901, but earlier he wrote a more patriotic piece of literature that was published a year later after Maming because of American censorship during the US occupation of the Philippines.

However, there existed a piece that was more of a conduct book rather than a fully defined story itself, written in 1852 by Fray Antonio Ubeda de la Santísima Trinidad.

They can be freely switched with each other without losing their meaning (free variation); though it may sound strange to a native listener, depending on their dialect.

Loanwords, however, are usually more conservative in their orthography and pronunciation (e.g. dyip, "jeepney" from English "jeep", will never be written or spoken as dyep).

When indicated, it is commonly written as a hyphen or an apostrophe if the glottal stop occurs in the middle of the word (e.g. tu-o or tu'o, "right").

[9] In some parts of Bohol and Southern Leyte, /j/ ⟨y⟩ is also often replaced with d͡ʒ ⟨j/dy⟩ when it is in the beginning of a syllable (e.g. kalayo, "fire", becomes kalajo).

[9] In rarer instances, the consonant ⟨d⟩ might also be replaced with ⟨r⟩ when it is in between two vowels (e.g. Boholano idô for standard Cebuano irô, "dog"), but ⟨d⟩ and ⟨r⟩ are not considered allophones,[9] though they may have been in the past.

[32] The Cebuano language is written using the Latin script and the de facto writing convention is based on the Filipino orthography.

There is no updated spelling rule of the language as the letter "Ee" is often interchangeable with "Ii" and "Oo" with "Uu".

[citation needed][33] Though it was recorded that the language used a different writing system prior to the introduction of the Latin script, its use was so rare that there is hardly any surviving accounts of Cebuano being written in what was called badlit.

The "Ng" digraph is also present in the alphabet since it is part of the phonology of most Philippine languages representing the sound of the velar nasal /ŋ/ (e.g. ngipon, "teeth" and ngano, "why").

Early trade contact resulted in the adoption of loanwords from Malay (despite belonging in the same language family) like "sulát" ("to write") [35] , "pilak" ("silver"),[36] and "balísa" ("anxious");[37] it also adopted words from Sanskrit like "bahandì" ("wealth, goods, riches") from "भाण्ड, bhānda" ("goods"), and bása ("to read") is taken from "वाचा, vācā" ("sacred text")[38] and Arabic like the word "alam" ("to know") is said to be borrowed from Arabic "عَالَم, ʕālam" ("things, creation, existing before")[39], and "salamat" ("expression of gratitude, thanks, thank you") from "سَلَامَات, salāmāt" ("plural form of salāma, meaning "good health"),[40] both of which were indirectly transmitted to Cebuano through Malays.

[citation needed] Below is the official translation of Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights taken from the official United Nations website: Ang tanáng katawhan gipakatawo nga adunay kagawasan ug managsama sa kabililhon.

Ang kalan-on namò sa matag adlaw, ihatag kanamò karóng adlawa.

[9] Increasing usage of spoken English (being the primary language of commerce and education in the Philippines) has also led to the introduction of new pronunciations and spellings of old Cebuano words.

They are as follows:[48][49][50][51] The Boholano dialect of Bohol shares many similarities with the southern form of Standard Cebuano.

Both of these dialects are spoken in western and central Leyte and in the southern province, but Boholano is more concentrated in Maasin City.

One characteristic of this dialect is the practice of saying atà, derived from Tagalog yatà, to denote uncertainty in a speaker's aforementioned statements.

Davaoeño speakers may also sometimes add Bagobo or Mansakan vocabulary to their speech, as in "Madayawng adlaw, amigo, kumusta ka?"

[citation needed] One of the famous characteristics of this dialect is disregarding the agreement between the verb "To go (Adto, Anha, Anhi, Ari)" and locative demonstratives (Didto, Dinha, Dinhi, Diri) or the distance of the object/place.

Cebuano-speaking people from Luzon can be easily recognized in the Visayas primarily by their vocabulary, which incorporates Tagalog words.

[citation needed] The term saksak sinagol in context means "a collection of miscellaneous things" or literally "inserted mixture", thus the few other Cebuano-influenced regions that have a variety of regional languages use this term to refer to their dialects with considerable incorporated Cebuano words.