Maranao () is an Austronesian language spoken by the Maranao people in the provinces of Lanao del Norte and Lanao del Sur in the Philippines, and in Sabah, Malaysia. Iranun was once considered a dialect of Maranao. Unique among other Danao languages, Maranao is spoken with a distinct downstep accent, as opposed to stress accent. Additionally, Maranao features aspirated "hard consonants", which also raise the quality of following vowels. Distribution Maranao is spoken in the provinces of Lanao del Sur and Lanao del Norte and in northwestern Maguindanao, northwestern Cotabato, and northwestern Bukidnon, all of which are located in the island of Mindanao in southern Philippines. Writing system Maranao was historically written in Arabic letters, which were known as . It is now written with Latin letters. Though there is no officially proclaimed standard orthography, Maranao is more or less written as influenced by contemporary Filipino conventions. The following are the letters used in writing out native words: A, B, D, E, G, H, I, K, L, M, N, NG, O, P, R, S, T, U, W, Y In general, double vowels are pronounced separately, for example, is pronounced as . The final sound in diphthongs and "w" were marked with "-o" in older orthographies, as in other Philippine languages, but both are nowadays spelled as "w". Also, "i" was used in older orthographies to transcribe , which is currently spelled as "Y". "H" is only used for Malay loanwords, and "sh" (pronounced as ) is normally used for Arabic loanwords and names such as (Isaac). "Di" or "j" are used to transcribe the sound, such as radia/ (from the Sanskrit word for 'king', "Rāja") or the English name John. In representing the mid central vowel (or schwa) , different authors have employed various means to represent this sound (e.g. "E" or "U"). In social media, speakers use either of the two letters or just leave it blank (e.g. can also be spelled and on the internet). Meanwhile, the Commission on the Filipino Language recommends spelling this sound using "Ë" for different Philippine languages in its 2013 Ortograpiyang Pambansa. In a revised Maranao Dictionary by McKaughan and Macaraya in 1996, the digraph "'ae" was introduced and used to represent the supposed presence of the vowel . However, analysis by Lobel (2009, 2013) showed that this may actually be an allophone of after hard consonants. McKaughan and Macaraya also used "q"