Ivatan is spoken by around 40 thousand people.

Ivatan an Austronesian language spoken exclusively in the Batanes Islands in the most northern reaches of the Philippines.

With the islands' proximity to Taiwan, the language is closer linguistically and philologically to Taiwanese aborigine languages than to other Philippine languages. However, the language is not placed in the Formosan languages group. It is especially characterized by its word, which mostly have the letter 'v', as in vakul, Ivatan, and valuga. Letter 'e', is pronounced as the schwa oun, or 'uh', as in Dios Mamajes, 'di-yos-ma-ma-huhs', and palek 'pa-luhk'. The Ivatan language is completely different from the rest of the other Philippine languages, having been isolated and more closer to Taiwanese aborigines, especially the Yami group.