Languages of the Philippines
Encyclopedia
In the Philippines
, there are between 120 and 175 languages, depending on the method of classification. Four languages no longer have any known speakers. Almost all the Philippine languages belong to the Austronesian language family
. Of all of these languages, only 2 are considered official in the country while (as of 2010) about 12 are considered official auxiliary.
was the original official language of the country for more than three centuries, and became the lingua franca
of the Philippines in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1863 a Spanish decree introduced universal education, creating free public schooling in Spanish
. It was also the language of the Philippine Revolution
, and the 1899 Malolos Constitution
proclaimed it as the official language of the First Philippine Republic
. National hero José Rizal
wrote most of his works in Spanish, Luciano de la Rosa, established that it was spoken by a total of 60% of the population in the early 20th century as a first, second or third language. Following the American occupation of the Philippines and the imposition of English, the use of Spanish declined gradually, especially after the 1940s.
Under the U.S. occupation and civil regime, English
began to be taught in schools. By 1901, public education used English as the medium of instruction. Around 600 educators (called "Thomasites
") who arrived in that year aboard the USS Thomas
replaced the soldiers who also functioned as teachers. The 1935 Constitution added English as an official language alongside Spanish. A provision in this constitution also called for Congress to "take steps toward the development and adoption of a common national language based on one of the existing native languages." On November 12, 1937, the First National Assembly created the National Language Institute. President Manuel L. Quezón
appointed native Waray-Waray
speaker Jaime C. De Veyra to chair a committee of speakers of other regional languages. Their aim was to select a national language among the other regional languages. Ultimately, Tagalog
was chosen as the base language December 30, 1937.
In 1939, President
Manuel L. Quezón
renamed the Tagalog language
as Wikang Pambansa ("National language" in English translation). The language was further renamed in 1959 as Pilipino by Secretary of
Education Jose Romero. The 1973 constitution declared the Pilipino language to be co-official, along with English, and mandated the development of a National language
, to be known as Filipino
.
The present constitution, ratified in 1987, stated that Filipino and English are both the official languages of the country. Filipino also had the distinction of being a national language that was to be "developed and enriched on the basis of existing Philippine and other languages." Although not explicitly stated in the constitution, Filipino is in practice almost completely composed of the Tagalog as spoken in the capital, Manila
; however, organizations such as the University of the Philippines
began publishing dictionaries such as the UP Diksyonaryong Filipino
in which words from various Philippine languages were also included. The constitution also made mention of Spanish and Arabic, both of which are to be promoted on a voluntary and optional basis.
Filipino is an official language of education, but less important than English. It is the major language of the broadcast media
and cinema
, but less important than English as a language of publication (except in some domains, like comic book
s, which are meant to speak directly to the Filipino psyche) and less important for academic-scientific-technological discourse. English and Filipino compete in the domains of business and government. Filipino is used as a lingua franca
in all regions of the Philippines as well as within overseas Filipino
communities, and is the dominant language of the armed forces
(except perhaps for the small part of the commissioned officer
corps from wealthy or upper middle class families) and of a large part of the civil service
, most of whom are non-Tagalogs.
Nobody questions that there is diglossia
in the case of Filipino and the other regional languages. In this case, Filipino can clearly be labelled as the acrolect
(the "standard") and the regional languages the basilect.
The Constitution of the Philippines
provides for the use of the vernacular languages as auxiliary languages in provinces where Filipino is not the lingua franca
. This is however not implemented as Filipinos at large would be polyglot
s. In the case where the vernacular language is a regional language, Filipinos would speak in Filipino when speaking in formal situations while the regional languages are spoken in non-formal settings. This is evident in major urban areas outside the National Capital Region
like Angeles City
in the Kapampangan
-speaking area, and Davao
in the Cebuano
-speaking area. Although the case of Ilocano and Cebuano are becoming more of bilingualism than diglossia due to the publication of materials written in these languages.
The diglossia is more evident in the case of other languages such as Pangasinan
, Kapampangan
, Bikol
, Waray
, Hiligaynon
, Sambal, and Maranao
, where the written variant of the language is becoming less and less popular to give way to the use of Filipino. Although Philippine laws consider some of these languages as "major languages" there is little, if any, support coming from the government to preserve these languages. This may be bound to change, however, given current policy trends. Although Philippine linguists would agree that there is still no danger of these languages becoming extinct in the near future, the lack of support from the government makes these languages prone to “bastardisation
”.
There still exists another type of diglossia, which is between the regional languages and the minority languages. Here, we label the regional languages as acrolects while the minority languages as the basilect. In this case, the minority language is spoken only in very intimate circles, like the family or the tribe one belongs to. Outside this circle, one would speak in the prevalent regional language, while maintaining an adequate command of Filipino for formal situations. Unlike the case of the regional languages these minority languages are always in danger of becoming extinct because of speakers favoring the more prevalent regional language. Moreover, most of the users of these languages are illiterate and as expected, there is a chance that these languages will no longer be revived due to lack of written records.
, a total of 171 native languages are spoken in the country. Except for English
, Spanish
, Hokkien
(Lan-nang
), Cantonese, Mandarin, and Chavacano
, all of the languages belong to the Malayo-Polynesian language family
. The Asa Familia own 3 of the languages
There are 13 indigenous languages with at least one million native speakers: Tagalog
, Cebuano
, Ilokano
, Hiligaynon
, Waray-Waray
, Kapampangan
, Bikol
, Albay Bikol
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=bhk, Pangasinan
, Maranao
, Maguindanao
, Kinaray-a
, and Tausug
. One or more of these is spoken natively by more than 90% of the population.
A Philippine language family
identified by Robert Blust
is nearly synonymous with the Malayo-Polynesian languages of the Philippines. The differences are that the family includes languages of north Sulawesi
and the Yami language of Taiwan
, but excludes the Sama–Bajaw languages of the Sulu Archipelago
as well as a couple North Bornean languages spoken in southern Palawan
.
s, partly as a relic of the inaccurate vocabulary used in literature during the American period (1898–1946). While there are indeed many hundreds of dialects in the Philippines, they represent variations of no fewer than 120 distinct languages, and many of these languages maintain greater differences than those between established European languages like French and Spanish.
The vast differences between the languages can be seen in the following translations of the Philippine national proverb meaning "He who does not (know how to) look back at his past (where he came from) will not reach his destination."
In the languages of the Bicol Region
, however, there is great dialectal variation. There are towns which have their own dialects. Below is the sentence "Were you there at the market for a long time?" translated into certain varieties of Bikol. The translation is followed by dialect and language
, and town in Bicol where they are spoken. The final translation is in Tagalog.
and which ones should be classified as dialect
, this chart confirms that most have similarities but are not mutually comprehensible with each other. These languages are arranged according to the regions they are natively spoken (from north to south, then east to west).
{| class="wikitable"
!English
!one
!two
!three
!four
!person
!house
!dog
!coconut
!day
!new
!we
!what
|-
!Sinama
|isa
|duwa
|tallu
|ampat
|tao
|luma
|asu
|coconut
|allaw
|bagu
|kita
|iyon
|-
!Ivatan
|asa
|dadowa
|tatdo
|apat
|tao
|vahay
|chito
|niyoy
|araw
|va-yo
|yaten
|ango
|-
!Ilokano
|maysa
|dua
|tallo
|uppat
|tao
|balay
|aso
|niog
|aldaw
|baro
|datayo
|ania
|-
!Pangasinan
|sakey
|duara
|talora
|apatira
|too
|abong
|aso
|niyog
|agew
|balo
|sikatayo
|anto
|-
!Ibanag
|tadday
|dua
|tallu
|appa'
|tolay
|balay
|kitu
|inniuk
|aggaw
|bagu
|sittam
|anni
|-
!Gaddang
|tata
|addwa
|tallo
|appat
|tolay
|balay
|atu
|ayog
|aw
|bawu
|ikkanetem
|sanenay
|-
!Kapampangan
|metung
|adwa
|atlu
|apat
|tau
|bale
|asu
|ngungut
|aldo
|bayu
|ikatamu
|nanu
|-
!Tagalog
|isa
|dalawa
|tatlo
|apat
|tao
|bahay
|aso
|niyog
|araw
|bago
|tayo, kamí, kata
|ano
|-
!Standard Bikol
|saro
|duwa
|tulo
|apat
|tawo
|harong
|ayam
|niyog
|aldaw
|ba-go
|kita
|ano
|-
!Iriga Bicolano
|usad
|darawa
|tulo
|upat
|tawo
|baloy
|ayam
|niyog
|aldow
|bago
|ngamin
|ono
|-
!Romblomanon
|isya
|dalwa
|tatlo
|ap at
|
|kita, aton
|ano
|-
!Bantoanon
|usa
|ruha
|tuyo
|upat
|tawo
|bayay
|iro
|nidog
|adlaw
|bag-o
|kita, ato
|ni-o
|-
!Onhan
|isya
|darwa
|tatlo
|apat
|tawo
|balay
|ayam
|niyog
|adlaw
|bag-o
|kita, taton
|ano
|-
!Kinaray-a
|sara
|darwa
|tatlo
|apat
|taho
|balay
|ayam
|niyog
|adlaw
|bag-o
|kita, taten
|ano, iwan
|-
!Hiligaynon
|isa
|duha
|tatlo
|apat
|tawo
|balay
|ido
|lubi
|adlaw
|bag-o
|kita
|ano
|-
!Cebuano
|usa
|duha
|tulo
|upat
|tawo
|balay
|iro
|lubi
|adlaw
|bag-o
|kita
|unsa
|-
!Surigao-non
|isa
|duha
|tuyo
|upat
|tao
|bayay
|idu
|Nijog
|adlaw
|bag-o
|kami
|unu
|-
!Waray-Waray
|usa
|duha
|tulo
|upat
|tawo
|balay
|ayam
|lubi
|adlaw
|bag-o
|kita
|ano
|-
!T'boli
|sotu
|lewu
|tlu
|fat
|tau
|gunu
|ohu
|lefo
|kdaw
|lomi
|tekuy
|tedu
|-
!Tausug
|hambuuk
|duwa
|tu
|upat
|tau
|bay
|iru'
|niyug
|adlaw
|ba-gu
|kitaniyu
|unu
|-
!Chavacano
|uno
|dos
|tres
|cuatro
|gente
|cása
|pérro
|coco
|día
|nuevo
|nosotros
|cosá/ qué
|-
There is a language spoken by the Tao people
(also known as Yami) of Orchid Island
of Taiwan
which is not included in the language of the Philippines. Their language, Tao
(or Yami) is part of the Batanic languages
which includes Ivatan
, Babuyan, and Itbayat of the Batanes
.
{| class="wikitable"
!
!one
!two
!three
!four
!person
!house
!dog
!coconut
!day
!new
!we
!what
|-
!Tao
|ása
|dóa (raroa)
|tílo (tatlo)
|ápat
|tao
|vahay
|gara
|ngata
|araw
|vayo
|tata
|vela
|}
{| class="wikitable"
! Name of Philippine language
!Number of native speakers
|-
!Tagalog
|22,000,000
|-
!Cebuano
|20,000,000
|-
!Ilocano
|7,700,000
|-
!Hiligaynon
|7,000,000
|-
!Waray-Waray
|3,100,000
|-
!Kapampangan
|2,900,000
|-
!Northern Bicol
|2,500,000
|-
!Pangasinan
|2,434,086
|-
!Southern Bicol
|1,200,000
|-
!Maranao
|1,150,000
|-
!Maguindanao
|1,100,000
|-
!Kinaray-a
|1,051,000
|-
!Tausug
|1,022,000
|-
!Surigaonon
|600,000
|-
!Masbateño
|530,000
|-
!Aklanon
|520,000
|-
!Chavacano (Spanish creole)
|512,000
|-
!Ibanag
|320,000
|}
after 1565, when the Spanish Conquistador
Miguel López de Legazpi
set sail from Mexico
and founded the first Spanish settlement on Cebú
.
In 1593, the first printing press in the Philippines was founded. In the 17th century, Spanish religious orders founded the first universities in the Philippines, some of which are considered the oldest in Asia. During colonial rule through Mexico City
, Spanish was the language of education, trade, politics and religion, and by the 19th century, it became the country's lingua franca
although it was only ever used by a small population. In 1863, a Spanish decree introduced a system of public education, creating free public schooling in Spanish. In the 1890s, the Philippines had a prominent group of Spanish-speaking scholars called the Ilustrados, such as José Rizal
. Some of these scholars participated in the Philippine Revolution
and later in the struggle against American occupation. In 1899, the short-lived First Philippine Republic
established Spanish as the country's official language; both the Malolos Constitution
and the Lupang Hinirang
(national anthem
) were written in Spanish.
The use of Spanish began to decline after Spain ceded the islands to the United States
as a result of the Spanish–American War of 1898. Under U.S. rule, the English language
began to be promoted instead of Spanish. In 1940, there were six million people with Spanish speaking skills in the Philippines. The 1950 Census stated that Filipinos who spoke Spanish as a first or second language made up only 6% of the population. In 1990, the census reported that the number had dwindled to just 2500. Spanish ceased to be an official language in 1973 and a college requirement in 1987, during Corazón Aquino
's administration. However, the language is still spoken today by Filipino-Spanish mestizos and Spanish families, who are mainly concentrated in Metro Manila, Iloílo
and Cebú
. It remains a required subject in many universities, such as the University of Santo Tomás
of Manila and the University of San Carlos
in Cebú. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, a third-language Spanish speaker, has introduced legislation to re-establish the instruction of Spanish since 2009.
Many historical documents, land titles, and literature were written in the Spanish language, and many of these documents often were never translated, although some of them as land titles still have legal value. There are thousands of Spanish loanwords in Tagalog, Cebuano, and other languages.
There are also several Spanish-based creole languages
in the Philippines, collectively called Chavacano
.
They include:
occurred in 1762, when the British invaded Manila. However, use of English in that era was minimal and had no lasting influence. English became an important language in the Philippines in the period between 1898 and 1946, when the Philippines was under U.S. sovereignty. Today, English remains an official language
in the Philippines.
Today, English is the dominant language in business, government, the legal system, medicine, the sciences and education. Filipinos tend to want their textbooks for subjects like calculus, physics, chemistry, biology, etc., written in English rather than Filipino. By way of contrast, the native languages are often heard in colloquial settings, and in the home, with family and friends, most people use their vernaculars. The use of English may be thought to carry an air of formality, given its use in school, government and various ceremonies. A percentage of the media such as cable television and newspapers are also in English; major television networks (i.e. ABS-CBN and GMA) and all AM radio stations are in Filipino. English proficiency sustains a significant call center industry for American companies.
A large influx of English words has been assimilated into Tagalog and the other native languages called Taglish
. There is a debate, however, on whether there is diglossia or bilingualism, or even semilingualism, between Filipino and English. Filipinos would use Filipino both in formal and informal situations, while, save for a very few, English will only be used for formal gatherings such as education and governance. Though the masses would prefer to speak in Filipino, government officials tend to speak in English when they do their government duties. Until now, there is still resistance in the use of Filipino in courts and the drafting of national statutes.
On August 22, 2007, three Malolos City
regional trial courts in Bulacan
decided to use Filipino, instead of English
, in order to promote the national language. Twelve stenographers from Branches 6, 80 and 81, as model courts, had undergone training at Marcelo H. del Pilar College of Law of Bulacan State University
College of Law following a directive from the Supreme Court of the Philippines
. De la Rama said it was the dream of Chief Justice Reynato Puno
to implement the program in other areas such as Laguna, Cavite
, Quezón
, Nueva Écija
, Batangas
, Rizal
and Metro Manila
.
Advocates of English say that it is the wave of the future, with science, world trade and the Internet
become more important every decade. However, Philippine-language advocates respond that although the growing influence of English may be unstoppable, English is an exogenous
language that is difficult for the mass of Filipinos to acquire fluently
, while tens of millions are acquiring the lingua franca
and using it extensively on a daily basis. English will remain a second language
in the country, while the endogenous
Austronesian languages will come to play a more important role in both speech and writing. National census results show that there are very few native speakers of English in the Philippines, a few percent from a small stratum of wealthy and highly educated families, and this is not increasing very rapidly. On the other hand, Filipino, Cebuano, and Ilocano continue to grow vigorously, as lingua franca
s, second language
s, and as first language
s as well.
variant of the Hokkien (Min Nan
) is the language of the majority the Chinese in the Philippines, who immigrated from the Fujian
province in China. Another Chinese language, Cantonese, is spoken among the Chinese in the Philippines who are descendants of people from Guangdong
province in China.
population and has functioned as a liturgical and instructional language since the arrival of Islam
in the 14th century. It is primarily used in religious instruction in madrasah
s (Muslim schools) and rarely for official events. Historically, Arabic, along with Malay, was the lingua franca in the Malay Archipelago
among Muslim traders and the Malay aristocracy
in various parts of the archipelago. Arabic is taught for free and promoted in some Islamic centres and used for Islamic activities. According to the 1987 Constitution, Arabic, along with Spanish, is to be promoted on a voluntary basis.
, Baguio City
, and in the Davao
region. Davao City is a home to a large population of Japanese descendants. Japanese laborers were hired by American companies like the National Fiber Company (NAFCO) in the first decades of the 20th century to work in abaca plantations. Japanese were known for their hard work and industry. During World War II, Japanese schools were present in Davao City.
Old Malay
and Indonesia
n cultures and civilizations in ancient Sumatra and Java have had a large influence on the history, lifestyles, and culture of various Philippine peoples. The Malay language
, along with Philippine languages belonging to the Malayo-Polynesian language family, has also had an immense influence on many if not most of the languages spoken in the Philippines. Roughly a third of all commonly used verbs and nouns used in the Philippines are of Old Malay origin.
When the Spanish had first arrived in the Philippines in the 16th century, Old Malay was spoken among the aristocracy
.
It is believed that Ferdinand Magellan
’s Moluccan slave Enrique
could converse with local leaders in Cebu
island, confirming to Magellan his arrival in Southeast Asia. An example of Old Malay
and Javanese
languages spoken in Philippine history can be seen in the language of the Laguna Copperplate Inscription
.
and Punjabi
are used. Urdu is spoken among the Pakistan
i community. Only few South Asians, such as Pakistani, as well as the recent newcomers like the Marathi, Nepali, and Tamil retain their own native languages.
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
, there are between 120 and 175 languages, depending on the method of classification. Four languages no longer have any known speakers. Almost all the Philippine languages belong to the Austronesian language family
Austronesian languages
The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia that are spoken by about 386 million people. It is on par with Indo-European, Niger-Congo, Afroasiatic and Uralic as one of the...
. Of all of these languages, only 2 are considered official in the country while (as of 2010) about 12 are considered official auxiliary.
National and official languages
SpanishSpanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
was the original official language of the country for more than three centuries, and became the lingua franca
Lingua franca
A lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.-Characteristics:"Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic...
of the Philippines in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1863 a Spanish decree introduced universal education, creating free public schooling in Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
. It was also the language of the Philippine Revolution
Philippine Revolution
The Philippine Revolution , called the "Tagalog War" by the Spanish, was an armed military conflict between the people of the Philippines and the Spanish colonial authorities which resulted in the secession of the Philippine Islands from the Spanish Empire.The Philippine Revolution began in August...
, and the 1899 Malolos Constitution
Malolos Constitution
The Malolos Constitution was enacted on January 20, 1899 by the Philippine Malolos Congress, and established the First Philippine Republic. The original was written in Spanish, which became the first official language of the Philippines....
proclaimed it as the official language of the First Philippine Republic
First Philippine Republic
The Philippine Republic , more commonly known as the First Philippine Republic or the Malolos Republic was a short-lived insurgent revolutionary government in the Philippines...
. National hero José Rizal
José Rizal
José Protacio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda , was a Filipino polymath, patriot and the most prominent advocate for reform in the Philippines during the Spanish colonial era. He is regarded as the foremost Filipino patriot and is listed as one of the national heroes of the Philippines by...
wrote most of his works in Spanish, Luciano de la Rosa, established that it was spoken by a total of 60% of the population in the early 20th century as a first, second or third language. Following the American occupation of the Philippines and the imposition of English, the use of Spanish declined gradually, especially after the 1940s.
Under the U.S. occupation and civil regime, English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
began to be taught in schools. By 1901, public education used English as the medium of instruction. Around 600 educators (called "Thomasites
Thomasites
The Thomasites is a group of about five hundred pioneer American teachers sent by the U.S. government to the Philippines in August 1901.-Foundation, purpose and etymology:...
") who arrived in that year aboard the USS Thomas
USS Thomas
Two ships in the United States Navy have been named USS Thomas for Clarence Crase Thomas:* Thomas , a Wickes-class destroyer, launched in 1918 and transferred to the Royal Navy as HMS St. Albans in 1940....
replaced the soldiers who also functioned as teachers. The 1935 Constitution added English as an official language alongside Spanish. A provision in this constitution also called for Congress to "take steps toward the development and adoption of a common national language based on one of the existing native languages." On November 12, 1937, the First National Assembly created the National Language Institute. President Manuel L. Quezón
Manuel L. Quezon
Manuel Luis Quezón y Molina served as president of the Commonwealth of the Philippines from 1935 to 1944. He was the first Filipino to head a government of the Philippines...
appointed native Waray-Waray
Waray-Waray language
Wáray-Wáray or Samarnon is a language spoken in the provinces of Samar, Northern Samar, Eastern Samar, and in some parts of the Leyte and Biliran in the Philippines...
speaker Jaime C. De Veyra to chair a committee of speakers of other regional languages. Their aim was to select a national language among the other regional languages. Ultimately, Tagalog
Tagalog language
Tagalog is an Austronesian language spoken as a first language by a third of the population of the Philippines and as a second language by most of the rest. It is the first language of the Philippine region IV and of Metro Manila...
was chosen as the base language December 30, 1937.
In 1939, President
President
A president is a leader of an organization, company, trade union, university, or country.Etymologically, a president is one who presides, who sits in leadership...
Manuel L. Quezón
Manuel L. Quezon
Manuel Luis Quezón y Molina served as president of the Commonwealth of the Philippines from 1935 to 1944. He was the first Filipino to head a government of the Philippines...
renamed the Tagalog language
Tagalog language
Tagalog is an Austronesian language spoken as a first language by a third of the population of the Philippines and as a second language by most of the rest. It is the first language of the Philippine region IV and of Metro Manila...
as Wikang Pambansa ("National language" in English translation). The language was further renamed in 1959 as Pilipino by Secretary of
Education Jose Romero. The 1973 constitution declared the Pilipino language to be co-official, along with English, and mandated the development of a National language
National language
A national language is a language which has some connection—de facto or de jure—with a people and perhaps by extension the territory they occupy. The term is used variously. A national language may for instance represent the national identity of a nation or country...
, to be known as Filipino
Filipino language
This move has drawn much criticism from other regional groups.In 1987, a new constitution introduced many provisions for the language.Article XIV, Section 6, omits any mention of Tagalog as the basis for Filipino, and states that:...
.
The present constitution, ratified in 1987, stated that Filipino and English are both the official languages of the country. Filipino also had the distinction of being a national language that was to be "developed and enriched on the basis of existing Philippine and other languages." Although not explicitly stated in the constitution, Filipino is in practice almost completely composed of the Tagalog as spoken in the capital, Manila
Manila
Manila is the capital of the Philippines. It is one of the sixteen cities forming Metro Manila.Manila is located on the eastern shores of Manila Bay and is bordered by Navotas and Caloocan to the north, Quezon City to the northeast, San Juan and Mandaluyong to the east, Makati on the southeast,...
; however, organizations such as the University of the Philippines
University of the Philippines
The ' is the national university of the Philippines. Founded in 1908 through Act No...
began publishing dictionaries such as the UP Diksyonaryong Filipino
UP Diksyonaryong Filipino
The UP Diksiyonaryong Filipino is a monolingual Filipino dictionary. The dictionary is maintained by the University of the Philippines Center for Filipino Language , with Virgilio S...
in which words from various Philippine languages were also included. The constitution also made mention of Spanish and Arabic, both of which are to be promoted on a voluntary and optional basis.
Filipino is an official language of education, but less important than English. It is the major language of the broadcast media
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
and cinema
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
, but less important than English as a language of publication (except in some domains, like comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
s, which are meant to speak directly to the Filipino psyche) and less important for academic-scientific-technological discourse. English and Filipino compete in the domains of business and government. Filipino is used as a lingua franca
Lingua franca
A lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.-Characteristics:"Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic...
in all regions of the Philippines as well as within overseas Filipino
Overseas Filipino
An Overseas Filipino is a person of Philippine origin who lives outside of the Philippines. This term applies both to people of Filipino ancestry who are citizens or residents of a different country and to those Filipino citizens abroad on a more temporary status.Most overseas Filipinos migrate to...
communities, and is the dominant language of the armed forces
Armed forces
The armed forces of a country are its government-sponsored defense, fighting forces, and organizations. They exist to further the foreign and domestic policies of their governing body, and to defend that body and the nation it represents from external aggressors. In some countries paramilitary...
(except perhaps for the small part of the commissioned officer
Officer (armed forces)
An officer is a member of an armed force or uniformed service who holds a position of authority. Commissioned officers derive authority directly from a sovereign power and, as such, hold a commission charging them with the duties and responsibilities of a specific office or position...
corps from wealthy or upper middle class families) and of a large part of the civil service
Civil service
The term civil service has two distinct meanings:* A branch of governmental service in which individuals are employed on the basis of professional merit as proven by competitive examinations....
, most of whom are non-Tagalogs.
Nobody questions that there is diglossia
Diglossia
In linguistics, diglossia refers to a situation in which two dialects or languages are used by a single language community. In addition to the community's everyday or vernacular language variety , a second, highly codified variety is used in certain situations such as literature, formal...
in the case of Filipino and the other regional languages. In this case, Filipino can clearly be labelled as the acrolect
Post-creole speech continuum
The Post-creole continuum or simply creole continuum refers to a situation wherein a creole language consists of a spectrum of varieties between those most and least similar to the superstrate language...
(the "standard") and the regional languages the basilect.
The Constitution of the Philippines
Constitution of the Philippines
The Constitution of the Philippines is the supreme law of the Philippines.The Constitution currently in effect was enacted in 1987, during the administration of President Corazon Aquino, and is popularly known as the "1987 Constitution"...
provides for the use of the vernacular languages as auxiliary languages in provinces where Filipino is not the lingua franca
Lingua franca
A lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.-Characteristics:"Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic...
. This is however not implemented as Filipinos at large would be polyglot
Polyglot (person)
A polyglot is someone with a high degree of proficiency in several languages. A bilingual person can speak two languages fluently, whereas a trilingual three; above that the term multilingual may be used.-Hyperpolyglot:...
s. In the case where the vernacular language is a regional language, Filipinos would speak in Filipino when speaking in formal situations while the regional languages are spoken in non-formal settings. This is evident in major urban areas outside the National Capital Region
Metro Manila
Metropolitan Manila , the National Capital Region , or simply Metro Manila, is the metropolitan region encompassing the City of Manila and its surrounding areas in the Philippines...
like Angeles City
Angeles City
The City of Angeles , located within the province of Pampanga in the Philippines, is locally classified as a first-class, highly-urbanized city. Its name is derived from El Pueblo de los Ángeles in honor of its patron saints, Los Santos Ángeles de los Custodios , and the name of its founder, Don...
in the Kapampangan
Kapampangan language
The Pampangan language, or Kapampangan , is one of the major languages of the Philippines. It is the language spoken in the province of Pampanga, the southern half of the province of Tarlac and the northern portion of the province of Bataan. Kapampangan is also understood in some barangays of...
-speaking area, and Davao
Davao City
The City of Davao is the largest city in the island of Mindanao in the Philippines. Its international airport and seaports are among the busiest cargo hubs in the Philippines....
in the Cebuano
Cebuano language
Cebuano, referred to by most of its speakers as Bisaya , is an Austronesian language spoken in the Philippines by about 20 million people mostly in the Central Visayas. It is the most widely spoken of the languages within the so-named Bisayan subgroup and is closely related to other Filipino...
-speaking area. Although the case of Ilocano and Cebuano are becoming more of bilingualism than diglossia due to the publication of materials written in these languages.
The diglossia is more evident in the case of other languages such as Pangasinan
Pangasinan language
The Pangasinan language or Pangasinense is one of the twelve major languages in the Philippines....
, Kapampangan
Kapampangan language
The Pampangan language, or Kapampangan , is one of the major languages of the Philippines. It is the language spoken in the province of Pampanga, the southern half of the province of Tarlac and the northern portion of the province of Bataan. Kapampangan is also understood in some barangays of...
, Bikol
Bikol languages
The Bikol languages are a group of Central Philippine languages spoken particularly on the Bicol Peninsula on the island of Luzon and parts of Catanduanes and Burias Island, Masbate Province...
, Waray
Waray-Waray language
Wáray-Wáray or Samarnon is a language spoken in the provinces of Samar, Northern Samar, Eastern Samar, and in some parts of the Leyte and Biliran in the Philippines...
, Hiligaynon
Hiligaynon language
Hiligaynon, often referred to as Ilonggo, is an Austronesian language spoken in the Western Visayas region of the Philippines.Hiligaynon is concentrated in the provinces of Iloilo, Negros Occidental and Capiz but is also spoken in the other provinces of the Panay Island group, including Antique,...
, Sambal, and Maranao
Maranao language
Maranao is an Austronesian language spoken by the Maranao people in the provinces of Lanao del Norte and Lanao del Sur in the Philippines.-External links:*, Maranao Dictionary...
, where the written variant of the language is becoming less and less popular to give way to the use of Filipino. Although Philippine laws consider some of these languages as "major languages" there is little, if any, support coming from the government to preserve these languages. This may be bound to change, however, given current policy trends. Although Philippine linguists would agree that there is still no danger of these languages becoming extinct in the near future, the lack of support from the government makes these languages prone to “bastardisation
Variety (linguistics)
In sociolinguistics a variety, also called a lect, is a specific form of a language or language cluster. This may include languages, dialects, accents, registers, styles or other sociolinguistic variation, as well as the standard variety itself...
”.
There still exists another type of diglossia, which is between the regional languages and the minority languages. Here, we label the regional languages as acrolects while the minority languages as the basilect. In this case, the minority language is spoken only in very intimate circles, like the family or the tribe one belongs to. Outside this circle, one would speak in the prevalent regional language, while maintaining an adequate command of Filipino for formal situations. Unlike the case of the regional languages these minority languages are always in danger of becoming extinct because of speakers favoring the more prevalent regional language. Moreover, most of the users of these languages are illiterate and as expected, there is a chance that these languages will no longer be revived due to lack of written records.
Indigenous languages
According to EthnologueEthnologue
Ethnologue: Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International , a Christian linguistic service organization, which studies lesser-known languages, to provide the speakers with Bibles in their native language and support their efforts in language development.The Ethnologue...
, a total of 171 native languages are spoken in the country. Except for English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, Hokkien
Min Nan
The Southern Min languages, or Min Nan , are a family of Chinese languages spoken in southern Fujian, eastern Guangdong, Hainan, Taiwan, and southern Zhejiang provinces of China, and by descendants of emigrants from these areas in diaspora....
(Lan-nang
Lan-nang
Lan-nang is the Philippine variant of Hokkien. It is a subdialect of the Amoy dialect of Xiamen, Fujian, China. Lan-nang is spoken among the Chinese and Filipino residents of the Philippines. It is characterized by loanwords from Tagalog, Spanish, and Cantonese, as well as its emphasis on...
), Cantonese, Mandarin, and Chavacano
Chavacano language
Chavacano or Chabacano, sometimes referred to by linguists as Philippine Creole Spanish, is a Spanish-based creole language spoken in the Philippines...
, all of the languages belong to the Malayo-Polynesian language family
Malayo-Polynesian languages
The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages, with approximately 385.5 million speakers. These are widely dispersed throughout the island nations of Southeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean, with a smaller number in continental Asia...
. The Asa Familia own 3 of the languages
There are 13 indigenous languages with at least one million native speakers: Tagalog
Tagalog language
Tagalog is an Austronesian language spoken as a first language by a third of the population of the Philippines and as a second language by most of the rest. It is the first language of the Philippine region IV and of Metro Manila...
, Cebuano
Cebuano language
Cebuano, referred to by most of its speakers as Bisaya , is an Austronesian language spoken in the Philippines by about 20 million people mostly in the Central Visayas. It is the most widely spoken of the languages within the so-named Bisayan subgroup and is closely related to other Filipino...
, Ilokano
Ilokano language
Ilokano or Ilocano is the third most-spoken language of the Republic of the Philippines....
, Hiligaynon
Hiligaynon language
Hiligaynon, often referred to as Ilonggo, is an Austronesian language spoken in the Western Visayas region of the Philippines.Hiligaynon is concentrated in the provinces of Iloilo, Negros Occidental and Capiz but is also spoken in the other provinces of the Panay Island group, including Antique,...
, Waray-Waray
Waray-Waray language
Wáray-Wáray or Samarnon is a language spoken in the provinces of Samar, Northern Samar, Eastern Samar, and in some parts of the Leyte and Biliran in the Philippines...
, Kapampangan
Kapampangan language
The Pampangan language, or Kapampangan , is one of the major languages of the Philippines. It is the language spoken in the province of Pampanga, the southern half of the province of Tarlac and the northern portion of the province of Bataan. Kapampangan is also understood in some barangays of...
, Bikol
Bikol language
Central Bicolano , is one of the individual languages of the Bikol languages. It belongs to Coastal Bikol. It is spoken in Bicol Region of the Philippines .-Bikol-Naga:...
, Albay Bikol
Bicolano (Albay)
Albay Bicolano, Buhi-Oasnon-Daraga Bikol or simply Albayanon is one of the three languages that compose Inland Bikol. It is spoken in Buhi, Camarines Sur, western coast of Albay and northwestern Sorsogon. Its dialects include Buhi-non, Libon, Oasnon, Daragueño...
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=bhk, Pangasinan
Pangasinan language
The Pangasinan language or Pangasinense is one of the twelve major languages in the Philippines....
, Maranao
Maranao language
Maranao is an Austronesian language spoken by the Maranao people in the provinces of Lanao del Norte and Lanao del Sur in the Philippines.-External links:*, Maranao Dictionary...
, Maguindanao
Maguindanao language
Maguindanaon is an Austronesian language spoken by majority of the population of Maguindanao Province in the Philippines. It is also spoken by sizable minorities in different parts of Mindanao such as the cities of Zamboanga, Davao, and General Santos, and the provinces of North Cotabato, Sultan...
, Kinaray-a
Kinaray-a language
Kinaray-a is an Austronesian language spoken mainly in Antique Province in the Philippines. It is also spoken in Iloilo province, the south of Capiz Province, and certain villages in Mindanao that trace their roots to Antique Province or Kinaray-a speaking areas of Iloilo and Capiz Provinces...
, and Tausug
Tausug language
Tausūg is a language spoken in the province of Sulu in the Philippines, in Malaysia, and in Indonesia by the Tausūg people....
. One or more of these is spoken natively by more than 90% of the population.
Philippine languages
The Philippine languages are a 1991 proposal by Robert Blust that all the languages of the Philippines and northern Sulawesi—except Sama–Bajaw and a few languages of Palawan—form a subfamily of Austronesian languages...
identified by Robert Blust
Robert Blust
Robert A. Blust is a prominent linguist in several areas, including historical linguistics, lexicography and ethnology. Blust specializes in the Austronesian languages and has made major contributions to the field of Austronesian linguistics....
is nearly synonymous with the Malayo-Polynesian languages of the Philippines. The differences are that the family includes languages of north Sulawesi
Sulawesi
Sulawesi is one of the four larger Sunda Islands of Indonesia and is situated between Borneo and the Maluku Islands. In Indonesia, only Sumatra, Borneo, and Papua are larger in territory, and only Java and Sumatra have larger Indonesian populations.- Etymology :The Portuguese were the first to...
and the Yami language of Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
, but excludes the Sama–Bajaw languages of the Sulu Archipelago
Sulu Archipelago
The Sulu Archipelago is a chain of islands in the southwestern Philippines. This archipelago is considered to be part of the Moroland by the local rebel independence movement. This island group forms the northern limit of the Celebes Sea....
as well as a couple North Bornean languages spoken in southern Palawan
Palawan
Palawan is an island province of the Philippines located in the MIMAROPA region or Region 4. Its capital is Puerto Princesa City, and it is the largest province in the country in terms of total area of jurisdiction. The islands of Palawan stretch from Mindoro in the northeast to Borneo in the...
.
Mutual intelligibility
Philippine languages are often referred to by Filipinos as dialectDialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
s, partly as a relic of the inaccurate vocabulary used in literature during the American period (1898–1946). While there are indeed many hundreds of dialects in the Philippines, they represent variations of no fewer than 120 distinct languages, and many of these languages maintain greater differences than those between established European languages like French and Spanish.
The vast differences between the languages can be seen in the following translations of the Philippine national proverb meaning "He who does not (know how to) look back at his past (where he came from) will not reach his destination."
| Language | Translation |
|---|---|
| Aklanon | Ro uwa' gatan-aw sa anang ginhalinan hay indi makaabut sa anang ginapaeangpan. |
| Asi Asi language The Asi language is a Visayan language spoken, along with the Romblomanon and Onhan languages, in the province of Romblon, Philippines. The language is also known as Bantoanon, Calatravanhon, Odionganon, Sibalenhon, Simaranhon, and Bisaya.Specifically, it is spoken on the following islands within... (Bantoanon) |
Kag tawong waya giruromroma it ida ginghalinan, indi makaabot sa ida apagtuan. |
| Bangon | No fuktaw hadwa bumontag idwan dasog at bato lawan. |
| Bicolano (Albay) Bicolano (Albay) Albay Bicolano, Buhi-Oasnon-Daraga Bikol or simply Albayanon is one of the three languages that compose Inland Bikol. It is spoken in Buhi, Camarines Sur, western coast of Albay and northwestern Sorsogon. Its dialects include Buhi-non, Libon, Oasnon, Daragueño... |
|
| Bicolano (Bulan, Gubat, Irosin, Matnog, Sta Magdalena, Bulusan) | An diri maaram mag-imud sa pinaghalian, diri makaabot sa pakakadtu-an. |
| Biko (Buhi) | Yu di nikiling sa pinagalinan, di makaantos sa pupuntahan. |
| Bikol Central Bikol language Central Bicolano , is one of the individual languages of the Bikol languages. It belongs to Coastal Bikol. It is spoken in Bicol Region of the Philippines .-Bikol-Naga:... |
An dai tataong magsalingoy sa saiyang ginikanan, dai makakaabot sa padudumanan. |
| Daraga/East Miraya Bikol | Su indi tataw makarumdom nung ginitan, indi makaabot sa adunan. |
| Oasnon/West Miraya Bikol | Kan na taw na idi tataw mag linguy sa sanyang inalian, idi man maka abot sa sanyang paidtunan. |
| Bicolano (Iriga) Bicolano (Iriga) Riŋkonāda or Rinconada Bikol is one of the several languages that compose the Inland Bikol group of the Bikol languages. It belongs to Austronesian language family that also include Māori, Hawaiian, Malagasy, Tagalog, Indonesian and Malay. The closest relatives of this language outside Bicol are... |
A diri maglili sa pinaggalinan, diri makaaabot sa pigiyanan. |
| Capiznon Capiznon Capiznon is an Austronesian language spoken in Western Visayas in the Philippines. Capiznon is concentrated in the province of Capiz in the northeast of Panay Island.... |
Ang indi kabalo magbalikid sa iya ginbataan, indi makalab-ot sa parakadtuan. |
| Cebuano Cebuano language Cebuano, referred to by most of its speakers as Bisaya , is an Austronesian language spoken in the Philippines by about 20 million people mostly in the Central Visayas. It is the most widely spoken of the languages within the so-named Bisayan subgroup and is closely related to other Filipino... |
Kadtong dili molingi sa iyang gigikanan, dili makaabot sa iyang gipadulongan. |
| Caviteño Chabacano Chavacano language Chavacano or Chabacano, sometimes referred to by linguists as Philippine Creole Spanish, is a Spanish-based creole language spoken in the Philippines... |
Quien no ta bira cara na su origen no de incarsa na su destinacion. |
| Ternateño Chabacano Chavacano language Chavacano or Chabacano, sometimes referred to by linguists as Philippine Creole Spanish, is a Spanish-based creole language spoken in the Philippines... |
Ay nung sabi mira i donde ya bini no di yega na destinasyon. |
| Zamboangueño Chavacano | Quien no sabe vira el cara na su orígen, hay jendéh puede llega na su destinacion. |
| Castellano Abakay Chavacano Chavacano language Chavacano or Chabacano, sometimes referred to by linguists as Philippine Creole Spanish, is a Spanish-based creole language spoken in the Philippines... |
|
| Cotabateñ Chavacano Chavacano language Chavacano or Chabacano, sometimes referred to by linguists as Philippine Creole Spanish, is a Spanish-based creole language spoken in the Philippines... |
|
| Ermiteño Chabacano Chavacano language Chavacano or Chabacano, sometimes referred to by linguists as Philippine Creole Spanish, is a Spanish-based creole language spoken in the Philippines... |
|
| English English language English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria... |
He who does not (know how to) look back at his past (where he came from) will not reach his destination. |
| Ibanag Ibanag The Ibanags are an ethnolinguistic minority numbering a little more than half a million people, who inhabit the provinces of Cagayan, Isabela and Nueva Vizcaya. They are one of the largest ethnolinguistic minorities in the Philippines. Ibanags speak the same language under the same name... |
I tolay nga ari mallipay ta naggafuananna, ari makadde ta angayanna. |
| Itawis Itawis Itawis, Itawit, or Tawit, is a Northern Philippine language which has close relationships to Ibanag, Ilocano, and other languages of the same order. Unlike the rest of Philippine languages, Itawit and its kin use the consonants z,f,j and v... |
Ya tolay nga mari mallipay tsa naggafuananna, mari makakandet tsa angayanna. |
| Ilokano Ilokano language Ilokano or Ilocano is the third most-spoken language of the Republic of the Philippines.... (standard) |
Ti saanna ammo a tumaliaw iti naggapuanna ket saan a makadanon iti papananna. |
| Ilokano Ilokano language Ilokano or Ilocano is the third most-spoken language of the Republic of the Philippines.... (Abagatan) |
Ti haan na ammo nga tumaliaw iti naggapuan na ket haan nga makadanon iti papanan na. |
| Hiligaynon Hiligaynon language Hiligaynon, often referred to as Ilonggo, is an Austronesian language spoken in the Western Visayas region of the Philippines.Hiligaynon is concentrated in the provinces of Iloilo, Negros Occidental and Capiz but is also spoken in the other provinces of the Panay Island group, including Antique,... |
Kon sin-o ang indi makahibalo magbalikid sang iya ginta-uhan, indi makaabot sa iya padulungan. |
| Jama Mapun | Soysoy niya' pandoy ngantele' patulakan ne, niya' ta'abut katakkahan ne. |
| Kapampangan Kapampangan Kapampangan, Capampañgan or Pampangan may refer to:*Kapampangan people of the Philippines*Kapampangan language... |
Ing e byasang malikid king kayang penibatan, e ya miras king kayang pupuntalan. |
| Kinaray-a | Ang indi kamaan magbalikid sa ana ginhalinan, indi makaabot sa ana paaragtunan. |
| Manobo (Obo) | Iddos minuvu no konnod kotuig nod loingoy to id pomonan din, konna mandad od poko-uma riyon tod undiyonnan din. |
| Maranao Maranao Maranao is the term used for the people of Lanao, a predominantly Muslim region in the Philippines island of Mindanao. They are famous for their artwork, sophisticated weaving, wood and metal craft, and their epic literature... |
So tao a di matao domingil ko poonan iyan na di niyan kakwa so singanin iyan. |
| Malay Malay language Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore... |
Mereka yang tidak mengingati asal-usulnya, pasti tidak akan mencapai destinasinya. |
| Pangasinan Pangasinan Pangasinan is a province of the Republic of the Philippines. The provincial capital is Lingayen. Pangasinan is located on the west central and peripheral area of the island of Luzon along the Lingayen Gulf, with the total land area being 5,368.82 square kilometers . According to the latest census,... |
Say toon agga onlingao ed pinanlapuan to, agga makasabi'd laen to. |
| Romlomanon Romblomanon language Romblomanon is a Visayan language spoken, along with the Asi and Onhan languages, in the province of Romblon in the Philippines. The language is also called Ini, Tiyad Ini, Basi, Niromblon, Sibuyanon, and Bisaya.... (Ini) |
Adtong tawo nga indi ansyano mag lingig sa iya guinghalinan hay indi da makasampot sa iya ning pagakadtoan. |
| Sambal Sambal Sambal is a chili based sauce which is normally used as a condiment. Sambals are popular in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the southern Philippines and Sri Lanka, as well as in the Netherlands and in Suriname through Javanese influence. It is typically made from a variety of chili peppers and is... (Botolan) |
Hay ahe nin nanlek ha pinag-ibatan, ay ahe makarateng ha lalakwen. |
| Sambal Sambal Sambal is a chili based sauce which is normally used as a condiment. Sambals are popular in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the southern Philippines and Sri Lanka, as well as in the Netherlands and in Suriname through Javanese influence. It is typically made from a variety of chili peppers and is... (Sambal) |
Hay kay tanda mamanomtom ha pinangibatan, kay immabot sa kakaon. |
| Sangil Sangir language Sangirese, also known as Sangihé, Sangi, Sangih, and Sangil, is an Austronesian language spoken on the islands linking northern Sulawesi, Indonesia, with Mindanao, Philippines.... |
Tao mata taya mabiling su pubuakengnge taya dumanta su kadam tangi. |
| Sinama | Ya Aa ga-i tau pa beleng ni awwal na, ga-i du sab makasong ni maksud na. |
| Spanish Spanish language Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the... |
Quien no vira la cara a su orígen, no puede llegar a su destino. |
| Surigaonon | Adon dili mahibayo molingi sa ija ing-gikanan, dili gajod makaabot sa ija pasingdan. |
| Sorsoganon | An diri mag-imud sa pinaghalian diri makaabot sa kakadtuan. |
| Tagalog Tagalog language Tagalog is an Austronesian language spoken as a first language by a third of the population of the Philippines and as a second language by most of the rest. It is the first language of the Philippine region IV and of Metro Manila... /Filipino Filipino language This move has drawn much criticism from other regional groups.In 1987, a new constitution introduced many provisions for the language.Article XIV, Section 6, omits any mention of Tagalog as the basis for Filipino, and states that:... |
|
| Tayabas Tagalog Tagalog language Tagalog is an Austronesian language spoken as a first language by a third of the population of the Philippines and as a second language by most of the rest. It is the first language of the Philippine region IV and of Metro Manila... |
Ang dili maalam lumingon sa pinaroonan ay hindi makakarating sa paroroonan. |
| Tausug Tausug language Tausūg is a language spoken in the province of Sulu in the Philippines, in Malaysia, and in Indonesia by the Tausūg people.... |
In di' maingat lumingi' pa bakas liyabayan niya, di' makasampay pa kadtuun niya. |
| Waray-Waray Waray-Waray language Wáray-Wáray or Samarnon is a language spoken in the provinces of Samar, Northern Samar, Eastern Samar, and in some parts of the Leyte and Biliran in the Philippines... |
An diri maaram lumingi ha tinikangan, diri maulpot ha kakadtoan. |
| Yakan Yakan The Yakan people are among the major indigenous tribes in Mindanao. Having a significant number of followers of Islam, it is considered as one of the 13 Moro groups in the Philippines. There are also a good number of Christians in this tribe as a result of the conversion of the line of Datu Kalun -... |
Gey tau mayam sibukutan, gey tau tekka kaditaran. |
Dialectal variation
The amount of dialectal variation varies from language to language. Languages like Tagalog and Kapampangan are known to have very moderate dialectal variation.In the languages of the Bicol Region
Bicol Region
The Bicol Region or Bicolandia is one of the 17 regions of the Philippines. Its regional center is Legazpi City...
, however, there is great dialectal variation. There are towns which have their own dialects. Below is the sentence "Were you there at the market for a long time?" translated into certain varieties of Bikol. The translation is followed by dialect and language
Bikol languages
The Bikol languages are a group of Central Philippine languages spoken particularly on the Bicol Peninsula on the island of Luzon and parts of Catanduanes and Burias Island, Masbate Province...
, and town in Bicol where they are spoken. The final translation is in Tagalog.
- Haloy ka duman sa saod? (Standard Bikol, and Bikol-Naga, a dialect of Central Bicolano or BikolBikol languageCentral Bicolano , is one of the individual languages of the Bikol languages. It belongs to Coastal Bikol. It is spoken in Bicol Region of the Philippines .-Bikol-Naga:...
; Naga City, Camarines Sur) - Aloy ka duman sa saod? (Magarao, a variety of Bikol-Naga, Central Bicolano; Magarao, Camarines SurMagarao, Camarines SurMagarao is a 4th class municipality in the province of Camarines Sur, Philippines. According to the 2007 census, it has a population of 22,515 people.-History:...
) - Huray ka doon sa saod? (Northern Catanduanes Bicolano or Pandan BikolPandan BikolPandan Bikol or Northern Catanduanes Bicolano is one of the three groups of the Bikol languages. It is spoken in Pandan and northeastern portion of Catanduanes....
; Pandan, CatanduanesPandan, CatanduanesPandan is a 2nd class municipality in the province of Catanduanes, Philippines. According to the 2007 census, it has a population of 19,005 people in 3,181 households.-Barangays:Pandan is politically subdivided into 26 barangays.-History:...
) - Nauban ika sadto sa sa-ran? (Iriga Bicolano or RinconadaBicolano (Iriga)Riŋkonāda or Rinconada Bikol is one of the several languages that compose the Inland Bikol group of the Bikol languages. It belongs to Austronesian language family that also include Māori, Hawaiian, Malagasy, Tagalog, Indonesian and Malay. The closest relatives of this language outside Bicol are...
; Iriga CityIriga CityThe City of Iriga is a 4th class city in the province of Camarines Sur, Philippines. It is located about 400 kilometers south of Manila, 37 kilometers south of Naga, and about 61 kilometers north of Legazpi City...
) - Uban ika adto sa saod? (Libon, Albay BicolanoBicolano (Albay)Albay Bicolano, Buhi-Oasnon-Daraga Bikol or simply Albayanon is one of the three languages that compose Inland Bikol. It is spoken in Buhi, Camarines Sur, western coast of Albay and northwestern Sorsogon. Its dialects include Buhi-non, Libon, Oasnon, Daragueño...
; Libon, AlbayLibon, AlbayLibon is a 1st class municipality in the province of Albay, Philippines. According to the 2007 census, it has a population of 68,846 people in 12,572 households. Libon is known regionally as the "Rice Granary of Albay"....
) - Naegey ika adto sa sa-ran? (Buhi-non, Albay Bicolano; Buhi, Camarines SurBuhi, Camarines SurBuhi, a town in the province of Camarines Sur, Philippines. According to the 2007 census, it has a population of 70,756 people.According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Lake Buhi is home to the world's smallest edible fish locally known as "Sinarapan" .Notable Buhinons include Victor Wood...
) - Eley ka idto sa sed? (Oasnon, Albay Bicolano; Oas, AlbayOas, AlbayOas is now reclassified as First Class municipality in the province of Albay, Philippines . According to the 2007 census, it has a population of 63,888 people in 11,715 households.-Economy:The town's economy is generally agricultural...
) - Dugay ka didto sa mercado? (Ticao, MasbatenyoMasbatenyo languageMasbateño is a Visayan language spoken by more than 600,000 people, primarily in the province of Masbate in the Philippines. It is close to Capiznon and Hiligaynon , both spoken on Panay...
; Monreal, MasbateMonreal, MasbateMonreal is a 5th class municipality in the province of Masbate, Philippines. It is located in Ticao Island. According to the 2000 census, it has a population of 19,832 people in 3,791 households.-Barangays:...
) (Gubat, Southern Sorsogon; Gubat, SorsogonGubat, SorsogonGubat is a second class municipality in the province of Sorsogon, Philippines. As of 1 August 2007 the town has the population of 55,501 based on...
)
- Matagál ka ba roón sa pámilihan? (TagalogTagalog languageTagalog is an Austronesian language spoken as a first language by a third of the population of the Philippines and as a second language by most of the rest. It is the first language of the Philippine region IV and of Metro Manila...
)
Philippine languages comparison chart
Below is a chart of Philippine languages. While there has been misunderstandings on which ones should be classified as languageLanguage
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
and which ones should be classified as dialect
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
, this chart confirms that most have similarities but are not mutually comprehensible with each other. These languages are arranged according to the regions they are natively spoken (from north to south, then east to west).
{| class="wikitable"
!English
!one
!two
!three
!four
!person
!house
!dog
!coconut
!day
!new
!we
!what
|-
!Sinama
|isa
|duwa
|tallu
|ampat
|tao
|luma
|asu
|coconut
|allaw
|bagu
|kita
|iyon
|-
!Ivatan
Ivatan language
The Ivatan language, also known as Ibatan or Chirin nu Ibatan , is an Austronesian language spoken exclusively in the Batanes Islands...
|asa
|dadowa
|tatdo
|apat
|tao
|vahay
|chito
|niyoy
|araw
|va-yo
|yaten
|ango
|-
!Ilokano
Ilokano language
Ilokano or Ilocano is the third most-spoken language of the Republic of the Philippines....
|maysa
|dua
|tallo
|uppat
|tao
|balay
|aso
|niog
|aldaw
|baro
|datayo
|ania
|-
!Pangasinan
Pangasinan language
The Pangasinan language or Pangasinense is one of the twelve major languages in the Philippines....
|sakey
|duara
|talora
|apatira
|too
|abong
|aso
|niyog
|agew
|balo
|sikatayo
|anto
|-
!Ibanag
Ibanag language
The Ibanag language is spoken by up to 500,000 speakers in the Philippines, in the northeastern provinces of Isabela and Cagayan, especially in Tuguegarao City, Solana, Cabagan, and Ilagan and with overseas immigrants in countries located in the Middle East, UK and the U.S.A....
|tadday
|dua
|tallu
|appa'
|tolay
|balay
|kitu
|inniuk
|aggaw
|bagu
|sittam
|anni
|-
!Gaddang
Kalinga language
Kalinga is a language cluster of Kalinga Province in the Philippines, spoken by the Igorot people.The languages are Banao Itneg, Butbut Kalinga, Limos Kalinga, Lubuagan Kalinga, Mabaka Valley Kalinga, Madukayang Kalinga, Southern Kalinga, Tanudan Kalinga....
|tata
|addwa
|tallo
|appat
|tolay
|balay
|atu
|ayog
|aw
|bawu
|ikkanetem
|sanenay
|-
!Kapampangan
Kapampangan language
The Pampangan language, or Kapampangan , is one of the major languages of the Philippines. It is the language spoken in the province of Pampanga, the southern half of the province of Tarlac and the northern portion of the province of Bataan. Kapampangan is also understood in some barangays of...
|metung
|adwa
|atlu
|apat
|tau
|bale
|asu
|ngungut
|aldo
|bayu
|ikatamu
|nanu
|-
!Tagalog
Tagalog language
Tagalog is an Austronesian language spoken as a first language by a third of the population of the Philippines and as a second language by most of the rest. It is the first language of the Philippine region IV and of Metro Manila...
|isa
|dalawa
|tatlo
|apat
|tao
|bahay
|aso
|niyog
|araw
|bago
|tayo, kamí, kata
|ano
|-
!Standard Bikol
Bikol language
Central Bicolano , is one of the individual languages of the Bikol languages. It belongs to Coastal Bikol. It is spoken in Bicol Region of the Philippines .-Bikol-Naga:...
|saro
|duwa
|tulo
|apat
|tawo
|harong
|ayam
|niyog
|aldaw
|ba-go
|kita
|ano
|-
!Iriga Bicolano
|usad
|darawa
|tulo
|upat
|tawo
|baloy
|ayam
|niyog
|aldow
|bago
|ngamin
|ono
|-
!Romblomanon
Romblomanon language
Romblomanon is a Visayan language spoken, along with the Asi and Onhan languages, in the province of Romblon in the Philippines. The language is also called Ini, Tiyad Ini, Basi, Niromblon, Sibuyanon, and Bisaya....
|isya
|dalwa
|tatlo
|ap at
|
|kita, aton
|ano
|-
!Bantoanon
|usa
|ruha
|tuyo
|upat
|tawo
|bayay
|iro
|nidog
|adlaw
|bag-o
|kita, ato
|ni-o
|-
!Onhan
|isya
|darwa
|tatlo
|apat
|tawo
|balay
|ayam
|niyog
|adlaw
|bag-o
|kita, taton
|ano
|-
!Kinaray-a
Kinaray-a language
Kinaray-a is an Austronesian language spoken mainly in Antique Province in the Philippines. It is also spoken in Iloilo province, the south of Capiz Province, and certain villages in Mindanao that trace their roots to Antique Province or Kinaray-a speaking areas of Iloilo and Capiz Provinces...
|sara
|darwa
|tatlo
|apat
|taho
|balay
|ayam
|niyog
|adlaw
|bag-o
|kita, taten
|ano, iwan
|-
!Hiligaynon
Hiligaynon language
Hiligaynon, often referred to as Ilonggo, is an Austronesian language spoken in the Western Visayas region of the Philippines.Hiligaynon is concentrated in the provinces of Iloilo, Negros Occidental and Capiz but is also spoken in the other provinces of the Panay Island group, including Antique,...
|isa
|duha
|tatlo
|apat
|tawo
|balay
|ido
|lubi
|adlaw
|bag-o
|kita
|ano
|-
!Cebuano
Cebuano language
Cebuano, referred to by most of its speakers as Bisaya , is an Austronesian language spoken in the Philippines by about 20 million people mostly in the Central Visayas. It is the most widely spoken of the languages within the so-named Bisayan subgroup and is closely related to other Filipino...
|usa
|duha
|tulo
|upat
|tawo
|balay
|iro
|lubi
|adlaw
|bag-o
|kita
|unsa
|-
!Surigao-non
Visayan languages
The Visayan languages of the Philippines, along with Tagalog and Bikol, are part of the Central Philippine languages...
|isa
|duha
|tuyo
|upat
|tao
|bayay
|idu
|Nijog
|adlaw
|bag-o
|kami
|unu
|-
!Waray-Waray
Waray-Waray language
Wáray-Wáray or Samarnon is a language spoken in the provinces of Samar, Northern Samar, Eastern Samar, and in some parts of the Leyte and Biliran in the Philippines...
|usa
|duha
|tulo
|upat
|tawo
|balay
|ayam
|lubi
|adlaw
|bag-o
|kita
|ano
|-
!T'boli
|sotu
|lewu
|tlu
|fat
|tau
|gunu
|ohu
|lefo
|kdaw
|lomi
|tekuy
|tedu
|-
!Tausug
Tausug language
Tausūg is a language spoken in the province of Sulu in the Philippines, in Malaysia, and in Indonesia by the Tausūg people....
|hambuuk
|duwa
|tu
|upat
|tau
|bay
|iru'
|niyug
|adlaw
|ba-gu
|kitaniyu
|unu
|-
!Chavacano
Chavacano language
Chavacano or Chabacano, sometimes referred to by linguists as Philippine Creole Spanish, is a Spanish-based creole language spoken in the Philippines...
|uno
|dos
|tres
|cuatro
|gente
|cása
|pérro
|coco
|día
|nuevo
|nosotros
|cosá/ qué
|-
There is a language spoken by the Tao people
Tao people
The Tao , originally recognized as Yami , are a Taiwanese aboriginal people, native to tiny outlying Orchid Island in Taiwan. The Tao are an Austronesian people linguistically and culturally closer to the Ivatan people of the Batanes islands in the Philippines than to other aboriginal peoples on...
(also known as Yami) of Orchid Island
Orchid Island
Orchid Island is a 45-km² volcanic island off the southeastern coast of Taiwan island and separated from the Batanes of the Philippines by the Bashi Channel of the Luzon Strait. It is governed as Lanyu Township of Taitung County...
of Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
which is not included in the language of the Philippines. Their language, Tao
Tao language
Yami , also known as Tao , is a variety of the Ivatan dialect cluster spoken by the Tao people of Taiwan. It is spoken on Orchid Island, 46 kilometers southeast of the main island of Taiwan. Yami is known as ciriciring no Tao, or "human speech," by its native speakers...
(or Yami) is part of the Batanic languages
Batanic languages
The Batanic languages are a dialect cluster which form a group of the Philippine branch of the Austronesian language family...
which includes Ivatan
Ivatan language
The Ivatan language, also known as Ibatan or Chirin nu Ibatan , is an Austronesian language spoken exclusively in the Batanes Islands...
, Babuyan, and Itbayat of the Batanes
Batanes
The Province of Batanes , also called the Batanes Islands, is a Philippine province comprising ten islands that are located in the Luzon Strait between the islands of Luzon and Taiwan...
.
{| class="wikitable"
!
!one
!two
!three
!four
!person
!house
!dog
!coconut
!day
!new
!we
!what
|-
!Tao
Tao language
Yami , also known as Tao , is a variety of the Ivatan dialect cluster spoken by the Tao people of Taiwan. It is spoken on Orchid Island, 46 kilometers southeast of the main island of Taiwan. Yami is known as ciriciring no Tao, or "human speech," by its native speakers...
|ása
|dóa (raroa)
|tílo (tatlo)
|ápat
|tao
|vahay
|gara
|ngata
|araw
|vayo
|tata
|vela
|}
List of speakers per language
Below are population estimates from the 2000 Philippine census by National Statistics Office of the Philippines on the number of Filipinos who speak the following 18 languages as a native language.{| class="wikitable"
! Name of Philippine language
!Number of native speakers
|-
!Tagalog
Tagalog language
Tagalog is an Austronesian language spoken as a first language by a third of the population of the Philippines and as a second language by most of the rest. It is the first language of the Philippine region IV and of Metro Manila...
|22,000,000
|-
!Cebuano
Cebuano language
Cebuano, referred to by most of its speakers as Bisaya , is an Austronesian language spoken in the Philippines by about 20 million people mostly in the Central Visayas. It is the most widely spoken of the languages within the so-named Bisayan subgroup and is closely related to other Filipino...
|20,000,000
|-
!Ilocano
|7,700,000
|-
!Hiligaynon
Hiligaynon language
Hiligaynon, often referred to as Ilonggo, is an Austronesian language spoken in the Western Visayas region of the Philippines.Hiligaynon is concentrated in the provinces of Iloilo, Negros Occidental and Capiz but is also spoken in the other provinces of the Panay Island group, including Antique,...
|7,000,000
|-
!Waray-Waray
Waray-Waray language
Wáray-Wáray or Samarnon is a language spoken in the provinces of Samar, Northern Samar, Eastern Samar, and in some parts of the Leyte and Biliran in the Philippines...
|3,100,000
|-
!Kapampangan
Kapampangan language
The Pampangan language, or Kapampangan , is one of the major languages of the Philippines. It is the language spoken in the province of Pampanga, the southern half of the province of Tarlac and the northern portion of the province of Bataan. Kapampangan is also understood in some barangays of...
|2,900,000
|-
!Northern Bicol
|2,500,000
|-
!Pangasinan
Pangasinan language
The Pangasinan language or Pangasinense is one of the twelve major languages in the Philippines....
|2,434,086
|-
!Southern Bicol
|1,200,000
|-
!Maranao
Maranao language
Maranao is an Austronesian language spoken by the Maranao people in the provinces of Lanao del Norte and Lanao del Sur in the Philippines.-External links:*, Maranao Dictionary...
|1,150,000
|-
!Maguindanao
Maguindanao language
Maguindanaon is an Austronesian language spoken by majority of the population of Maguindanao Province in the Philippines. It is also spoken by sizable minorities in different parts of Mindanao such as the cities of Zamboanga, Davao, and General Santos, and the provinces of North Cotabato, Sultan...
|1,100,000
|-
!Kinaray-a
Kinaray-a language
Kinaray-a is an Austronesian language spoken mainly in Antique Province in the Philippines. It is also spoken in Iloilo province, the south of Capiz Province, and certain villages in Mindanao that trace their roots to Antique Province or Kinaray-a speaking areas of Iloilo and Capiz Provinces...
|1,051,000
|-
!Tausug
Tausug language
Tausūg is a language spoken in the province of Sulu in the Philippines, in Malaysia, and in Indonesia by the Tausūg people....
|1,022,000
|-
!Surigaonon
Surigaonon language
Surigaonon is a local Philippine language spoken by Surigaonon people in the province of Surigao del Norte, Surigao del Sur, and some portion of Agusan del Norte especially the towns near the Mainit Lake...
|600,000
|-
!Masbateño
|530,000
|-
!Aklanon
Aklan languages
Aklan is spoken in the province of Aklan on the island of Panay in the Philippines. It is unique among Philippine languages in that l has become e before a, as in the name Akeanon ....
|520,000
|-
!Chavacano (Spanish creole)
Chavacano language
Chavacano or Chabacano, sometimes referred to by linguists as Philippine Creole Spanish, is a Spanish-based creole language spoken in the Philippines...
|512,000
|-
!Ibanag
Ibanag language
The Ibanag language is spoken by up to 500,000 speakers in the Philippines, in the northeastern provinces of Isabela and Cagayan, especially in Tuguegarao City, Solana, Cabagan, and Ilagan and with overseas immigrants in countries located in the Middle East, UK and the U.S.A....
|320,000
|}
Spanish
Spanish began to be introduced in the archipelagoArchipelago
An archipelago , sometimes called an island group, is a chain or cluster of islands. The word archipelago is derived from the Greek ἄρχι- – arkhi- and πέλαγος – pélagos through the Italian arcipelago...
after 1565, when the Spanish Conquistador
Conquistador
Conquistadors were Spanish soldiers, explorers, and adventurers who brought much of the Americas under the control of Spain in the 15th to 16th centuries, following Europe's discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus in 1492...
Miguel López de Legazpi
Miguel López de Legazpi
Miguel López de Legazpi , also known as El Adelantado and El Viejo , was a Spanish conquistador who established one of the first European settlements in the East Indies and the Pacific Islands in 1565. He is the first Governor-General in the Philippines...
set sail from Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
and founded the first Spanish settlement on Cebú
Cebu
Cebu is a province in the Philippines, consisting of Cebu Island and 167 surrounding islands. It is located to the east of Negros, to the west of Leyte and Bohol islands...
.
In 1593, the first printing press in the Philippines was founded. In the 17th century, Spanish religious orders founded the first universities in the Philippines, some of which are considered the oldest in Asia. During colonial rule through Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
, Spanish was the language of education, trade, politics and religion, and by the 19th century, it became the country's lingua franca
Lingua franca
A lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.-Characteristics:"Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic...
although it was only ever used by a small population. In 1863, a Spanish decree introduced a system of public education, creating free public schooling in Spanish. In the 1890s, the Philippines had a prominent group of Spanish-speaking scholars called the Ilustrados, such as José Rizal
José Rizal
José Protacio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda , was a Filipino polymath, patriot and the most prominent advocate for reform in the Philippines during the Spanish colonial era. He is regarded as the foremost Filipino patriot and is listed as one of the national heroes of the Philippines by...
. Some of these scholars participated in the Philippine Revolution
Philippine Revolution
The Philippine Revolution , called the "Tagalog War" by the Spanish, was an armed military conflict between the people of the Philippines and the Spanish colonial authorities which resulted in the secession of the Philippine Islands from the Spanish Empire.The Philippine Revolution began in August...
and later in the struggle against American occupation. In 1899, the short-lived First Philippine Republic
First Philippine Republic
The Philippine Republic , more commonly known as the First Philippine Republic or the Malolos Republic was a short-lived insurgent revolutionary government in the Philippines...
established Spanish as the country's official language; both the Malolos Constitution
Malolos Constitution
The Malolos Constitution was enacted on January 20, 1899 by the Philippine Malolos Congress, and established the First Philippine Republic. The original was written in Spanish, which became the first official language of the Philippines....
and the Lupang Hinirang
Lupang Hinirang
Lupang Hinirang is the national anthem of the Philippines. Its music was composed in 1898 by Julián Felipe, with lyrics in Spanish adapted from the poem Filipinas, written by José Palma in 1899....
(national anthem
National anthem
A national anthem is a generally patriotic musical composition that evokes and eulogizes the history, traditions and struggles of its people, recognized either by a nation's government as the official national song, or by convention through use by the people.- History :Anthems rose to prominence...
) were written in Spanish.
The use of Spanish began to decline after Spain ceded the islands to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
as a result of the Spanish–American War of 1898. Under U.S. rule, the English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
began to be promoted instead of Spanish. In 1940, there were six million people with Spanish speaking skills in the Philippines. The 1950 Census stated that Filipinos who spoke Spanish as a first or second language made up only 6% of the population. In 1990, the census reported that the number had dwindled to just 2500. Spanish ceased to be an official language in 1973 and a college requirement in 1987, during Corazón Aquino
Corazon Aquino
Maria Corazon Sumulong Cojuangco-Aquino was the 11th President of the Philippines and the first woman to hold that office in Philippine history. She is best remembered for leading the 1986 People Power Revolution, which toppled Ferdinand Marcos and restored democracy in the Philippines...
's administration. However, the language is still spoken today by Filipino-Spanish mestizos and Spanish families, who are mainly concentrated in Metro Manila, Iloílo
Iloilo City
The City of Iloilo is a highly urbanized city in the Philippines and the capital city of Iloilo province. It is the regional center of the Western Visayas, as well as the center of the Iloilo-Guimaras Metropolitan Area...
and Cebú
Cebu City
The City of Cebu is the capital city of Cebu and is the second largest city in the Philippines, the second most significant metropolitan centre in the Philippines and known as the oldest settlement established by the Spaniards in the country.The city is located on the eastern shore of Cebu and was...
. It remains a required subject in many universities, such as the University of Santo Tomás
University of Santo Tomas
The Pontifical and Royal University of Santo Tomas, The Catholic University of the Philippines , is a private Roman Catholic university run by the Order of Preachers in Manila. Founded on April 28, 1611 by archbishop of Manila Miguel de Benavides, it has the oldest extant university charter in the...
of Manila and the University of San Carlos
University of San Carlos
The University of San Carlos is a Roman Catholic university governed by the Society of the Divine Word since 1935 in Cebu City. It offers pre-elementary and basic education as well as undergraduate and graduate courses, and a broad spectrum of academic programs through its eight colleges.It...
in Cebú. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, a third-language Spanish speaker, has introduced legislation to re-establish the instruction of Spanish since 2009.
Many historical documents, land titles, and literature were written in the Spanish language, and many of these documents often were never translated, although some of them as land titles still have legal value. There are thousands of Spanish loanwords in Tagalog, Cebuano, and other languages.
There are also several Spanish-based creole languages
Spanish-based Creole languages
-Chavacano:Chavacano is a Spanish-based Creole language and the name of the Six Dialects of Spanish evolved words turned into a Creole language spoken in the Philippines...
in the Philippines, collectively called Chavacano
Chavacano language
Chavacano or Chabacano, sometimes referred to by linguists as Philippine Creole Spanish, is a Spanish-based creole language spoken in the Philippines...
.
They include:
- Chavacanos of Luzón:
- Caviteño (Chabacano de Cavite/nisos), spoken in Cavite CityCavite CityThe City of Cavite is a fourth class city in the province of Cavite, Philippines. The city occupies a hook shaped peninsula jutting out into Manila Bay. Cavite City used to be the capital of the province...
, CaviteCaviteCavite is a province of the Philippines located on the southern shores of Manila Bay in the CALABARZON region in Luzon, just 30 kilometers south of Manila. Cavite is surrounded by Laguna to the east, Metro Manila to the northeast, and Batangas to the south...
. - Ternateño (Chabacano de Barra), spoken in TernateTernateTernate is an island in the Maluku Islands of eastern Indonesia. It is located off the west coast of the larger island of Halmahera, the center of the powerful former Sultanate of Ternate....
, CaviteCaviteCavite is a province of the Philippines located on the southern shores of Manila Bay in the CALABARZON region in Luzon, just 30 kilometers south of Manila. Cavite is surrounded by Laguna to the east, Metro Manila to the northeast, and Batangas to the south...
. - ErmiteñoErmitañoErmitaño is a unique language spoken by a specific group of people living in the Ermita area in Metro Manila. The language is a distinct dialect derived from the combination of Tagalog and Spanish that can be similar to that of Chavacano or Chabacano spoken in Southern Philippines which is a...
(Chabacano de Ermita), formerly spoken in Ermita, ManilaErmita, ManilaErmita is a district of Manila, Philippines located halfway between Intramuros and Malate.-History:Ermita was founded in the late 16th century...
, now extinct. Last reported speakers were a woman and her grandson between the 1980s and 1990s.
- Caviteño (Chabacano de Cavite/nisos), spoken in Cavite City
- Chavacanos of Mindanao:
- Zamboangueño Chavacano (Chavacano de Zamboanga / Zamboangueño Chavacano), spoken in Zamboanga CityZamboanga CityThe City of Zamboanga : is a highly urbanized, independent and a chartered city located in Mindanao, Philippines....
, Zamboanga SibugayZamboanga SibugayZamboanga Sibugay is a province of the Philippines located in the Zamboanga Peninsula region in Mindanao. Its capital is Ipil and it borders Zamboanga del Norte to the north, Zamboanga del Sur to the east and Zamboanga City to the southwest. To the south lies Sibuguey Bay in the Moro Gulf...
, Zamboanga del SurZamboanga del SurZamboanga del Sur is a province of the Philippines located in the Zamboanga Peninsula region in Mindanao. Pagadian City is the capital...
, Zamboanga del NorteZamboanga del NorteZamboanga del Norte or simply known as ZANORTE is a province of the Philippines located in the Zamboanga Peninsula region in Mindanao. Its capital is Dipolog City and the province borders Zamboanga del Sur and Zamboanga Sibugay to the south and Misamis Occidental to the east...
, Basilan Province, Sulu Province, Tawi-Tawi Province and SempornaSempornaSemporna is a town located in Tawau Division, in the east coast of Sabah, Malaysia on the island of Borneo. Its population was estimated to be around 133,000 in 2006.-History:...
, SabahSabahSabah is one of 13 member states of Malaysia. It is located on the northern portion of the island of Borneo. It is the second largest state in the country after Sarawak, which it borders on its southwest. It also shares a border with the province of East Kalimantan of Indonesia in the south...
, Malaysia (360,000 native speakers-Zamboanga City alone as per 2000 census, the most spoken creole language) - CotabateñoChavacano languageChavacano or Chabacano, sometimes referred to by linguists as Philippine Creole Spanish, is a Spanish-based creole language spoken in the Philippines...
(Chabacano de Cotabato), spoken in CotabatoCotabatoCotabato , is a landlocked province of the Philippines located in the SOCCSKSARGEN region in Mindanao... - Davaoeño AbakayChavacano languageChavacano or Chabacano, sometimes referred to by linguists as Philippine Creole Spanish, is a Spanish-based creole language spoken in the Philippines...
(Davaoweño Zamboanguenyo), spoken in Davao CityDavao CityThe City of Davao is the largest city in the island of Mindanao in the Philippines. Its international airport and seaports are among the busiest cargo hubs in the Philippines....
- Zamboangueño Chavacano (Chavacano de Zamboanga / Zamboangueño Chavacano), spoken in Zamboanga City
English
The first exposure to EnglishEnglish language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
occurred in 1762, when the British invaded Manila. However, use of English in that era was minimal and had no lasting influence. English became an important language in the Philippines in the period between 1898 and 1946, when the Philippines was under U.S. sovereignty. Today, English remains an official language
Official language
An official language is a language that is given a special legal status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically a nation's official language will be the one used in that nation's courts, parliament and administration. However, official status can also be used to give a...
in the Philippines.
Today, English is the dominant language in business, government, the legal system, medicine, the sciences and education. Filipinos tend to want their textbooks for subjects like calculus, physics, chemistry, biology, etc., written in English rather than Filipino. By way of contrast, the native languages are often heard in colloquial settings, and in the home, with family and friends, most people use their vernaculars. The use of English may be thought to carry an air of formality, given its use in school, government and various ceremonies. A percentage of the media such as cable television and newspapers are also in English; major television networks (i.e. ABS-CBN and GMA) and all AM radio stations are in Filipino. English proficiency sustains a significant call center industry for American companies.
A large influx of English words has been assimilated into Tagalog and the other native languages called Taglish
Taglish
Taglish is a portmanteau of the words "Tagalog" and "English" which refers to the Philippine language Tagalog infused with American English terms. It is an example of code-switching....
. There is a debate, however, on whether there is diglossia or bilingualism, or even semilingualism, between Filipino and English. Filipinos would use Filipino both in formal and informal situations, while, save for a very few, English will only be used for formal gatherings such as education and governance. Though the masses would prefer to speak in Filipino, government officials tend to speak in English when they do their government duties. Until now, there is still resistance in the use of Filipino in courts and the drafting of national statutes.
On August 22, 2007, three Malolos City
Malolos City
City of Malolos is a 3rd class urban component city in the Republic of the Philippines. Malolos is considered as the 115th city in the country. It is the capital city of the province of Bulacan as the seat of the provincial government...
regional trial courts in Bulacan
Bulacan
Bulacan , officially called the Province of Bulacan or simply Bulacan Province, is a first class province of the Republic of the Philippines located in the Central Luzon Region in the island of Luzon, north of Manila , and part of the Metro...
decided to use Filipino, instead of English
Philippine English
Philippine English is the variety of English used in the Philippines by the media and the vast majority of educated Filipinos. English is taught in schools as one of the two official languages of the country, the other being Filipino, a standardized version of Tagalog.English is used in education,...
, in order to promote the national language. Twelve stenographers from Branches 6, 80 and 81, as model courts, had undergone training at Marcelo H. del Pilar College of Law of Bulacan State University
Bulacan State University
Bulacan State University is a state-funded institution of higher learning established in 1904, by the virtue of ACT 74 of the Philippine Commission in 1901, as an intermediate school established by the American regime, and converted into a chartered state university in 1993 by virtue of Republic...
College of Law following a directive from the Supreme Court of the Philippines
Supreme Court of the Philippines
The Supreme Court of the Philippines is the Philippines' highest judicial court, as well as the court of last resort. The court consists of 14 Associate Justices and 1 Chief Justice...
. De la Rama said it was the dream of Chief Justice Reynato Puno
Reynato Puno
Reynato Puno y Serrano was the 22nd Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines. Appointed on December 8, 2006 by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, he was the 22nd person to serve as Chief Justice...
to implement the program in other areas such as Laguna, Cavite
Cavite
Cavite is a province of the Philippines located on the southern shores of Manila Bay in the CALABARZON region in Luzon, just 30 kilometers south of Manila. Cavite is surrounded by Laguna to the east, Metro Manila to the northeast, and Batangas to the south...
, Quezón
Quezon
-History:Originally, what now forms Quezon was divided among the provinces of Batangas, Laguna, and Nueva Ecija. The area was first explored by Juan de Salcedo in 1571-1572, during his expedition from Laguna to Camarines provinces....
, Nueva Écija
Nueva Ecija
Nueva Ecija is a landlocked province of the Philippines located in the Central Luzon region. Its capital is Palayan City...
, Batangas
Batangas
Batangas is a first class province of the Philippines located on the southwestern part of Luzon in the CALABARZON region. Its capital is Batangas City and it is bordered by the provinces of Cavite and Laguna to the north and Quezon to the east. Across the Verde Island Passages to the south is the...
, Rizal
Rizal
Rizal is a province located in the CALABARZON , just 16 kilometers east of Manila. The province was named after the country's national hero, José Rizal. Rizal Governor Casimiro A. Ynares III on June 17, 2008 announced the transfer of the Capitol from Pasig. Its P 270-million capitol building,...
and Metro Manila
Metro Manila
Metropolitan Manila , the National Capital Region , or simply Metro Manila, is the metropolitan region encompassing the City of Manila and its surrounding areas in the Philippines...
.
Advocates of English say that it is the wave of the future, with science, world trade and the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
become more important every decade. However, Philippine-language advocates respond that although the growing influence of English may be unstoppable, English is an exogenous
Exogenous
Exogenous refers to an action or object coming from outside a system. It is the opposite of endogenous, something generated from within the system....
language that is difficult for the mass of Filipinos to acquire fluently
Fluency
Fluency is the property of a person or of a system that delivers information quickly and with expertise.-Speech:...
, while tens of millions are acquiring the lingua franca
Lingua franca
A lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.-Characteristics:"Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic...
and using it extensively on a daily basis. English will remain a second language
Second language
A second language or L2 is any language learned after the first language or mother tongue. Some languages, often called auxiliary languages, are used primarily as second languages or lingua francas ....
in the country, while the endogenous
Endogenous
Endogenous substances are those that originate from within an organism, tissue, or cell. Endogenous retroviruses are caused by ancient infections of germ cells in humans, mammals and other vertebrates...
Austronesian languages will come to play a more important role in both speech and writing. National census results show that there are very few native speakers of English in the Philippines, a few percent from a small stratum of wealthy and highly educated families, and this is not increasing very rapidly. On the other hand, Filipino, Cebuano, and Ilocano continue to grow vigorously, as lingua franca
Lingua franca
A lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.-Characteristics:"Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic...
s, second language
Second language
A second language or L2 is any language learned after the first language or mother tongue. Some languages, often called auxiliary languages, are used primarily as second languages or lingua francas ....
s, and as first language
First language
A first language is the language a person has learned from birth or within the critical period, or that a person speaks the best and so is often the basis for sociolinguistic identity...
s as well.
Chinese/Lan-nang
Diplomatic ties with the Ming dynasties among some established states or kingdoms in Luzon and direct interactions and trade overall within the archipelago as a whole go perhaps as far back as early 10th century. Mandarin Chinese is the medium of instruction in Chinese schools and lingua franca of the mainland and overseas Chinese. The Lan-nangLan-nang
Lan-nang is the Philippine variant of Hokkien. It is a subdialect of the Amoy dialect of Xiamen, Fujian, China. Lan-nang is spoken among the Chinese and Filipino residents of the Philippines. It is characterized by loanwords from Tagalog, Spanish, and Cantonese, as well as its emphasis on...
variant of the Hokkien (Min Nan
Min Nan
The Southern Min languages, or Min Nan , are a family of Chinese languages spoken in southern Fujian, eastern Guangdong, Hainan, Taiwan, and southern Zhejiang provinces of China, and by descendants of emigrants from these areas in diaspora....
) is the language of the majority the Chinese in the Philippines, who immigrated from the Fujian
Fujian
' , formerly romanised as Fukien or Huguing or Foukien, is a province on the southeast coast of mainland China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, and Guangdong to the south. Taiwan lies to the east, across the Taiwan Strait...
province in China. Another Chinese language, Cantonese, is spoken among the Chinese in the Philippines who are descendants of people from Guangdong
Guangdong
Guangdong is a province on the South China Sea coast of the People's Republic of China. The province was previously often written with the alternative English name Kwangtung Province...
province in China.
Arabic
Arabic is used by some members of the MuslimMuslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
population and has functioned as a liturgical and instructional language since the arrival of Islam
Islam in the Philippines
Islam is the oldest recorded monotheistic religion in the Philippines. Islam reached the Philippines between the 12th and 14th century with the arrival of Muslim traders from Persian Gulf and the Malabar Coast in Southern India, and their followers from several sultanate governments in the Malay...
in the 14th century. It is primarily used in religious instruction in madrasah
Madrasah
Madrasah is the Arabic word for any type of educational institution, whether secular or religious...
s (Muslim schools) and rarely for official events. Historically, Arabic, along with Malay, was the lingua franca in the Malay Archipelago
Malay Archipelago
The Malay Archipelago refers to the archipelago between mainland Southeastern Asia and Australia. The name was derived from the anachronistic concept of a Malay race....
among Muslim traders and the Malay aristocracy
Aristocracy
Aristocracy , is a form of government in which a few elite citizens rule. The term derives from the Greek aristokratia, meaning "rule of the best". In origin in Ancient Greece, it was conceived of as rule by the best qualified citizens, and contrasted with monarchy...
in various parts of the archipelago. Arabic is taught for free and promoted in some Islamic centres and used for Islamic activities. According to the 1987 Constitution, Arabic, along with Spanish, is to be promoted on a voluntary basis.
Japanese
The Japanese first came to the Philippines around the 11th Century C.E., the first country they emigrated to, as well as in waves from the 15th century, 17th century, late 19th century, 1900s, 1930s, and the 1940s. There is a small Japanese community and a school for Japanese in Metro Manila due to the number of Japanese companies. Also there is a large community of Japanese and Japanese descendants in Laguna provinceLaguna province
Laguna is a province of the Philippines found in the CALABARZON region in Luzon. Its capital is Santa Cruz and the province is located southeast of Metro Manila, south of the province of Rizal, west of Quezon, north of Batangas and east of Cavite. Laguna almost completely surrounds Laguna de Bay,...
, Baguio City
Baguio City
The City of Baguio is a highly urbanized city in northern Luzon in the Philippines. Baguio City was established by Americans in 1900 at the site of an Ibaloi village known as Kafagway...
, and in the Davao
Davao
Davao refers to several closely related places in Mindanao in the Philippines. The term is used most often to refer to the city.*Davao Region, an administrative region*Davao del Norte province*Davao del Sur province*Davao Oriental province...
region. Davao City is a home to a large population of Japanese descendants. Japanese laborers were hired by American companies like the National Fiber Company (NAFCO) in the first decades of the 20th century to work in abaca plantations. Japanese were known for their hard work and industry. During World War II, Japanese schools were present in Davao City.
Malay
Malay is spoken among Muslim people in the southern Philippines as a lingua franca.Old Malay
Old Malay
The Old Malay language, also called Classical Malay, is the ancestor of the modern Malay language, including Indonesian and Malaysian. It developed in the now Melayu Kingdom of Sumatra. It was heavily influenced by Sanskrit and Kawi , and was grammatically quite similar to modern Malay.-Old...
and Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
n cultures and civilizations in ancient Sumatra and Java have had a large influence on the history, lifestyles, and culture of various Philippine peoples. The Malay language
Malay language
Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore...
, along with Philippine languages belonging to the Malayo-Polynesian language family, has also had an immense influence on many if not most of the languages spoken in the Philippines. Roughly a third of all commonly used verbs and nouns used in the Philippines are of Old Malay origin.
When the Spanish had first arrived in the Philippines in the 16th century, Old Malay was spoken among the aristocracy
Aristocracy
Aristocracy , is a form of government in which a few elite citizens rule. The term derives from the Greek aristokratia, meaning "rule of the best". In origin in Ancient Greece, it was conceived of as rule by the best qualified citizens, and contrasted with monarchy...
.
It is believed that Ferdinand Magellan
Ferdinand Magellan
Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese explorer. He was born in Sabrosa, in northern Portugal, and served King Charles I of Spain in search of a westward route to the "Spice Islands" ....
’s Moluccan slave Enrique
Henry the Black
Enrique of Malacca was a native of the Malay Archipelago who became a slave of the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan in the 16th century. Italian historian Antonio Pigafetta, who wrote the most comprehensive account of Magellan's voyage, named him "Henrich"...
could converse with local leaders in Cebu
Cebu Island
Cebu is an island of the Philippines. It is the main island of Cebu Province at the center of the Visayan Islands, south of Manila.It lies to the east of Negros Island; to the east is Leyte and to the southeast is Bohol Island. It is flanked on both sides by the Cebu Strait and Tañon Strait...
island, confirming to Magellan his arrival in Southeast Asia. An example of Old Malay
Malay language
Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore...
and Javanese
Javanese language
Javanese language is the language of the Javanese people from the central and eastern parts of the island of Java, in Indonesia. In addition, there are also some pockets of Javanese speakers in the northern coast of western Java...
languages spoken in Philippine history can be seen in the language of the Laguna Copperplate Inscription
Laguna Copperplate Inscription
The Laguna Copperplate Inscription is the earliest known written document found in the Philippines. The plate was found in 1989 by a sand laborer working on Lumbang River near the outlet to Laguna de Bay, in Barangay Wawa, Lumban, in the Laguna province.The inscription on the plate was first...
.
South Asian languages
Since pre-Spanish times, there have been small Indian communities in the Philippines. Indians tend to be able to speak Tagalog and the other native languages, and are often fluent in English. Among themselves, SindhiSindhi language
Sindhi is the language of the Sindh region of Pakistan that is spoken by the Sindhi people. In India, it is among 22 constitutionally recognized languages, where Sindhis are a sizeable minority. It is spoken by 53,410,910 people in Pakistan, according to the national government's Statistics Division...
and Punjabi
Punjabi language
Punjabi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by inhabitants of the historical Punjab region . For Sikhs, the Punjabi language stands as the official language in which all ceremonies take place. In Pakistan, Punjabi is the most widely spoken language...
are used. Urdu is spoken among the Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
i community. Only few South Asians, such as Pakistani, as well as the recent newcomers like the Marathi, Nepali, and Tamil retain their own native languages.
See also
- Philippine languagesPhilippine languagesThe Philippine languages are a 1991 proposal by Robert Blust that all the languages of the Philippines and northern Sulawesi—except Sama–Bajaw and a few languages of Palawan—form a subfamily of Austronesian languages...
- Filipino orthography
- Commission on the Filipino Language
External links
- Ricardo Maria Nolasco on the diversity of languages in the Philippines
- Lawrence R. Reid webpage of Dr. Lawrence A. Reid. Researcher Emeritus of linguistics at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa. Has researched Philippine languages for decades.
- The Metamorphosis of Filipino as a National Language
- Carl Rubino webpage of Dr. Carl Rubino. A Filipino linguist who has studied Philippine languages.
- Literatura hispanofilipina: siglos XVII al XX by Edmundo Farolan Romero, with a brief Philippine poetry anthology in Spanish.
- Salita Blog by Christopher Sundita. A blog about a variety of issues concerning the languages of the Philippines.
- Espaniero An Online Spanish conversation group for Pinoys
- Philippine Language Tree
- The Language Planning Situation in the Philippines, by Andrew González, FSC
- kaibigankastila webpage of the Spanish culture in the Philippines.
- Linguistic map of the Philippines at Muturzikin.com
- On linguistic mutual intolerance in the Philippines
- Filipino Translator
- Tagalog Translator Online Online dictionary for translating Tagalog from/to English, including expressions and latest headlines regarding the Philippines.