Reproduced with permission from the author Erwin Cabucos.
What really is the national language of the Philippines, Tagalog or Filipino?
This sort of confusion still seems to exist in documents and forms found in the many offices and institutions in a number of countries around the world.
From university enrolment forms to employment registrations, even to some website sign-ups, the ambiguity between the two is mostly covered by giving two options, namely, Philippines (Tagalog) and Philippines (Filipino).
This ludicrousness is sometimes exacerbated by adding the third option ‘Pilipino’. The Filipino person signing up would simply smile – given the natural tendency of her or him to be patient, understanding and flexible to any type of situation.
Put simply, to get things done quickly, choose any and get the job over and done with. But what really is the official language of the Philippines?
The Philippines is a linguistically diverse nation and there are a number of languages and dialects spoken in this over seven thousand island-nation.
The problem started when in the 1500s, when the Spaniards colonised the Philippines they prohibited the use of the Philippine writing system, hence it was difficult for the locals to cohesively consolidate their language nationally.
It was only until 1935 when the government seriously looked at the possibility of attaining a national language for the whole archipelago through the Philippine Constitutional Convention and the National Language Commission. They named the official language of the Philippines being ‘Pilipino’ but twenty-five years after, a survey was conducted, and a disappointing result showed that less than half of the population spoke the language.
In 1960, it was revealed that only 44.5% spoke Pilipino, 39.5% English and 2% Spanish.
Rigorous efforts were done to strengthen the use of the Philippine language in the country's formal and informal setting. In the 1970s, the bilingual policy was adopted in order to smoothly introduce the Pilipino as the then official language of the country.
So the two official languages of the Philippines were Pilipino and English. In schools, Pilipino was the medium of instruction for social studies, practical arts, and PE subjects, while, English was the medium of instruction used for mathematics and the science subjects.
Marcos was ousted in 1986 and an analysis of the cohesion that brought the People Power together was partly the media’s use of the Pilipino language. Inspiration for national revolution to erupt at anytime to protect the country from any scrupulous leadership was heightened by the need to have a true national language system where all Filipinos from Batanes in the north to Jolo in the south should join together in the one nation band.
As well, looking at the standing of the Philippines from the rest of the Asian nations, the Philippines saw itself as a fresh newly revived country which was now more powerful, competitive and resolute.
But what really is the national language of the Philippines?
The 1987 Constitution of the Philippines devoted so much impetus to the creation of one, single, and common language for all Filipinos. It outlined a number of provisions toward the establishment of a Philippine National Language: “to initiate and sustain the use of Filipino as a medium of official communication and as a language of instruction in the educational system’.
On 2 February 1987, the National Language Commission of the Philippines declared that ‘Filipino’ is the official name of the national language of the Philippines. Hence, ‘Filipino’, not Tagalog, nor Pilipino, is the national language of the Philippine Islands.
Five years later, the National Language Commission, with the help of many language professionals from universities and other institutions, released an official dictionary, showing that the Filipino language was a mixture from the many languages spoken in the country. The composition of ‘Filipino’ as a language is a conglomeration of words and expressions from the 8 major languages found in the northern (the Luzon) and central (the Visayas) regions.
Renato Perdon, a linguist and a historian from Sydney, Australia has enumerated the contributions of these major languages to the composition of the Filipino language.
Bicol – 301 words
Cebuano – 526 words
Ilonggo – 564 words
Ilocano – 122 words
Kapampangan – 51 words
Pangasinan - 82 words
Tagalog – 8,463 words
Samar-Leyte – 459 words.
(source: Perdon, R., 2004, ‘Pocket English-Filipino-English Dictionary’, Manila Prints, Sydney)
It is notable that Tagalog has contributed majority of the terms and expressions in the Filipino language, perhaps because of its proximity to the capital region where saturation of its popularity to media, films and printed literature was accessibly evident. This Tagalog language and Tagalog-region centricity is also observable in the other facets of Philippine life, including history as well as government decisions and projects.
A quick count of the declared national heroes of the country reveals a number of them hailed more from the Tagalog regions than from any other parts of the country. Has there any one from Mindanao at all? How about Filipino Muslim heroes? Are Muslim languages e.g. Maguindanaon regarded by the national language as Filipino? This is a new topic altogether worthy of exploring in other research.
Perdon (2004) continued to discuss that the Filipino language not only contained words from the 8 major languages of the Philippines, they also retain significant remnants from the Old Spanish language – 5,210 words. English, Chinese and Malay words follow: 1,907 words and 232 words, and 176 words, respectively. Interestingly, there are a number of other foreign words amalgamated into the Filipino language and this article ends with this line up:
Latin – 70 words
French - 46 words
Indian – 29 words
Arabic – 28 words
German – 25 words
Mexican – 20 words.
(source: Perdon, 2004, as above)
So, what again is the official language of the Philippines?
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Makati City Scape- the business capital of the Philippines. View from City Garden Hotel, Makati Avenue, Manila.
Copyright, 2011: Erwin Cabucos |
