Filipino People - Languages

Languages

Austronesian languages have been spoken in the Philippines for thousands of years. According to a recent study by Mark Donohue of the Australian National University and Tim Denham of Monash University, there is no linguistic evidence for an orderly north-to-south dispersal of the Austronesian languages from Taiwan through the Philippines and into Island Southeast Asia (ISEA). Many adopted words from Sanskrit were incorporated during the Indian cultural influence starting from the 5th century BC, in common with its Southeast Asian neighbours. Starting in the second half of the 16th century, Spanish was the official language of the country for the more than three centuries that the islands were governed through Mexico City on behalf of the Spanish Empire. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Spanish was the preferred language among Ilustrados and educated Filipinos in general. Significant disagreement exists, however, on the extent Spanish use beyond that. It has been argued that the Philippines were less hispanized than Canaries and America, with Spanish only being adopted by the ruling class involved in civil and judicial administration and culture. Spanish was the language of only approximately ten percent of the Philippine population when Spanish rule ended in 1898. As a lingua franca or creole language of Filipinos, major languages of the country like Chavacano, Cebuano, Tagalog, Kapampangan, Pangasinan, Bicolano, Hiligaynon, and Ilocano assimilated many different words and expressions from Castilian Spanish.

In sharp contrast, another view is that the ratio of the population which spoke Spanish as their mother tongue in the last decade of Spanish rule was 10% or 14%. An additional 60% is said to have spoken Spanish as a second language until World War II. Various sources reported the widespread use of Spanish by the Philippine population, among them the secretary of education during the period of US rule, as well as Henry Ford, who reported what he observed and the Filipino speech that he heard in his travels through the archipelago, sixteen of whose provinces where said to be Spanish-speaking in 1906.

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. Spanish continued to be the predominant lingua franca used in the islands and formed a second language for most Filipinos before and during the American colonial regime. Following the American occupation of the Philippines and the imposition of English, the overall use of Spanish declined gradually, especially after the 1940s.

According to Ethnologue, there are about 180 languages spoken in the Philippines. The Constitution of the Philippines designates Filipino (which is based on Tagalog) as the national language and designates both Filipino and English as official languages. Regional languages are designated as auxiliary official languages. The constitution also provides that Spanish and Arabic shall be promoted on a voluntary and optional basis.

Other Philippine languages in the country with at least 320,000 native speakers include Cebuano, Ilocano, Hiligaynon, Waray-Waray, Kapampangan, Chavacano (Spanish creole), Northern Bicol, Pangasinan, Southern Bicol, Maranao, Maguindanao, Kinaray-a, Tausug, Surigaonon, Masbatenyo, Aklanon, and Ibanag. The 28-letter modern Filipino alphabet, adopted in 1987, is the official writing system.