Language and Culture
Most common languages spoken today are Tagalog (with many words borrowed from Spanish), and English, which is used in the public sphere. Many other Filipinos also speak other Philippine languages.
Today, only a minority of Filipinos speak Spanish, only some mestizos from older generations, those with links with Spain, America or other Spanish-speaking areas and recent immigrants, have preserved Spanish as a living spoken language, although many Spanish cultural traits still remain, most notably the adoption of Christianity among the majority of Filipinos.
In addition, Chavacano (a creole language based largely on Spanish vocabulary) is spoken in the southern Philippines and forms one of the majority languages of Zamboanga Peninsula and Basilan. It is also spoken in some parts of Malaysia where it has been made official.
Read more about this topic: Filipino People Of Spanish Ancestry
Famous quotes containing the words language and, language and/or culture:
“These are our grievances which we have thus laid before his majesty with that freedom of language and sentiment which becomes a free people, claiming their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“Language is an archeological vehicle ... the language we speak is a whole palimpsest of human effort and history.”
—Russell Hoban (b. 1925)
“Nobody seriously questions the principle that it is the function of mass culture to maintain public morale, and certainly nobody in the mass audience objects to having his morale maintained.”
—Robert Warshow (1917–1955)