Filipino language

Filipino
Native to	Philippines
Native speakers	(as Tagalog) First language: 24 million Second language: more than 65 million Total speakers: c.90 million
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Borneo-Philippines Meso Philippine Central Philippine Tagalog Filipino
Official status
Official language in	Philippines
Regulated by	Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino (Commission on the Filipino Language)
Language codes
ISO 639-2	fil
ISO 639-3	fil

Filipino is the national language, and one of the official languages, of the Philippines as designated in the 1987 Philippine Constitution. The language, a member of the Austronesian languages, is the de facto standardized version of Tagalog, though is de jure distinct from it. It is sometimes referred to as, albeit incorrectly, the generic name for the several different languages of the Philippines.

History and nature

On November 13, 1937, the First National Assembly created the Surian ng Wikang Pambansa (National Language Institute), which selected Tagalog as the basis of a new national language. The choice of Tagalog was influenced by to the following factors:

1. Tagalog is widely spoken and is the language most understood in all the regions of the Philippines after its imposition on the non-Tagalog people (no national referendum has ever been conducted) and as a consequence of Manila based media interests for a single language. The rationale for imposing Tagalog has been that a single language would "facilitate better communication for the people of the archipelago," although there is no evidence that "better communications" is a problem or that over 70 years of a single-language policy has achieved such imagined benefits.
2. It is not divided into smaller, separate languages as Bisaya is. However, it is worth noting that Cebuano, one language in the Bisayan group (including Hiligaynon, Waray and others), has roughly the same number of native speakers as there are native Tagalog speakers, and collectively, Bisaya has more native speakers than Tagalog.
3. Its literary tradition is the richest and the most developed and extensive (mirroring that of the Tuscan dialect of Italian). More books are written in Tagalog than in any other autochthonous Austronesian language because it is the only language sponsored by the state. Yet, the language is still considered in need of "intellectualization" as it has produced no world-class literature, little of world's great works have been translated to Tagalog, and it is not used in science and technology. To ensure the process of "intellectualization," the central government has virtually banned local languages from the centrally controlled educational system, even at the college and university level in areas of Philippine Studies, languages, linguistics, and so on, and includes the government monopoly on textbooks. The government policy of linguistic and cultural genocide has been so effective that it is now virtually impossible to study and research other Philippine languages and the cultural traditions they represent in Philippine academia.
4. Tagalog has always been the language of Manila, the center of the Tagalog tribal region, and the colonial political and economic capital of the Philippines under both Spanish and American rulers.
5. Tagalog is the language of the Revolution and the Katipunan—two very important incidents in Philippine and Tagalog history, overshadowing the contributions of other ethnic groups as the intended consequence of systematic linguistic and cultural cleansing.

In 1939, this language became known as Pilipino to dissociate it from the Tagalog ethnic group (however, they mean the same in the strictest sense).^(p.487) The 1973 Constitution later provided for a separate national language to replace Pilipino, a language which it named Filipino. The pertinent article, though, Article XV, Section 3(2), does not mention Tagalog/Pilipino as the basis for Filipino, instead calling on the National Assembly to “take steps towards the development and formal adoption of a common national language to be known as Filipino.” Likewise, Article XIV, Section 6, of the 1987 Constitution, promulgated after the overthrow of Ferdinand Marcos, omits any mention of Tagalog as the basis for Filipino, and indeed added that, “as [Filipino] evolves, it shall be further developed and enriched on the basis of existing Philippine and other languages (emphasis added).” A May 13, 1992 resolution further specified that Filipino is the “indigenous written and spoken language of Metro Manila and other urban centers in the Philippines used as the language of communication of ethnic groups (emphasis added).” However, as with the 1973 and 1987 Constitutions, the resolution did not go so far as to identify this language as Tagalog, so, in theory, Filipino could be any other autochthonous Austronesian language, including that of Cebuano as spoken in Metro Cebu and Davao. However, in reality, "Filipino" equals Tagalog.

The Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino envisions a process of popularizing regional dialectal(sic) usage derived from regional languages, as the foundation of standardizing and intellectualizing a language, based on a lingua franca not necessarily based on Tagalog, that is already dominant nationally in spoken discourse (especially in the broadcast media). It must must be pointed out, however, that only 30% of the total population speaks Tagalog, and the rest (70%) are non-Tagalogs. Furthermore, the program of "popularization" is non-voluntary, has never been endorsed by the Philippine people, and relies entirely on government enforcement, including programs aimed at indoctrinating young school children as Tagalog subjects.

In 2004 the Filipino language was presented and registered with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). It was approved and added to the ISO registry of languages in September 21 2004, and was given the ISO 639-2 code fil. The ramifications of this are quite extensive given today's information and communications technology.

Alternative views and proposals

Though the nature of Filipino has already been defined in the Constitution and further by relevant laws, there continues to exist alternative proposals as to what should constitute the Filipino language. This, however, should be made distinct from those who merely complain that, currently, Filipino remains de facto equivalent to Tagalog, and that the use of Filipino in public remains in effect the use of Tagalog.

Filipino as Tagalog

Many people assume that Filipino is essentially and practically the same language as Pilipino, the national language, at that time clearly based upon Tagalog, an ethnic language. Filipinos are more likely to ask one another if they speak "Tagalog" rather than "Filipino." Among metropolitan Manila's migrant population, words from other Philippine languages have been absorbed to this varietal speech, which academics distinguish as “Filipino”. A counter-argument is that the English language is still called English and not British, and that the Metromanileño Tagalog dialect is spoken by the non-Tagalog majority of Metropolitan Manila. Futhermore, Metromanileños retain the ethnic identity of their parents, even if the do not speak the language(s) associated with said ethnic origin, and normally do not view themselves as Tagalogs unless they are ethnically Tagalog.

Educated opinion in the Philippines about the status and relationship of Filipino and Tagalog remains divided, and the controversies do not seem to be subsiding or disappearing. The disagreements are not simply about matters of fact, although there are plenty of interesting facts involved; it is also about incompatible conceptual frameworks, with socio-political and linguistic-theory nuances, that are used to understand and name those factual situations. There are competing perspectives that seem logical within their own assumptions.

Filipino as a Tagalog-based macrolanguage

According to this view, Filipino should be classified either as a diasystem, a single generic language, a macrolanguage, or an L-complex, all of which would classify Filipino and Tagalog as two branches based on dialectal and orthographic variation.

Filipino as a blend of all languages used in the Philippines

According to this view, Filipino should be a new language, created by merging all languages currently used in the Philippines, including non-Philippine languages such as English, Spanish, and several other Asian languages such as Lan-nang Chinese serving as possible vocabulary and grammatical sources.

Many commentators on the issue of Filipino, often non-Tagalogs who would prefer that only their regional language and English would occupy the social space currently occupied by Tagalog, claim Filipino is a planned future language that has not yet come into existence, at the same time implying that it never will and that the whole enterprise is illegitimate, thus negating their own proposal. From this perspective, Filipino should have been a merger of many different languages, and since Filipino as currently employed has very little content from regional languages (the evolution of Filipino comes more from English loanwords and Metromanileño slang and neologisms), it is then actually Tagalog.

See also

• Commission on the Filipino language, the official regulating body of the Filipino language
• UP Filipino Dictionary
• Filipino orthography
• Languages of the Philippines
• Filipino grammar
• Manuel L. Quezon
• Leo James English

External links

• Commission on the Filipino Language
• Language planning in multilingual countries: The case of the Philippines, discussion by linguist and educator Andrew Gonzalez
• The Language Planning Situation in the Philippines, by Andrew Gonzalez, FSC
• The Metamorphosis of Filipino as a National Language
• Filipinized transcription as applied in one blog
• Filipino Languages - links about Filipino languages
• Information on learning Filipino