Talk:Languages of the Philippines

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Filipino / Tagalog[edit]

How about instead of saying "Filipino is in practice almost completely composed of the Tagalog as spoken in Manila," which is slightly wrong, why not "Filipino is in practice composed of Tagalog and English"? Filipino has developed into somewhat a new language, and several Visayan languages made its way already. Even baseball became Beysbol lol. --Howard the Duck 16:24, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You are right in saying that a lot of words in English has crept into Tagalog, which we call Filino. But I believe, you would agree when I say that vocabulary isn't the only reason to declare a language separate from another. Since, the grammar of Tagalog and Filipino are one and the same, how can we say that Filipino is a mixture of Tagalog and English? Remember that when verbs are conjugated, even when the term is a borrowed vocabulary, the rules of Tagalog is being used. Example 'to save' (a computer file) will be rendered either isi-nave (or simply sineyv (phonetically)) in the past and ise-save in the future. No one will use 'Saved ko na ang file.' when he meands 'I already saved the file.'. Instead, he will say 'Sineyv (phonetically) ko na ang file.'. 61.9.13.66 (talk) 14:33, 20 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you have been watching tutorials on YouTube regarding computer technology (whether it be Arabic, Chinese, German) English terminologies are used. For example, find ACTIVE DIRECTORY tutorial in Arabic, you will hear "commands", "physical location". What I am saying is that yes, foreign words can creep into a language, but it is still a language. How about the many Latin words shared by the majority of European countries, yet their languages are not mutually intelligible. I do not have to cite any source, just find any dictionary between two languages. For example Spanish-English.IsaLang (talk) 05:08, 19 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

(1) What is explicitly stated in the constitution (Article XIV Section 6) is that as it evolves, the Filipino language shall be further developed and enriched on the basis of existing Philippine and other languages.
(2) I think an assertion that "Filipino in practice is ..." (emphasis mine) is improper in an encyclopedia. The Filipino language has a regulating body, the Commission on the Filipino Language, and the language is whatever that body says it is (think of it as de jure vs. de facto). Their website isn't published in a language which I can read, so I'm not sure to what extent the language includes English borrowings. Skimming the text on the website, I don't see a lot of English borrowings. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 01:31, 3 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Philippine languages comparison chart" section[edit]

I just want to mention that there is a pretty neat illustration of a Philippine language tree at Scott, William Henry (1984), Prehispanic Source Materials for the Study of Philippine History, New Day Publishers, p. 50, ISBN 9711002264. Some of you may have the book on your bookshelves and, if not, it is surely available in many libraries. I've thought several times that a similar illustration might be useful in this article, but my own artictic ability is near zero. Scott's illustration is a simplified version of the tree in Charles Walton (1979), A Philippine Language Tree, Archives of Languages of the World (which I have not read). Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 03:08, 8 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Philippine languages comparison chart" section: FORMATTING AND EDITS[edit]

ATTENTION

  • If you're going to edit the chart take a close look at the text that precedes the chart.
  • If you are going to make edits, don't put "correction". That is why I've commented out the Sinama row, which had "correction" and was not placed properly in the table. The tables states that the ordering is from NORTH to SOUTH; pay attention! I had to research the language and it's way down south (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sama_people), nowhere close to where Ivatan is spoken. Also, it is commented out because I cannot verify the "corrections" made as valid.
  • The Romblamanon row is missing entries. AGAIN, take a look at how to format tables, etc...

Joemaza (talk) 20:35, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Mutual intelligibility[edit]

The section "Mutual intelligibility" does not say a word about mutual intelligibility of the dialects. Hellerick (talk) 15:19, 17 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I also think that sorting the table with the translated proverb alphabetically overstates the differences. It would be much better to categorise and sort based on which languages / dialects / whatever are related.

Esperanto[edit]

I just edited the article as it said that "Esperanto" was the original official language of the Philippines and became the lingua franca in the late nineteenth century! Umm, I think maybe you mean Spanish? Mhulbert (talk) 16:43, 26 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal to delete remarks.[edit]

I propose that the following remarks be deleted from the National and official languages section:

This is in contrast to Morocco, where Spanish is spoken in the northern part of that country and is becoming a popular language to learn, after French among the country's northern inhabitants. In Francophone Africa, the use of French, despite being a native language of only a minority of people who live in that part of Africa, is actively promoted, even if (as in Algeria, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia) it is not an official one.

Fascinating — but irrelevant.

--174.16.21.62 (talk) 18:18, 1 August 2009 (UTC)How about instead of saying "Filipino is in practice almost completely composed of the Tagalog as spoken in Manila," which is slightly wrong, why not "Filipino is in practice composed of Tagalog and English"? Filipino has developed into somewhat a new language, and several Visayan languages made its way already. Even baseball became[reply]

Confusion[edit]

The article says that most languages spoken in the Philippines are of the Malayo-Polynesian language family. Isn't Tagalog which is spoken by the majority of the population off an Indic Script and language, Sanskrit. It should therefore be classified under the Indo-European language family. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.181.206.125 (talk) 19:20, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]


No - Tagalog is very definitely an Austronesian language with a Sanskrit script. See Tagalog for more details. Simon (talk) 02:31, 21 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Asa Familia[edit]

"The Asa Familia own 3 of the languages": what does this mean? In particular, what is the Asa Familia, and what does it mean for it/them to "own" three languages? Mcswell (talk) 19:45, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Good question. It was added by an anon in November 2011 in this November 2011 edit -- the only edit to date from that IP address. It is unclear and unsupported. I've removed it. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 22:10, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Alert to possible POV fork[edit]

The newly created article Filipino_as_Philippine_Official_Language seems to me to be a WP:POVFORK from this article. I ask those who edit on this topic to give it a look and if it does not represent a Neutral Point of View to merge it to this article and delete. If it does represent a NPOV, please ignore this message. Thanks! -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 15:59, 9 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Language Maps[edit]

The Philippine Languages Per Region Map seems to be an incomplete and confusing version of the Languages of the Philippines Map at the top of the article. While it can be argued that Tagalog-based Filipino is widely spoken in almost every region of the Philippines, I do not think it is particularly appropriate to color-label regions like the Palawan Province as a primarily Tagalog-speaking region. I request that this map be removed or reevaluated/revised for accuracy. Bcatabas (talk) 09:00, 16 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Feb 2014 changes[edit]

Here, I've made some WP:BOLD changes. Please discuss and improve as needed.

  • The word "original" in the initial sentence bothered me even though it did fit if one considered that the Philippines originated as a national entity upon its unification under Spanish rule. I've reworded the initial sentence to avoid using that word.
  • A bold change which I thought about but did not make was the removal of the words "in Spanish" following the mention of an 1893 Spanish decree. It seems logical that instruction would have been in Spanish, but the supporting source cited does not say that. Seems like WP:OR to me. (See this 2008 edit which inserted this assertion and cites the supporting source).
  • For a long time, this article has asserted that the Malolos Republic established Spanish as the country's official language. A recent edit changed this to instead say national language. Horsefeathers. What article 93 of the Malolos Constitution (quoted in this article in English translation) did was to specify that Spanish would be used temporarily for acts of public authority and in the courts until the issue of language could be addressed legislatively. This is a far cry from establishing that Spanish as the country's national language, and it's something of a stretch to say that it established Spanish as the country's official language. I've removed this assertion.
  • The article asserted that the use of Spanish declined as a result of the prohibition of teaching using Spanish language, but did not cite any support for this or for the assertion there that there was such a prohibition. I've changed this to say that the use of Spanish declined as a result of the introduction of English as a language of instruction, citing a supporting source.

Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 05:27, 28 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Please read my sources regarding the widespread usage of Spanish during the Spanish era in the Philippines: Please note that these articles and books were written during that time.

1. El gran problema de las reformas en Filipinas: planteado por el Español ..By Camilo Millan y Vellanueva,Consejero Ponente de Administración y ex gobernador civil de varias provincias del archipielago -J. Lafont, 1897 - Philippines Page 36 - Only few villages had school buildings suitable for learning. There were schools that had a capacity of no more than 100 but the number of students was 400. There were distinguished teachers but they were exceptions from the general rule. The ones who learned well were the children of the rich because they went to schools in the capital or they went to secondary schools in another province.

2. Filipinas y sus habitantes Main Author: González y Martín, R. Published: Béjar, Estab. tip. de la viuda de Aguilar, 1896. Page 98 - Writer was lamenting that "inspite of the four long centuries (according to the writer)that Spain has owned and dominated the Philippines, the elegant and rich Spanish language is barely known and spoken. In the Philippines 8/10 or 9/10 of the natives have no knowledge of Spanish. Without changing the current circumstances in the Archipelago, it will be difficult if not impossible for the natives to accept the mother tongue of the country."

3. Annual Report of the Commissioner of Education, Volume 1By United States. Office of Education U.S. Government Printing Office, 1900 "The result of this system of higher education has been to instruct and polish a few thousand of the wealthier natives and mestizos who have demonstrated the intellectual capabilities of the race as statesmen, lawyers, artists and writers while the great mass of the people have been left in abject ignorance. It is true that schools were established throughout the islands but little progress was made in them as the majority of the teachers did not understand Spanish and what few rudiments of education the children acquired were forgotten when they left the schools"

How many books written during the colonial times containing the writers' observation of few natives speaking Spanish? Too many.IsaLang 06:59, 19 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Gatobranco (talk) 29 July 2015 There was only a small number of Spaniards in Philippines, civil Spaniards concentrated most heavily in Manila and Cebu, while those Spaniards in other provinces were mostly regular priests who preferred not to teach Spanish to natives, but instead learned local languages themselves, composed grammars, dictionaries, religious literature in local languages. And thus they communicated with natives in Philippine languages. Only small part of Filipino people(mostly the Principalia) knew some Spanish. Although the Spanish civil authorities established their school system in 1863, yet until the very 1898 it made little headway because of the resistance of regular priests who did not want to lose their position as mediators between the Spanish authorities and natives. It is quite possible that by 1898 60% of urban Filipinos(especially wealthier classes) indeed spoke Spanish as 1st, 2nd or 3rd language, but certainly this 60% does not relates to the entire Filipino population. When Americans established the Philippines commission in 1900 they at first looked for local candidates of a possible candidate for an administrative language, yet it turned out that Spanish is spoken only by a very narrow part of the population, and no local languages achived the status of lingua franca. Then American decided to push for teaching English which was not an easy task but finally largely successful. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gatobranco (talk • contribs) 07:08, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Looking around after seeing the above recent edit, I see that I've been here previously; see this exchange from back in 2010. We seem to be re-plowing this ground. I see that I made this edit a few months previous to that 2010 exchange, and that a citation of Luciano de la Rosa (1960). "El Filipino: Origen y Connotación". El renacimiento filipino. was added to the article as a general reference few days later
The article currently says, "Luciano de la Rosa established that Spanish was spoken by a total of 60% of the population in the early 20th century as a first, second or third language." I think that "established" is probably the wrong word there, and my guess is that very few people reading that sentence are going to have any idea who Luciano de la Rosa was or whether his 60% figure might be reliable -- I count myself among those. I see that de la Rosa's percentage figures are mentioned in point five of an argumentattive blog post at http://historia-filipinas.blogspot.com/2011/06/manipulacion-de-las-cifras-estadisticas.html which looks like it would be interesting, but it's a blog post and it's in Spanish.
I see that the Spanish language in the Philippines article covers this in a bit more detail, mostly relying on parts of this source, and leaving it up to the reader to figure out which of the assertions there might be supported by what items linked from that source.
This looks like a big mess to me, but I don't have a good enough handle on it to try to fix it. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 04:53, 30 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Albay Bikol language[edit]

This article mentions the Albay Bikol language in a few places, and in one place cites a source (previously with an inline EL, which I've just Ref-ized). There's still a problem, though. The link points http://www.ethnologue.com/language/bhk -- that is not a dead link, but the page it points to says that there's a problem. Following a link from that page led me here, which says that Albay Bikol is no longer considered to be a language, and has been split into four other languages: Buhi'non Bikol [ubl]; Libon Bikol [lbl]; Miraya Bikol [rbl]; West Albay Bikol [fbl]. See also this. Could someone who knows more about this than I do please fix this up? I imagine that the Albay Bikol language article also needs work. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 12:30, 28 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Census[edit]

are there census results for Languages of the Philippines?--Kaiyr (talk) 18:57, 9 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Revert re number of languages[edit]

Here, I've reverted this revert. I base this on having looked at the "THE LANGUAGE SITUATION OF THE PHILIPPINES" section of this paper which is not the supporting source cited in the article, but which does say "between 120 and 171" and which does cite the same source cited in the article in support of the 120 figure. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 11:29, 23 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Regional languages[edit]

This edit caught my eye, and there have been at least a couple of related earlier edits (see above section).

The question in my mind is whether "Regional language" and "Language used by the DepEd for mother tongue-based education" are equivalent. Offhand, I would think not. Back in 1991, R.A. 7104 created the Commission on the Filipino Language. That Act intrnally defines the term "Regional language" as "the lingua franca or the commonly spoken language of a region." That seems like a reasonable definition to me. One might have expected the Commission to publish a list, but I don't know whether one was ever published. Some sources do exist, though, which speak of "eight major regional languages of the Philippines".[1][2][3] At least one source[4] lists the eight. I suggest we use those eight, cite supporting sources, and possibly supply a clarifying footnote describing the article's criteria for inclusion in the list. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 08:38, 18 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I see that there has been a further edit here chaanging the makeup of the list of so-called "Regional languages" in this article. I renew my call for discussion here towards arriving at a consensus about what the term "Regional languages" means for purposes of this article, and towards clarifying that in the article. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 23:47, 19 April 2015 (UTC) [reply]

References

  1. ^ Ravenholt, Betty; Ravenholt, R. t. (2009). West Over the Seas to the Orient: Ravenholt Family, Formative Years, Life Adventures. Trafford Publishing. p. 350. ISBN 978-1-4269-1870-4.
  2. ^ Goddard, Cliff (2005). The Languages of East and Southeast Asia: An Introduction. OUP Oxford. p. 89. ISBN 978-0-19-103733-7.
  3. ^ Bochner, Stephen (2013). Cultures in Contact: Studies in Cross-Cultural Interaction. Elsevier. p. [1]. ISBN 978-1-4831-8964-2.
  4. ^ Norma, Wayne (2012). Philippines - Unabridged Guide. Emereo Publishing. p. 14. ISBN 978-1-4864-2954-7.

J. Nicole Stevens source[edit]

I've removed a source citation from the article and replaced it with a different one. The removed citation read:

<ref name="Stevens1999">{{cite journal |last=Stevens |first=J. Nicole |journal=Linguistics |volume=450 |date=June 30, 1999 |url=http://linguistics.byu.edu/classes/ling450ch/reports/filipino.html |title=The History of the Filipino Languages |publisher= |accessdate=December 27, 2015}}</ref>

That citation linked to this short paper from 1999 on the Brigham Young University website.

This removal came about as a consequence of my reversion of this edit, which removed the assertion that English is an official language of the Philippines from the article with an edit summary saying, "In the citation it is stated that English is NOT an official language of the Philippines".

The citation referred to in that edit summary is the citation of the Stevens source which I have removed. The Stevens source does say, in part, "Even though English is no longer the official language of the Philippines, ...". I've replaced the citation of the Stevens source with a citation of Article XIV, Section 7 of the 1987 constitution of the Philippines, which reads, "For purposes of communication and instruction, the official languages of the Philippines are Filipino and, until otherwise provided by law, English."

Depending on who J. Nicole Stevens might be and why the paper is on the BYU website, this removal action by me may be contrary to WP:DUE. If citation of the Stevens source is to be reintroduced to this article, it ought to be balanced by citation of a reliable source asserting that English does have official language status in the Philippines, and the apparent contradiction here should probably be discussed in the article. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 04:04, 9 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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General sentence[edit]

hello, how are you2405:204:A091:302D:53:84F5:34FA:9862 (talk) 08:11, 13 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Butuanon translation of the Tagalog saying "Ang hindi lumingon..."[edit]

I do not speak Butuanon but the Butuanon translation of the saying "Ang hindi lumingon sa pinanggalingan ay hindi makakarating sa paroroonan" is in Cebuano and is an incorrect translation.

It reads "Kadtong dili kahibalo molingi sa iyang atubangan, sigurado jud ma dam-ag." The Tagalog translation is "Ang hindi marunong lumingon (o tumingin) sa harapan, siguradong madadapa." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.92.13.90 (talk) 04:13, 27 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Questioning assertions in the lead[edit]

I've added {{disputed}} tags in a couple of places in the lead section

Languages and education[edit]

The lead asserts: "Filipino is regulated by Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino and the sole language taught in formal education in the entire country". This conflicts with a table in the Education in the Philippines article which shows (partially)

Partial table, taken from Education in the Philippines#Curriculum
Disciplines Subjects Grade
# Name # Name Elementary School Junior High School Senior High School
Kindergarten Grade 1 Grade 2 Grade 3 Grade 4 Grade 5 Grade 6 Grade 7 Grade 8 Grade 9 Grade 10 Grade 11 Grade 12
1 Language Arts 1 English Green tickY
2 Filipino Green tickY
3 Mother Tongue Green tickY Red XN

The lead asserts: "... there are more speakers of Filipino than English in the Philippines.[1]" I cannot find support for that assertion in the cited source. Contrarily, I have seen this paper which asserts:

Perhaps contrary to expectation as “shared” official languages, Filipino and English do not currently appear to be truly equal in the Philippines. In terms of volume, with some 58million speakers, English is now more prevalent than any other language in the Philippines.Tagalog, in contrast, is used by only about 27 million Filipinos.

I don't know where those figures come from and I don't think that paper is a strong supporting source, but the assertion of those figures there seems to bring the assertion in the article lead into question. Even if a source can be found supporting the assertion, WP:DUE might come into play here.

To provide something concrete to discuss here, I suggest removing both of these disputed assertions. Discussion? Alternative suggestions? Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 13:04, 11 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Wtmitchell: The Ethnologue page has 40,028,700 speakers for English, and 45,000,000 speakers for Filipino (only counting L2 speakers; L1 speakers are counted as speakers of the separately listed Tagalog). So the statement in the lead about the number of speakers is verified.
(inserted) The source cited in support is https://www.ethnologue.com/country/ph/languages. I don't see that there. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 18:36, 11 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Wtmitchell: Ok admit, the English figure in Ethnologue is cited from a 2003 source, whereas the Filipino figure is dated 2013 (without source). Better source needed. –Austronesier (talk) 09:43, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I've removed that assertion. I've also added a {{cn span}} tag to a nearby unsupported assertion. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 07:35, 13 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Wtmitchell: I will try to find a RS that gives synchronized figures for the number of first+second language speakers of English vs. Filipino/Tagalog. On a side note, I'm still confused why a self-published paper that does not even give a source for the number of Tagalog speakers should outtrump the data given in the Ethnologue. –Austronesier (talk) 08:30, 13 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I have not said that it should, and I have not cited it in the article. I have mentioned here that I noted its disagreement with the unsupported assertion in the article and that I have tried (so far without success) to obtain sourcing info for the figures in the paper from its author. Nailing down reliably supported figures in either case is likely to be difficult -- see e.g., notes and cites re English speakers the Philippines in the List of countries by English-speaking population article. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 12:30, 13 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The sentence about the language of instruction is clearly not correct. Here I agree with deleting the dubious statement. –Austronesier (talk) 14:13, 11 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ "Philippines". Ethnologue.

Indigenous languages[edit]

Is there something wrong here? or are there in fact no languages with between 3 and 9 million speakers?

There are 4 indigenous languages with approximately 9 million or more native speakers: 

   Tagalog
   Cebuano
   Ilocano
   Hiligaynon

and 10 with 1 million to 3 million native speakers: ...

Tom Permutt (talk) 05:07, 5 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That section cites http://www.ethnologue.com/country/PH, but it's not clear whether or not that is the source of this particular information and it appears to be a pay site. Something similar is present without specific support in this 16 Match 2009 version (I did not look back beyond that), and has changed several times without support since (e.g., [2][3][4][5]).
Welcome to Wikipedia Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 12:34, 5 August 2020 (UTC).[reply]
The hard paywall of Ethnologue was introduced in autumn 2019, but archived free versions are available:[6]. –Austronesier (talk) 12:43, 5 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Native speakers[edit]

This edit, changing a number from 18 to 19, caught my eye; I counted 19 rows in the table and I was not able to locate a copy of the source described (the Philippine census from the year 2000) online. I didn't spend a lot of time nailing it down, but I see that this pre-table version of the article uses the same description over a list of 18 entries.Apparently, an entry was added in the interim; some other data looks changed as well. I'm wondering (1) did the 19th entry come from Philippine Census 2000 as had been indicated for 18 entries? (2) if not, where did it come from? (3) is the list still faithful to that source? (4) 2000 was 20 years ago; is there a later/better source? Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 12:43, 28 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Wtmitchell, I think the 19th entry, the artificial language Eskayan was only added post-table from a section above it "Eskayan is an artificial auxiliary language created as the embodiment of a Bohol nation in the aftermath of the Philippine–American War. It is used by about 500 people." Not sure who added it though. PyroFloe (talk) 16:33, 11 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I have removed the entry. Given the fact that literally dozens of real languages have more speakers, its inclusion here is first of all undue. Eskayan has a great appeal to conlangers, but its representation here in various articles about the Philippines has grown out of proportion. –Austronesier (talk) 17:28, 11 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Spanish in the early 20th century[edit]

Here, I have re-removed an assertion re this which was re-inserted with the explanation: (Rv gf unsourced, unlikely it wasn't official). WP:BURDEN says, "The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material," The burden is on adding or restoring, not on removing, and the opinion of a WP editor expressed in an edit summary re likeliness is not a reliable supporting source. I note that the article does not clarify who Luciano de la Rosa might be and that no Luciano de la Rosa article exists. I do find mention of that name here and here. Neither linked item is not an RS and the latter is in Spanish -- out of curiosity, I ran a snippet through Google Translate with the following results:

Don Luciano de la Rosa had a close friend named Sr. Renato Constantino, father of the leftist historian Renato Constantino, author of "A past revisited".

The old Renato Constantino was another Filipino writer who collaborated in NUEVA ERA, a publication founded by D. Emilio Ynciong, a native of Lipá Batangas, and they all spoke Spanish as their first language. Tagalog was his second language indeed. The only daughter of D. Emilio, Doña Fe, speaks Spanish because it was the language of her home. Doña Fe, now almost 80 years old, is the current publicist for NUEVA ERA.

All these Filipinos that a server knew as a young man and that he still knows, since 40 years ago, have agreed with the data given by D. Luciano de la Rosa, as a censor who was from the Katipunan, that he was 70% of the Filipinos those who had Spanish as their second language.

The director of NUEVA ERA at that time, the former Jesuit Joaquín Lim Jaramillo de Zamboanga, a great grammarian of the Spanish language and a great Filipino patriot, also agreed with that "70%" figure.

I imagine that Spanish must have been accepted under the Spanish colonizers for official use, though I don't know whether or where such acceptance might have been officially certified. I know that Spanish is or has been asserted in various WP articles to have been the official language of the First Philippine Republic; I believe that is based on unreliable interpretation by WP editors of an implication in an uncited primary source. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 15:24, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Your revert added specific other specific literacy claims and an unattributed quotation. I have removed those and the de la Rosa sentence. CMD (talk) 15:58, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
My mistake. Looking at that, I see that three edits were reverted; My comments above were in re the latest of the three and I only intended to revert that one. Thanks for fixing my mistake there. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 16:11, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Filipino - Tagalog - English[edit]

Here are the figures from the 24th ed. of Ethnologue (2021):

L1 L2
English 28,700 50,000,000
Filipino --- 45,000,000
Tagalog 20,000,000 ---

What Ethnologue does here is to classify native speakers as Tagalog-speakers, while L2-speakers are classified as speaking 'Filipino' (next to their native language). Since native Tagalog speakers by definition also can be counted at the same time as speakers of Filipino, we have a figure of 65,000,000 Filipino speakers, which exceeds the number of English (L1+L2) speakers. –Austronesier (talk) 17:16, 17 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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