The Philippine Linguistic Situation

Mhawi Roser

Sep 5, 2016

Classification of Philippine languages

The term “Philippine language” has been used ambiguously in literature. It is used to refer
either to “any language native to the Philippines, without regard to its genetic affiliation” or
to “any member of a putative subgroup of Austronesian languages located in the Philippine
Islands” (Blust, 1991). In this article, the term “Philippine language” (PL) is used to refer to
the genetic sense and “languages in the Philippines” is used to denote purely geographical or
political reference.

Philippine languages belong to the Western Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian

language family. The Austronesian language family, the largest existing language family in
terms of the number of its member languages, spreads from Malagasy (in Madagascar) to the
Rapanui (in Easter Island), and from Formosan languages (in Taiwan) to Maori (in New
Zealand) (Adelaar & Himmelman, 2005).

Figure 1 below illustrates the geographical range of the Western Malayo-Polynesian

languages.

Figure 1: The Western Malayo-Polynesian branch

Philippine languages can be further classified into microgroups as can be seen in the
following table.

Table 1: Language microgroups of the Philippines (Blust, 1991)

Language versus dialect

Most speakers and users of Philippine languages, including the national mass media, have
little, if not none, idea regarding the status of their own native language. They often refer to
them as “dialects”, with only English and Filipino having the official status of “languages” in
their minds.

There are two kinds of criteria that are used to distinguish languages from dialects: social and
political; and linguistic. The first typically view “languages” as prestigious, official and
written, while “dialects” are mostly spoken, unofficial, and associated with groups lacking in
prestige (Chambers & Trudgill, 2004).
Linguists, however, use different criteria. If speakers of the two speech varieties can have a
conversation and understand each other, they are using “dialects” of a single language. In
contrast, if speakers of the two speech varieties converse and do not understand each other,
they are using two distinct languages. This criterion is called mutual intelligibility. In this
criterion, Cebuano, Ilocano, Masbatenyo, Waray, among others, are languages and not
merely dialects. On the other hand, the Tagalog varieties spoken in Batangas, Rizal, and other
southern Tagalog areas are dialects of the Tagalog language.

Table 2: Mutual intelligibility in Philippine languages (Wikipedia)

Dialectal variation varies from language to language. Tagalog and Kapampangan have very
moderate dialectal variation. Dialects of Bikol, however, exhibit great dialectal variation.
Bikol is an example of a macrolanguage: a set of related languages/dialects that must be very
closely related and that there must be some domain in which a single language identity is
recognized. It consists of the following dialects: Central Bikol, Northern Catanduanes Bikol,
Southern Catanduanes Bikol, Rinconada Bikol, West Albay Bikol, Libon, Miraya, Buhi’non.
Bisayan languages (e.g Masbatenyo, Hiligaynon, Waray, Cebuano), on the other hand,
exhibit a high rate of mutual intelligibility.

Another measure for distinguishing a language from a dialect is grammar. If the speech
variety has different grammar, then it is a different language.

Filipino, the national language of the Philippines, can be considered the Tagalog variety
spoken in Metro Manila, sharing identical grammar with other Tagalog varieties (Nolasco,
2007).

There are 187 distinct living languages in the Philippines, including the Filipino Sign
Language (FSL), according to the latest edition of Ethnologue (2015). Of these, 183 are
living and 4 are extinct. Of the living languages, 41 are institutional, 73 are developing, 45
are vigorous, 13 are in trouble, and 11 are dying.

Figure 2 (Northern Philippines) and Figure 3 (Southern Philippines) show the maps of
languages spoken in the Philippines.

Figure 2: Map of languages spoken in northern Philippines (SIL)

Figure 3: Map of languages spoken in southern Philippines (SIL)

Endangered and extinct languages in the Philippines

In a study called Thirty Endangered Languages in the Philippines, the Summer Institute of
Linguistics and the University of Dakota, identified 32 endangered languages (2 among these
have zero speakers).

Citing Cahill (1999), Headland, et al (2003) states that a language is endangered “[when] it is
in fairly imminent danger of dying out.” There were two ways to determine when the
language is dying: (1) when the children in the community are not speaking the language of
their parents; and (2) when there are only a small number of people left in the ethnolinguistic
community.

David Crystal (2000) presents five arguments why should we care about saving language,
which Headland (2003) summarizes as follows:

a. Because linguistic diversity enriches our human ecology: 6,800 unique models for
describing the world.

b. Because languages are expressions of identity: a nation without a language is like a nation
without a heart.

c. Because languages are repositories of history.

d. Because languages contribute to the sum of human knowledge: each language provides a
new slant on how the human mind works; as we learn more about languages we increase our
stock of human wisdom.

e. Because languages are interesting subjects in their own right.

References:

Adelaar A, Himmelmann N. P, editors. (2005) The Austronesian languages of Asia and

Madagascar. London: Routledge/Curzon.

Blust, Robert A. 1991. The Greater Central Philippines Hypothesis, Oceanic Linguistics, no.
2 ed., vol. 30, 73–129.

Chambers, J.K., & Trudgill, P. (2004). Dialectology (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge
Textbooks in Linguistics.

Headland, Thomas N. (2003). Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, University
of North Dakota Session.

Lewis, M. Paul. (2015). Ethnologue: Languages of the World, 18th edition. Summer Institute
of Linguistics.

Nolasco, Ricardo MD. (2007). Ang Filipino at Tagalog, Hindi Ganoong Kasimple. Komisyon
sa Wikang Filipino.