Development of Filipino Language
Internal and External Influence
The Filipino languages have been evolving and developing by taking in features of many foreign languages as well as influencing each other.
At the very beginning, the Philippines didn’t have a government as it does now so people were living under small groups, or barangays, with different languages. Even each language had several different dialects, making up a large variety of Filipino languages (Stevens, 1999). Through inter-barangay trades, those groups learnt the languages of each other and adapted their own languages.
Influence came from foreign languages by trade too. Filipino languages were strongly affected by Chinese, which did business frequently with the Philippines at that time.
Apart from trade, occupations by other countries also had a significant influence on the languages of the Philippines. It’s believed that the main root of the modern Filipino languages came with the first Indonesians who arrived in the Philippines from about 5,000 years ago to 1500 BC since Bahasa Indonesia has something in common with Tagalog linguistically (Stevens, 1999).
In the 16th century, under Spanish government, friars and priests were sent to teach Christianity to local people with local languages. Not willing to allow the local people to gain equality, the priests tried to prevent the Philippines from learning Spanish, which faced rebellion eventually. Therefore, the Philippines studied Spanish and then borrowed words from Spanish into their native languages (Stevens, 1999). Even though Spanish was replaced by English later on, there are still quite a few Filipinos who can speak Spanish, like one of the Filipino domestic helpers we interviewed.
Similar with the Spanish occupation, American and Japanese occupations had influenced local languages a lot. The former stipulated English as the official language while the latter encouraged the use of native languages (Espiritu, 2002).
Overall speaking, the Filipino languages were affected by each other and by foreign languages such as Chinese, Spanish, Japanese and English. And it’s still developing now.
The national language
The national language of the Philippines is Filipino now, with Tagalog as the basis. However, it had been a long journey for it to be settled.
In 1935, the Constitution Article XIV declared to determine a national language based on one of the existing native languages. At that time, there were eight major native languages: Ilocano, Pangasinan, Pampango, Tagalog, Bicol, Cebuano, Hiligaynon and Waray-samarnon (Espiritu, 2002). With a heated discussion, Tagalog, which drew much attention thanks to a national hero called Rizal during Spanish occupation, was chosen to be that language (Stevens, 1999).
In 9040s, Tagalog was one of the official languages of the Philippines, the other being English. However, it was not a medium of instruction.
In 1973, a committee of National Language proposed a new national language which will be based on more than one existing native languages. This proposal was criticized as the language will be artificial and difficult to promote (Belves).
The 1987 Constitution Article XIV stated that the national language of the Philippines is Filipino, which is still based on Tagalog (Belves, Espiritu, 2002).
Major milestones of the language policies in Philippines:
1935: Constitution Article XIV: developing a national language based on one of the existing native languages.
1937: The national language declared to be based on Tagalog.
1973: A new national language recommended.
1987: Constitution Article XIV: Filipino as the national language. Bilingual language policy.
1988: Executive Order 335 (Tan, 2014).
20011: K-12 program and the Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (Tan, 2014).