Filipino language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Filipino Wikang Filipino
Spoken in:	Philippines, USA
Region:	Metro Manila, Batangas, parts of Rizal, Bataan
Total speakers:	~88 million speakers, (first and second language speakers N.A.)
Language family:	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Borneo-Philippines Meso Philippines Central Philippines Tagalog Filipino
Official status
Official language of:	Philippines
Regulated by:	Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino (Commission on the Filipino Language)
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	none
ISO 639-2:	`fil`
ISO/FDIS 639-3:	`fil`
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-based pronunciation key.

Filipino (formerly called Pilipino) is the national language and one of the official languages of the Philippines—along with English—as designated in the 1987 Philippine Constitution. The language, a member of the Austronesian languages, is a standardized dialect of Tagalog. It is sometimes referred to as, albeit incorrectly, the generic name for the several different languages of the Philippines.

On November 13, 1937, the First National Assembly created the National Language Institute, which selected Tagalog, the indigenous language with the most developed and extensive written literary tradition (mirroring that of the Tuscan dialect of Italian), as the basis of a new national language. In 1961, this language became known as Pilipino, which was later renamed to Filipino in the 1972 Constitution.

1 History
2 Nature of the language
3 Orthography
4 ISO 639-2 Code
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] History

Originally, the Balarila ng Wikang Pambansa introduced the Abakada of 20 letters in which only one letter represents one meaningful sound in Tagalog. The 20 letters of Abakada are written as a b k d e g h i l m n ng (where ng is considered as only one letter.) o p r s t u w y. The National Language Institute of the Philippines initiated the new language in 1973. In 1976, the alphabet consisted of 31 letters—the 26 letters of the English alphabet, the Spanish ñ, ll, rr, and ch, and the ng of Tagalog. In practice, however, the digraphs are considered as their two constituent letters. In 1987, the alphabet was revised and rr, ll and ch, all of which are of Spanish origin, were removed, leaving 28 letters.

[edit] Nature of the language

It has been suggested that Filipino vs. Tagalog be merged into this article or section. (Discuss)

The national language of the Philippines has been subject to several controversies and misunderstandings, even to this day. The 1987 Constitution of the Philippines, Article XIV, Section 6 merely states: "The national language of the Philippines is Filipino. As it evolves, it shall be further developed and enriched on the basis of existing Philippine and other languages."

The development and formal adoption of a common national language to be known as Filipino had been mandated in Section XV of the 1973 Constitution. Whether the Filipino language should be based on Tagalog is not stated, although a large number of people assumed that Filipino is equivalent to Pilipino, the national language at that time which is clearly based on Tagalog. Most Filipinos will have one of the following three views when questioned regarding the Filipino language:

Filipino, like its older version, Pilipino, is simply another name for the Tagalog language.
Filipino is the amalgamation of all Philippine languages, with English and Spanish serving as possible vocabulary sources.
Filipino is Tagalog with borrowings from English and other Philippine languages; it is Tagalog as spoken in Metro Manila today.

A similar debate occured regarding the nature of the Italian language in the 16th century, with views that parallel those currently being put forward regarding the Filipino language. However, most people in the Philippines still consider Filipino as essentially and practically the same language as Tagalog. Filipinos are more likely to ask their countrymen if they speak "Tagalog" rather than "Filipino." Proponents of the second view however, specifically state that Tagalog does not include words such as guapa (beautiful), those terms whose meaning can be easily guessed by native Tagalog speakers but are not generally considered or used in the Tagalog-speaking region. Some people also point out that Filipino should include or by nature includes English words commonly used by Filipinos whereas Tagalog does not. During the time when the language was still known as Pilipino (before the name was changed to Filipino), the tendency was towards purism, even trying to replace words of Spanish or English origin with new artificially coined words that are based on Tagalog. To some people, and indeed as promoted and taught in high-school classrooms, this differentiates Filipino from Pilipino.

A number of academics define the Filipino language as an amalgamation of Philippine languages. Some of these academics have proposed that English words be included in the Filipino lexicon. The problem with this view is that linguistically, Philippine languages are not dialects of the same language, but are separate and distinct languages in their own right. If the grammatical structure and all the words from other Philippine languages are to be included in Filipino, then the purpose of a lingua franca is forfeited: people speaking Tagalog Filipino will not be able to communicate effectively with someone speaking Cebuano Filipino. It could be argued however that a common core lexicon could emerge over time as a result of certain words or grammatical or phonological structures (such as double consonants in Ilocano, etc.) being widely and continuously used while certain others being abandoned, a case of linguistic natural selection.

If Filipino is accepted as an amalgamation of indigenous languages, Spanish, as well as English that is based on Tagalog grammar, then perhaps its most realistic embodiment is the Tagalog dialect spoken in Metro Manila. With Manila's migrant population swelling, words from other Philippine languages have been absorbed into dialect. Tagalog as spoken in the capital, however, is difficult to use as a standard. It is rapidly and constantly evolving, and there is no dictionary or guidebook to define what is proper usage or which words are considered to be officially part of the language. This is compounded by the problem that middle- and upper-class Filipinos are bilingual or multilingual, predominantly using English or Taglish (Tagalog heavily mixed with English) in everyday conversation. Taglish essentially is used for informal communication, however, and it is generally not acceptable in formal written communication for government, academia, or business.

[edit] Orthography

Main article: Filipino orthography.

There is no one uniform standard of Tagalog orthography. Even within standards, inconsistencies abound (such as the lack of rules regarding /nk/ and /ngk/, /sy/ and /siy/, etc.). In 2001 the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino (KWF) issued a revision of Filipino orthography, dealing primarily with words of Spanish origin (permitting the use of /f/, /v/, and others in words such as Filipinas, revisyon, etc.; it should be noted however that [v] does not exist as a sound in Spanish, the letter /v/ being pronounced identical to /b/).

Universities, however, publish the bulk of self-described Filipino-language material, and have each adopted their own approaches as to how the language should be spelled (and indeed, of the nature of the language itself). The University of the Philippines, for one, seems to have taken a more conservative approach compared to the KWF, retaining in its UP Filipino Dictionary (UPDF) the /p/ in assimilated words such as perpeksiyon and pamilya while insisting on /f/ in words such as Filipinas (so as to be consistent with Filipino) and fermentasyon. The UPDF also refuses to transcribe yet unassimilated foreign words (aside from those of Spanish origin) phonetically (e.g. nitrogen, nematocyst), let alone whole phrases (e.g. figure of speech, filing cabinet, noble savage).

[edit] ISO 639-2 Code

In 2004, Martin Gomez, a student at the Ateneo de Manila University, presented and registered the Filipino language 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 632-2 code fil. The ramifications of this are quite extensive given today's information and communications technology.