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A Brief History of the Filipino Language
September 11, 2011What do you call the national language of the Filipinos?
When a foreigner asks this question, most Filipinos say the national language of the Filipinos is Tagalog and leave it there. It saves confusion. But among Filipinos, this topic can lead to a bitter debate. I hope by the end of this short lesson you will understand the difference and be able to approach this topic with confidence.
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When the Spaniards claimed the Philippines as a territory in the 16th century, the Philippines was not a unified nation and did not share a common language. The territory had thousands of islands, about seven thousand in all, and many of these islands had their own languages. Some islands, like Luzon, had several distinct languages, among them Ilocano, Tagalog, and Bicol.
The Spaniards in the Philippines, particularly the missionaries, wanted Filipinos to learn Spanish. However, the church and government in Spain did not want a repeat of the abuses done by the Spaniards in Mexico. In Mexico, Mexicans who failed to learn Spanish were severely punished, not just with fines but with physical pain, like whipping, and imprisonment. That earned the Spaniards and Spain a reputation of cruelty, and tarnished the image of Roman Catholicism, the Christian religion the Spaniards were trying to spread.
So the Spaniard missionaries in the Philippines took a different approach, one they considered kinder and gentler toward the Filipino natives. Instead of forcing the Filipinos to learn Spanish, the missionaries studied and learned the native languages. This approach proved very effective and lasting - the natives embraced Roman Catholicism and it became the dominant religion in the Philippine archipelago.
A negative effect of that approach, however, was the failure to unite the country under one language. The regional differences remained distinct, and even the American occupation, and then the Japanese occupation, could not change it. Today, four centuries after the Spaniards claimed the Philippines as an integrated territory, the country is divided by about 120 languages.
To many Filipinos this was not a problem for it also resulted in the preservation of not only their language but their art and culture as well. Each language has its own grammar, vocabulary, songs, poetry and set of idioms. The Spaniard missionaries not only learned them but documented and propagated them, too. Thus, when Filipinos celebrate their barrio fiestas, they do so not in Spanish, certainly not in English, but in their own native tongue.
But not all Filipinos were content to using their own languages. During the Spanish colonial period proficiency in the Spanish language was required for government, church, or business employment. Because there was no mandatory education in Spanish, very few Filipinos were qualified. This resulted in public, religious, and business leadership being monopolies of the Spaniards, a fact strongly resented by the Filipinos.
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