Filipino (historically Pilipino) is the national language of the Philippines, the main lingua franca, and one of the two official languages of the country, along with English. It is a de facto standardized form of the Tagalog language, as spoken and written in Metro Manila and in other urban centers of the archipelago. The 1987 Constitution mandates that Filipino be further enriched and developed by the other languages of the Philippines. This constitutional framework reflects an effort to develop the national language while recognizing the contribution of the Philippines' many regional languages.
Background The Philippines is a multilingual country with 175 living languages. These languages are spoken by different ethnic and linguistic groups.
Spanish involvement in the Philippines began in 1565 with the establishment of a Spanish settlement in Cebu. Spain later established Manila as the capital of its colony in 1571. Manila was located in a predominantly Tagalog-speaking area. Before the Spanish conquest, the area was governed by several political entities, including the Muslim polities associated with Raja Matanda and Raja Sulayman, and Tondo, led by Lakandula.
After the Spanish conquest of Manila, the city became the capital of the Spanish colony in Asia. Manila was selected because of its commercial importance, influence, and strategic location. Spain also sought to protect the city from possible attacks by Portugal and the Netherlands.
During the Spanish period, Spanish was used in government and administration. Spanish coexisted with the many languages spoken throughout the archipelago. Before Spanish rule, the islands were not governed as a single political entity; instead, they consisted of various kingdoms, sultanates, and other communities, each with its own languages and customs.
In 1897, Tagalog was designated as the official language of the revolutionary government under the Constitution of Biak-na-Bato.
During the American colonial period, English became an additional official language alongside Spanish. The number of Spanish speakers gradually declined.
The United States introduced policies that gradually reduced the use of Spanish in official contexts. Spanish was not completely banned; however, English became the principal language of education, government, and law.
In April 12, 1909, the (Academy of the Filipino Language) was founded. One of the group's goals was to enrich the Tagalog language by incorporating words from other Philippine languages to make a common and inclusive Filipino language. even though a member of the Philippine Assembly, León María Guerrero had quashed a 1908 bill that had proposed the founding of a similar institute because he felt it would be better to unite Filipinos under a foreign language such as English or Spanish.
The crowning achievement of the Academy was a highly progressive dictionary compiled by its founder and secretary, Eusebio T. Dáluz. Dáluz started the compilation in 1910 and officially published it five years later, in March 7, 1915, as the Filipino-English Vocabulary. Dáluz also expressed his views on the Filipino language in his column Ang Democracia.
Designation as the national language While Spanish and English were considered official languages during the American colonial period, there existed no national language initially. Article XIII, section 3 of the 1935 constitution establishing the Commonwealth of the Philippines provided that:
On November 13, 1936, the first National Assembly of the Philippine Commonwealth approved Commonwealth Act No. 184; creating the Institute of National Language (later the Surián ng Wikang Pambansâ or SWP) and tasking it with making a study and survey of each existing native language, hoping to choose which was to be the base for a standardized national language. Later, President Manuel L. Quezon appointed representatives for each major regional language to form the NLI. Led by Jaime C. De Veyra, who sat as the chair of the Institute and as the representative of Samar-Leyte-Visayans, the Institute's members were composed of Santiago A. Fonacier (representing the Ilokano-speaking regions), Filemon Sotto (the Cebu-Visayans), Casimiro Perfecto (the Bikolanos), Felix S. Sales Rodriguez (the Panay-Visayans), Hadji Butu (the languages of Muslim Filipinos), and Cecilio Lopez (the Tagalogs).
The Institute of National Language adopted a resolution on November 9, 1937, recommending Tagalog to be basis of the national language. On December 30, 1937, President Quezon issued Executive Order No. 134, s. 1937, approving the adoption of Tagalog as the language of the Philippines, and proclaimed the national language of the Philippines so based on the Tagalog language. Quezon himself was born and raised in Baler, Aurora, which is a native Tagalog-speaking area. The order stated that it would take effect two years from its promulgation. On December 31 of the same year, Quezon proclaimed Tagalog as the basis of the Wikang Pambansâ (National Language) giving the following factors: Tagalog is widely spoken and is the most understood language in all the Philippine Regions. It is not divided into smaller daughter languages, as Visayan or Bikol are. Its literary tradition is the richest of all Philippine languages, the most developed and extensive (mirroring that of the Tuscan language vis-à-vis Italian). From at least before 1935, more books were written in Tagalog than in any other Philippine language. Tagalog has always been the language of Manila, the political centre of the Philippines in much of its history as a multiethnic country and a considerable economic centre of the Philippine islands since time immemorial. The Katipunan generally used the Tagalog language for its operations, and the Philippine Revolution and the First Philippine Republic operationally used Spanish afterwards, but many of the leaders of the revolution spoke Tagalog, more so among ethnic groups from central to southern Luzon including some adjacent islands. Tagalog also became a choice for some non-Tagalog Filipino revolutionary leaders and nationalists in some of their publications, especially if they were to publish in Manila. The Katipunan extended the meaning of the term Tagalog to all people native to the Philippine islands, including Cebuanos, Ilocanos, Kapampangans, etc., and extended the term Katagalugan to the whole Philippine islands not just native Tagalog-speaking areas, building a Tagalog Republic, the reason being a unified opposition against Spanish hegemony.
On June 7, 1940, the Philippine National Assembly passed Commonwealth Act No. 570 declaring that the Filipino national language would be considered an official language effective July 4, 1946 (coinciding with the country's expected date of independence from the United States). That same year, the Balarílà ng Wikang Pambansâ () of grammarian Lope K. Santos introduced the 20-letter Abakada alphabet which became the standard of the national language. The alphabet was officially adopted by the Institute for the Tagalog-Based National Language.
During World War II, the Japanese occupiers encouraged the use of the national language rather than English in schools. The Tagalog-based national language was, therefore, propagated not only in education but also in mass media and in official communication. The census for 1948 reported that 7,126,913 people or 37.11% of the population spoke the language, representing an increase of 11.7% from the 1939 figure of 4,068,565. Of these seven million people, 47.7% learnt it as a second language.
Further history In 1959, the language became known as Pilipino in schools nationwide as an effort to disassociate it from the Tagalog ethnic group. The changing of the name did not, however, result in universal acceptance among non-Tagalogs, especially Cebuanos who had previously not accepted the 1937 selection.
The 1960s saw the rise of the purist movement where new words were being coined to replace loanwords. This era of "purism" by the SWP sparked criticisms by a number of persons. Two counter-movements emerged during this period of "purism": one campaigning against Tagalog and the other campaigning for more inclusiveness in the national language. In 1963, Negros Occidental congressman Innocencio V. Ferrer took a case reaching the Supreme Court questioning the constitutionality of the choice of Tagalog as the basis of the national language (a case ruled in favor of the national language in 1970). Accusing the national language as simply being Tagalog and lacking any substantial input from other Philippine languages, Congressman Geruncio Lacuesta eventually led a "Modernizing the Language Approach Movement" (MOLAM). Lacuesta hosted a number of "anti-purist" conferences and promoted a "Manila Lingua Franca" which would be more inclusive of loanwords of both foreign and local languages. Lacuesta managed to get nine congressmen to propose a bill aiming to abolish the SWP with an Akademia ng Wikang Filipino, to replace the balarila with a Gramatica ng Wikang Filipino, to replace the 20-letter Abakada with a 32-letter alphabet, and to prohibit the creation of neologisms and the respelling of loanwords. This movement quietened down following the death of Lacuesta.
The national language issue was revived once more during the 1971 Constitutional Convention. While there was a sizable number of delegates in favor of retaining the Tagalog-based national language, majority of the delegates who were non-Tagalogs were even in favor of scrapping the idea of a "national language" altogether. A compromise was reached and the wording on the 1973 constitution made no mention of dropping the national language Pilipino or made any mention of Tagalog. Instead, the 1973 Constitution, in both its original form and as amended in 1976, designated English and Pilipino as official languages and provided for development and formal adoption of a common national language, termed Filipino, to replace Pilipino. Neither the original nor the amended version specified either Tagalog or Pilipino as the basis for Filipino; Instead, tasking the National Assembly to:
In 1987, a new constitution designated Filipino as the national language and, along with English, as an official language. That constitution included several provisions related to the Filipino language.
Article XIV, Section 6, omits any mention of Tagalog as the basis for Filipino, and states that:
And also states in the article:
and:
Section 17(d) of Executive Order 117 of January 30, 1987 renamed the Institute of National Language as Institute of Philippine Languages. Republic Act No. 7104, approved on August 14, 1991, created the (Commission on the Filipino Language, or KWF), superseding the Institute of Philippine Languages. The KWF reports directly to the President and was tasked to undertake, coordinate and promote researches for the development, propagation and preservation of Filipino and other Philippine languages. On May 13, 1992, the commission issued Resolution 92-1, specifying that Filipino is the
However, as with the 1973 and 1987 Constitutions, 92-1 went neither so far as to categorically identify, nor so far as to dis-identify this language as Tagalog. Definite, absolute, and unambiguous interpretation of 92–1 is the prerogative of the Supreme Court in the absence of directives from the KWF, otherwise the sole legal arbiter of the Filipino language.
Filipino was presented and registered with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), by Ateneo de Manila University student Martin Gomez, and was added to the ISO registry of languages on September 21, 2004, with it receiving the ISO 639-2 code fil.