Talk:Languages of the Philippines

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/Archive1 - Sep 16-17, 2004 (text related to possible copyright violation)

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[edit] Changes - Visayan & Bikol

I'm not sure if this is the correct place to address this. I noticed that Visayan redirected to Cebuano language, so I changed it to redirect to a new Visayan languages article I made, which needs to be expanded upon. But it's a start. I did the same for Bisaya and Binisaya.

I also renamed the Bicolano page as Bikol language. I also changed this on the pages that linked to Bicolano.

The Philippine language articles need a lot of fixing, and I'll get around to doing them in my spare time. If anyone's curious, I've been studying Philippine languages for several years and I could consult linguists specializing in Philippine languages in case I don't have the answer. So if you have a question concerning Philippine languages, feel free to reach me on my talk page.

--Chris 21:59, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Names of Languages

I fixed the names of the languages and added 4 more in the paragraph that talks about the 8 major languages of the islands.

Changes I made:

Tagalog, Kapampangan, and Pangasinan were fine the way they are. There is a tendancy to call Kapampangan Pampango and Pangasinan Panggalatok or Pangasinense, but they aren't used much in linguistics papers regarding Philippine languages.

Visayan I had to change to Cebuano. There are about three dozen languages whom their respective native speakers refer to as Bisaya or Binisaya (with the exceptions of the Tausugs who reject the term for cultural & religious reasons) despite being mutual unintelligible. So you have a person from Banton Island in Romblon province who speaks Asi and a speaker from Butuan who speaks Butuanon, they can't understand each other's languages but yet to them their language is Bisaya!

Furthermore, I removed the dialectal references. Those can be saved for the languages' individual articles. Some were incorrect such as Masbateño, which is not a dialect of Cebuano at all but a language related to Hiligaynon and Bikol.

Ilonggo has been changed to Hiligaynon since the former refers only to the people in Iloilo. Hiligaynon is spoken outside of Iloilo and as such is more inclusive and unambiguous.

I removed Ilongot it's hardly one of the 8 major languages of the Philippines. Neither is it one of the 12 major ones or the 20 major ones. There are only 21,800 speakers according to the Mother Tongue Statistics of the 2000 Philippine Census.

I'm a good friend of respected linguist who works with the languages of the Bicol region. According to him (Jason Lobel), Bicolano or Bikolano is reserved for the people of the Bicol region. Though some people may incorrectly or alternatively refer to the languages of Bicol as such. The speakers themselves use Bikol to refer to the language.

I added Maranao, Maguindanao, Kinaray-a, and Tausug since they have more then one million native speakers. The original basis, from my understanding, for the 8 major "dialects" of the Philippines was because they all had at least one million speakers. But with the arrival of the 2000 census statistics, the number has changed to twelve. I wrote about this subject at my blog. The pertinent entry is "Eight Languages No More".

--Chris 22:09, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Just so it's in writing, I changed Pangasinense to Pangasinan for three reasons. (1) Pangasinense, from my experience, is more often used to refer to an inhabitant of Pangasinan or a speaker of the language than the language itself, as in Aringay, La Union. (2) From what I understand, in the province of Pangasinan, the term Pangasinense is virtually never used to refer to the language. (3) Pangasinan is the name used in all major books on the Pangasinan language I could find. The most complete works on the Pangasinan language were written by Richard Benton in the early 70s, and his books are entitled Spoken Pangasinan, Pangasinan Reference Grammar, and Pangasinan Dictionary.
Lastly, while the language is sometimes referred to as Panggalato or Panggalatok, I don't think they are appropriate as some webpages on Pangasinan claim that these terms can be construed as pejorative.
--Senor fjord 02:31, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I noticed that you did that earlier. Thank you or Salamat ed sikayo. In any case, my observations concerning the name coincides with yours. I've also noticed that Pangasinense writer Sonny Villafania uses Pangasinan to refer to his language as well. Taga iner kayo ed Pangasinan? Assuming, that you are indeed from Pangasinan.
--Chris 06:19, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I'm actually in Urbana-Champaign, IL in the US. My wife grew up in Mangaldan, Pangasinan, and I'm trying (with great difficulty =) ) to learn her native language. I'd love to write more about the structure of the language on the page, but the language was passed down to her orally.
--Senor fjord 02:27, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Re Visayan/Cebuano, I was based in Northern Mindanao (Ozamis, Misamis Occidental) for 4 years. Although the language of the inhabitants there is technically Cebuano, they get slightly offended when their language is referred to by that term. They would rather use the term 'Bisaya' rather than Cebuano because they feel that the latter gives undue prominence to Cebu. It's a sort of a 'french fries -- freedom fries' thing, except that this has been a sensitive topic to them for decades. Just my two cents. Vocaya 16:06, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Debate on the History of the Spanish language in the Philippines

Note: The original contents were transferred to Talk:Spanish in the Philippines--Jondel 05:50, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Chabacano vs. Chavacano

Suggestion: The Chavacano keeps getting changed to Chabacano then back again(about 8 times already). Why not take a poll or vote for the preferred?--Jondel 23:56, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Who's to decide? Chabacano/Chavacano speakers, of course. Considering there are more Chavacano de Zamboanga speakers who generally don't have any problems with the spelling "Chavacano," It's quite evident who'll win at the poll. But again, we don't make it a big fuss. I've edited the Chavacano article to clearly demonstrate what the difference in the spellings mean. And as you see, it really is not significant. --Weekeejames 11:15, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
My personal preference is Chavacano. Using 'v' seems to be correct in both Spanish and English. --seav 16:13, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I also prefer Chavacano especially for the English language. --Jondel 23:26, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Google has 2,440 hits for Chavacano and 8,860 for Chabacano. I prefer Chabacano because the original word in Spanish, Chavacano, has negative connotations. In a recent blog entry, I usually used Chabacano. --Chris 09:01, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)
The original Spanish word is spelled "Chabacano." Just as the creole itself has evolved, it is not suprising that the spelling has evolved too into general usage and acceptance. As a Chavacano speaker, I don't really see any big deal about the spelling. This page is just really making it a big fuss, when we Chabacano/Chavacano speakers don't. Zamboangeños don't regard their "Chavacano" as a mispelled word. The spelling is generally accepted in Education and the Mass Media. --Weekeejames 11:15, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
The question is, what is the name of the language called in English in an academic context? --seav 13:07, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Chabacano's technical name is Philippine Creole Spanish. And there seems to be a kind of naming pattern for creoles. For example the "pidgin" of Hawai'i is called Hawaiian Creole English and the "Kwéyol" of Haiti is called Haitian Creole French.
I should point out that linguist Howard McKaughan of University Hawai'i Manoa published a book called Notes on Chabacano Grammar back in 1954. There is also a dictionary published in Zamboanga which has the word Chabacano on the title. Furthermore, webpostings by Chabacanos prefer to write their language with a b and the /v/ sound does not exist in Chabacano - neither in Spanish. --Chris 17:56, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)
It should also be noted that the linguistic sil and ethnologue's websites spell it as "Chavacano." Magdalena Sayas first wrote and published the fist ever dictionary, "Diksyunaryong Chavacano" in the 60's, there should be hundreds if not thousands of printed materials with the word spelled in "v" not to mention numerous media (audio and video) recordings. Did you know that Dolphy had a 1956 Sampaguita Pictures movie called and spelled as "Chavacano?" Visit Zamboanga and make a research, please. Well you can only make research on the surviving articles and docs and recently available audio-visual materials. Much of the Zamboangeño literature was burned during WW2. Also, we do pronounce the /v/ sound as in "/v/eranda," "/v/iolin," "/v/os," "/v/enao," y otro mas pa. Chavacano, indeed, spelled with a "v" is generally accepted and is also commonly used. --Weekeejames 11:15, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
I guess it has to be Chabacano then. --seav 08:55, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Fine and dandy. For as long as it also has to be Chavacano. --Weekeejames 11:15, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Spanish in the Philippines

Considering its size, I am planning to create or would like to invite anyone to create a separate wikipage, and transfer not only the the languge but also the related discussion/talk page on Spanish/history. I might be doing this very soon, if no one objects or no one else creates the page. A brief description on Spanish in the Philippines will be left behind.--Jondel 03:33, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I pass on the invitation to create the page for now since there is work that needs to be done on the existing articles for Philippine languages. However, I'd welcome an article on Spanish in the Philippines. It will shed some light on the subject. And perhaps I can contribute my two cents worth on the subject in the future.
--Chris 06:23, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Your contributions would be highly appreciated. The page has just been created. A summary was left behind.--Jondel 02:07, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)


[edit] Spanish

I would like to migrate pertinent discussions on Spanish to the Spanish in the Philippines if it is ok with everyone. --Jondel 02:07, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Discussions were transferred to Talk:Spanish in the Philippines.--Jondel 05:52, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Most spoken

From the article, I gather that Tagalog is and was the most spoken language and ther eare more Spanish words in Visayan than in Tagalog. From what I read elsewhere, Tagalog was not the most spoken language during the colony but since the Tagalog were the most Hispanicized / illustrated after the colony, Tagalog was the basis for a common Filipino identity and language. Am I right? -- Error 23:19, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It was not until the 1980's that native Tagalog speakers surpassed native Cebuano speakers. Both speakers hovered around 24% with Cebuano speakers having a slight lead.
There were a variety of reasons why Tagalog was chosen. One was the erroneous view that the Visayan language (sic) was not fragmented into dialects. It's erroneous because they were actually different languages, and Cebuano was the most spoken out of that group. Another was Tagalog's history, and that appears to be true. Another was the importance of Manila, were Tagalog is spoken.
As for Spanish words, there are Spanish words in Visayan languages that are not used in Tagalog and vice-versa. I've never seen a study before but I have the impression that the gap between the amount of Spanish words each has is really insignificant.
--Chris 05:09, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Name of the Malay language

Isn't there another name besides Malay which we could use to refer to the common ancestral language of Tagalog and Bahasa? Use of the term 'Malay' might imply that Philippine languages are descended from some archaic form of Bahasa Melayu. Like as in this paragraph from the article:

When the Spanish had first arrived in the Philippines in the 16th Century, Malay was already the official spoken language of the aristocracy and was also used as a lingua-franca.

The heading, “Malay” doubles up as a link to the “Malay language” article, but the sentence quoted above uses another definition of the same term (that which states “Malay” was the common ancestral language of the peoples of the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia). Of course we all know that Bahasa Melayu (to whose article the heading points to) was never once the official language of the aristocracy.

[edit] Kinaray-a

I was finally able to get the Western Visayas census (2000) from [[1]]. The number of Kinaray-a speakers is less than 700,000 so I took it out as a language with more than 1 million speakers. Unless there are results to the contrary, I believe there aren't more than 300,000 Kinaray-a speakers in all other regions combined. The census might be inaccurate (as there have been several problems with their results). However, most references I found seems to indicate that Kinaray-a, which is spoken mainly in Antique and parts of Iloilo, do not have more than a million speakers. --Wng

The source you gave states that there are only 126,821 Kinaray-a speakers. That's only a fraction of the complete mother tongue statistics from 2000 that I have. In the source I have, Kinaray-a is fragmented among three names. In the whole country, there are:
  • 377,515 Karay-as
  • 224,396 Kiniray-as [sic]
  • 450,057 Hamitkanons ... Hamtik is another name for Antique province.
Furthermore, this figure may represent an undercount. Please see this post by Jason Lobel. Jason is a Ph.D. candidate in linguistics at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa and is currently in the Philippines doing research on the Central Philippine languages. In this particular post, he took the census data and added the number of the Kinaray-a towns. These are towns known to him either by his visits to Antique province as well as research by other linguists. --Chris 00:27, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
PS: Here are other relevant posts: [2] and [3].
Thanks for the info. Anyhow, the 126,821 was actually number of households. I figured there's no way the average household size is more than 7 so it will reach a million. However, there's the problem of having them listed under different names. The provincial results have the population count per language. I might have missed adding Karay-a, but this will mean that the total will be close to 900,000 speakers. Since there are people whose counts are probably more accurate than this census, I will believe those people's counts more than the NSO. The online version does not have breakdown of ethnicity for the whole country, but am even starting to doubt if the provincial counts add up to the national count in the census! -Wng 02:55, Jun 11, 2005 (UTC)


[edit] False Friends , Tagalog only?

I suggest that we place codes eg, Tg for Tagalog Tagalog words at the 1st column and allow False Friends from the other languages. However, I think there is nobody who knows the other languages that well to place other ff aside from Tagalog. e.g. A Cebuano false friend word that can be found in Ilocano, etc. even if non-existant in Tagalog.--Jondel 8 July 2005 07:47 (UTC)

I suggest getting rid of this False Friends chart all together and perhaps relegate it to the separate languages. What would be much more useful is a sample sentence or two in different Philippine languages so the layperson could compare the various languages. --Chris 8 July 2005 07:56 (UTC)

Or maybe remove the table format? There is a lot of space consumed by the empty columns of non relevant languages. I 'll try to create one here. I think I can significanly reduce the whole thing.--Jondel 8 July 2005 08:02 (UTC)

Just remove the whole thing all together. I gave it some more thought and it definitely does not belong on this page. It has the potential to become a large article. There is a List of false friends for English. That can give you an idea as to how to the format. Then the page could be named something like List of false friends in Philippine languages or List of false friends in Tagalog or something. --Chris 8 July 2005 16:59 (UTC)
Is there a way to put a section into a vote for deletion or not? I think this list is useful and I believe the list won't go very long for quite some time, so transferring it to another article might not be the right time. I have added a couple of words that are false friends among Ilonggo and Cebuano, although it is difficult to find someone who knows both a northern Philippine language and a Visayan one. Knowledge of two or more Visayan languages (especially Kinaray-a and Ilonggo; Cebuano and Ilonggo; Cebuano and Waray) is common. Anyhow, false friends are important in the Philippine context because some people who know only Tagalog believe they can include all words from Cebuano, Ilonggo, etc. and be part of the "Filipino language". Most of us know this is not feasible. However, false friends even make the matter worse. If one says "taga-bukid", will that now mean "from the farm" or "from the mountains"? Should "pagong" have the meaning of both turtle and frog? How do we disambiguate? Of course we know that this proposal is kind of far-fetched, but it helps that people know more and that they are different languages, not just dialects. Furthermore, one can be easily misunderstood. --Wng July 9, 2005 03:39 (UTC)
If this list is to say, then maybe it should be put, as User:Jondel proposes, into a more manageable form. I agree, it's important. But my concern is that it's going to keep on getting bigger and bigger. It's like in the Tagalog article, some anonymous people keep on putting all sorts of words in the words of foreign origin chart or they just keep on putting all sorts of phrases under common phrases. That could happen here. Actually, it will. We just have to keep it manageable and not let it detract from the point of the whole article. So yeah, if we're going to keep it... Please at least change the format.
Now, here are some false friends I know ... In Kapampangan there's asapu ke ing bola king lalam ning tete (I caught the ball under the bridge). To a Tagalog speaker, this sounds gross. Same goes for Ilokano's agbayag nga agpapukis. Then there's langgam which means bird (Cebuano) or ant (Tagalog). And also Tagalog ibon (bird) and Kapampangan ebun (egg). Kayat means want in Ilokano and fuck in Cebuano. --Chris 9 July 2005 05:29 (UTC)

What does agbayag nga agpapukis mean?.--Jondel 02:13, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

It means (He) will take a long time to get a haircut or something along those lines.--443 15:53, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal for False Friend

This section is being editted from time.--Jondel 8 July 2005 08:13 (UTC)

  • bukid(from Tagalog), field (farm) in Tagalog(Tg), hill/mountain in Cebuano(Cb) and Waray-Waray(Ww) .
  • gamot(from Tg), medicine(Tg), roots of plants (Cb & Ww).
  • gubat (all from Tagalog unless otherwise stated), forest(Tg), battle/war(Cb)
  • habol, forest
How about a simple list. Something like: Bukid: field (Tagalog), mountain (Visayan languages). --Chris 9 July 2005 05:33 (UTC)

Agreed! --Jondel 00:29, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

  • Legend: Ilocano(ILO), Kapampangan(PMP), Tagalog(TGL),Cebuano(CEB),Ilonggo(HIL), Waray-waray(WRY).
  • bukid:field (farm)(TGL), hill/mountain(CEB & WRY).
  • gamot:medicine(TGL), roots of plants (CEB& WRY).
  • gubat:forest(TGL), battle/war(CEB).
  • habol: pursue(TGL),blanket(CEB).
  • hilo : become nauseous(TGL),poison or thread(CEB).
  • hipon: prawn/shrimp (TGL),shrimp paste (=bagoongCEB)).
  • ilog : river(TGL), quarrel over something(CEB).
  • irog : loved one(TGL), move over(CEB).
  • ibon : 'ebun'-egg(Kp),bird(TGL).
  • katok: knock a door(TGL), silly/senseless(CEB).
  • kayat: want(ILO),copulate(CEB).
  • kumot: blanket(TGL), to crumple (CEB & WRY)
  • laban: against/opposed to(TGL), in support of(CEB)
  • lagay: put(TGL), male genitals(HIL & CEB),mud(WRY)
  • langgam:ant(TGL), bird(CEB).
  • libang: do leisurely things(TGL), defecate(CEB), do leisurely things(WRY).
  • paa  : foot(TGL), leg (CEB).
  • pagod: tired(TGL), burnt/scorched (CEB).
  • palit: change/exchange(TGL), buy(CEB).
  • pagong: turtle(TGL), frog (HIL).
  • sabot: pubic hair(HIL),to understand(CEB).
  • sili : chili(TGL), chili(CEB), penis (WRY).
  • tapak: step on(TGL), patch a hole(CEB).
  • tete : bridge(PMP), Mammary glands(TGL, also titi -male penis ).
  • tulo : drip and Syhilis(TGL),three(WRY).
  • usap : talk(TGL), chew(CEB).
  • utong: nipple(TGL), breath(CEB).


  • Legend: Tagalog(Tg),Kapampangan(Kp), Cebuano(Cb),Ilonggo(Il), Waray-waray(Ww).
I suggest we use SIL or ISO 639-2 codes so we do not need to create another standard. Perhaps SIL is better because some Philippine languages do not have ISO 639-2 codes yet. --Wng 02:16, July 11, 2005 (UTC)

Agreed.--Jondel 02:21, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup tag

This is IMHO unreadable, and horribly formatted. Maybe put it in a table, or find another way to present the information. --Storkk 12:36, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

We tried to put it in a table before and it would get horribly large and unmanageable.--Jondel 14:57, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Maybe so. Could it really be worse than it is now? --Storkk 11:58, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Language tree

  • Could anyone make the language tree similar to the one used at the Indo-European Languages. -23prootie

[edit] Filipino / Tagalog

How about instead of saying "Filipino is in practice almost completely composed of the Tagalog as spoken in Manila," which is slightly wrong, why not "Filipino is in practice composed of Tagalog and English"? Filipino has developed into somewhat a new language, and several Visayan languages made its way already. Even baseball became Beysbol lol. --Howard the Duck 16:24, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Nationalism in Spanish

Please cite sources about movements to pro-nationalism/Filipino movements through Spanish language media by the government or Filipino nationalistic movements. The current mainstream opinion is that it is colonialistic . What does the Filipino government say about the Spanish language? I myself will try to do research on this.--Jondel 03:40, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

1987 constitution says that Spanish, along with Arabic, are "to be promoted on a voluntary and optional basis." --Chris S. 05:26, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
ok(and so we revert my revert)--Jondel 12:38, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
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