Philippine English

Philippine English is the variety of English used in the Philippines by the media and the vast majority of educated Filipinos. English is taught in schools as one of the two official languages of the country, the other being Filipino, a standardized version of Tagalog.

English is used in education, religious affairs, print and broadcast media, and business, though the people who use it as a second language far outnumber those who speak it as a first language (see List of countries by English-speaking population). Still, for highly technical subjects such as nursing, medicine, computing, and calculus, English is the preferred medium for textbooks, communication, etc. Very few would prefer highly technical books in the vernacular.[1][2] Movies and TV programs in English are not dubbed.[3]

Contents

Orthography and grammar

Because English is part of the curricula from primary to tertiary education, most Filipinos can speak fairly fluent English, although there might be differences in diction and pronunciation.[4] Most schools in the Philippines, however, are staffed by teachers who are not native Anglophones and thus think using Austronesian instead of Germanic grammatical structures. Non-standard usage arises from their second language acquisition of English.[5]

Philippine English follows American English orthography and grammar,[6] except when it comes to punctuation as well as date notations. For example, a comma almost never precedes the final item in an enumeration. Dates are also read with a cardinal number instead of an ordinal number (e.g. "January one" instead of the "January first") even if the written form is the same.

Phonology

Most of the native Malayo-Polynesian languages of the Philippines do not contain the [f] phoneme. Thus, some Filipinos substitute [p] for [f] when they pronounce English words containing [f]. Some even pronounce English words that normally do begin with [p] with an [f] through hypercorrection due to confusion over which pronunciation is required.

Like [f], the [v] sound is also virtually non-existent in most major native languages of the Philippines. Partly because the [v] and [b] sounds in Castilian Spanish (specifically the Iberian dialect, the basis for teaching the Spanish language and its pronunciation in the Philippines) are not distinguished and both are pronounced as [b], some of the older generation of Filipinos would pronounce the letter [v] in all English words as [b].

Languages of indigenous minorities that had limited contact with the Spanish colonial government often retain the [v] sound. The [f] sound also occurs in some of them. Examples are the Ivatan language, Ibanag language, and languages of the Lumad tribes in Mindanao and Visayas. All of them are minor indigenous languages of the Philippines. The Ibaloi tongue in the Baguio-Benguet area of Northern Luzon also has naturally occurring [f] and [v] sounds, as in sifa (interrogative who) and divit (a traditional wrap-around skirt). The modern spelling of the name of one of the most numerous ethnic groups of the Philippines, the Manobo tribes of Mindanao, is actually the hispanized spelling of the original Manobo word Manuvu.[7]

A phenomenon among the older generation of Filipinos is their pronunciation of all the English words starting with "st" such as star, stampede, stigma, statue, stable, strict and stew. These words are pronounced by some of them as "istar/estar", "istampede/estampede", "istigma/estigma", "istatue/estatue", "istable/estable", "istrict/estrict" and "istew/estew" because these older people were exposed to the Spanish language and were used to the Spanish system wherein there are virtually no words starting with "ST", but instead "EST". Thus, estrella (star), estampida (stampede), estigma (stigma), estatua (statue), estable (stable), estricto (strict) and estofado (stew).

Another issue is supersegmentals. In pronunciation, emphasis often tends to be put on the "wrong" syllable in a word or on the "wrong" word in a sentence as compared to North American English or British English.

Vowels

Consonants

Among mother-tongue speakers, the phonology of Philippine English almost completely resembles that of the North American variant (thus, Philippine English is a rhotic accent), while the speech of those who are not native speakers is influenced to varying degrees by indigenous Philippine languages. Since many English phonemes (such as [f] and [v]) are not found in most Philippine languages, pronunciation approximations are extremely common.

Some examples of non-native pronunciation include:

The above list applies mainly to Tagalog speakers; a number of other indigenous languages, mentioned previously, employ phonemes such as [f], [v], and [z]. This form of mispronunciation, caused by the limited sound inventories of most Philippine languages compared to English (which has more than 40 phonemes), is generally frowned upon by Anglophone Filipinos, in particular, and businesses dealing with international clients.

Industries based on English

The abundant supply of English speakers and competitive labor costs have enabled the Philippines to become a choice destination for foreign companies wishing to establish call centers and other outsourcing operations.[8][9][10][11] English proficiency sustains a major call center industry, and as of 2005, America Online (AOL) has 1,000 people in what used to be the US Air Force's Clark Air Base in Angeles City answering ninety percent of their global e-mail inquiries. Citibank does its global ATM programming in the country, and Procter & Gamble has over 400 employees in Makati, a central Manila neighborhood, doing back office work for their Asian operations including finance, accounting, Human Resources and payments processing. See Call center industry in the Philippines

An influx of foreign students, principally from South Korea, has also led to growth in the number of English language learning centers,[12] especially in Metro Manila, Baguio City and Metro Cebu.

Vocabulary and usage

Some words and phrases and their respective definitions or uses are peculiar to Philippine English. Some examples are:

Certain phrases uncommon outside of the Filipino community often crop up in Philippine English:

See also

Philippines portal
Language portal

References

  1. ^ Author David Crystal remarks that English is used in technical contexts for intelligibility, and Taglish is used in social contexts for identity, noting that similar situations exist in other countries (e.g., as with Singlish). See Crystal, David (2003). English as a Global Language (2, illustrated, revised ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 189. ISBN 0521530326 
  2. ^ Espinosa, Doray (1997). "English in the Philippines". Global Issues in Language Education (Language Institute of Japan) (26): 9. http://jalt.org/global/26Phil.htm. Retrieved March 13, 2011. 
  3. ^ Rowthorn, Chris; Bloom, Greg (2006). Philippines. Lonely Planet Country Guide (9th ed.). Lonely Planet. ISBN 978-1741042894. http://books.google.com/?id=aaUR07G0yAcC&pg=PA105&lpg=PA105&dq=Philippines++By+Greg+Bloom+english+dialogue#v=onepage&q=cinemas&f=false. 
  4. ^ Isabel Pefianco Martin (April 12, 2008). "Fearing English in the Philippines". Philippine Daily Inquirer. http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20080412-129893/Fearing-English-in-the-Philippines. Retrieved March 13, 2011. 
  5. ^ As of 1995, only about 27,000 of over 68 million Filipinos spoke English as their Mother tongue, Andrew Gonzalez. "The Language Planning Situation in the Philippines". Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development (multilingual-matters.net) 19 (5&6): 492. http://www.multilingual-matters.net/jmmd/019/0487/jmmd0190487.pdf. Retrieved 2008-11-04  (Table 1)
  6. ^ Gonzalez, A. (2009) The Transplantation of American English in Philippine Soil, in A Companion to the History of the English Language (eds H. Momma and M. Matto), Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, UK. doi: 10.1002/9781444302851.ch31
  7. ^ http://litera1no4.tripod.com/manobo_frame.html
  8. ^ Mellisa Sabuero (April 22, 2003). "Call it a boom: Philippine call centers". Asia Times, http://www.atimes.com/. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/ED22Ae02.html. Retrieved March 13, 2011. 
  9. ^ Carl Marc Ramota (2004). "Economic Woes Drive Bright Graduates to Call Centers". Bulatlat, http://www.bulatlat.com/. http://www.bulatlat.com/news/5-7/5-7-graduates.html. Retrieved March 13, 2011. 
  10. ^ Diana G Mendoza (October 1, 2010). "Philippines: Call Centre Boom Breeds New Culture – and Risky Behaviour". Global Geopolitics & Political Economy, http://globalgeopolitics.net/. http://globalgeopolitics.net/wordpress/2010/10/01/philippines-call-centre-boom-breeds-new-culture-and-risky-behaviour/. Retrieved March 13, 2011. 
  11. ^ Carlos H. Conde (August 13, 2007). "English getting lost in translation in Philippines". The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/13/business/worldbusiness/13iht-english.1.7096773.html. Retrieved March 13, 2011. 
  12. ^ Jonathan M. Hicap (September 13, 2009). "Koreans Flock to the Philippines to Learn English". Korea Times, http://www.koreatimes.co.kr. http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2010/12/117_51729.html. Retrieved March 13, 2011. 
  13. ^ "aggrupation". MSN Encarta Dictionary, http://encarta.msn.com/. http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_561535527/aggrupation.html. Retrieved March 13, 2011. 
  14. ^ A Historical Review of Armalite. ArmaLite, Inc.. http://www.armalite.com/images/Library%5CHistory.pdf. Retrieved March 17, 2011. 
  15. ^ Lingao, Ed (2003). "Arming the Enemy". Public Eye: the Investigative Reporting Magazine (Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism) IX (3). http://www.pcij.org/imag/PublicEye/arming.html. Retrieved March 17, 2011. 
  16. ^ Overseas Pinoy Cooking.Net website accessed on 6 November 2010
  17. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Roger B. Rueda. "Philippine English (I)". The News Today :: Online Iloilo News and Panay News. http://www.thenewstoday.info/2005/03/15/opinion6.htm. Retrieved March 17, 2011. 
  18. ^ "Glossary of Army Slang". American Speech (JSTOR, citing Duke University Press) 16 (3): 163–169. October 1941. doi:10.2307/486883. ISSN 0003-1283. JSTOR 486883 
  19. ^ a b c "Philippine English". MSN Encarta Dictionary, http://encarta.msn.com/. http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_1861725584/Philippine_English.html. Retrieved March 13, 2011. 
  20. ^ Jeannette Andrade (August 28, 2007). Hazing eyed in death of graduating UP student. Philippine Daily Inquirer. http://services.inquirer.net/express/07/08/28/html_output/xmlhtml/20070828-85196-xml.html. Retrieved 2008-09-03  . Doris Dumlao (August 17, 2008). Mutual funds for P1,000 a month. Philippine Daily Inquirer. http://services.inquirer.net/print/print.php?article_id=20080817-155215. Retrieved 2008-09-03  . Michael Lim Ubac (April 24, 2008). Suspected smugglers, Customs, LTO officials charged. Philippine Daily Inquirer. http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view_article.php?article_id=132341. Retrieved 2008-09-03 . . (the construction "a certain ..." occurs several times in each of these examples.)
  21. ^ a b Borlongan, Ariane Macalinga (2007). "Innovations in Standard Philippine English". Current Research on English and Applied Linguistics: A De La Salle University Special Issue (De La Salle University , Academia.edu). http://dlsu.academia.edu/ArianeBorlongan/Papers/100117/Innovations_in_Standard_Philippine_English. 
  22. ^ V.I.S. de Veyra's poem "Requiem Para Kay Ophie"
  23. ^ Examples: . “So if they see policemen about to conduct a security survey, they should ask me first because I will be the one who will know about it. They will have to talk to me,”, Security survey for Lapu banks suggested. Philippine daily Inquirer, citing Cebu Daily News. March 17, 2008. http://globalnation.inquirer.net/cebudailynews/metro/view/20080317-125231/Security-survey-for-Lapu-banks-suggested. Retrieved 2008--9-03 ; . “If I will be the one who will talk and explain, that will be self-serving,”, Anselmo Roque (January 18, 2007). Ecija school faculty bares university exec’s mess. Philippine Daily Inquirer. http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/regions/view_article.php?article_id=44274. Retrieved 2008-09-03 ; . “Whoever wins on the issue of secret ballotingwill be the one who will win the speakership,”, Norman Bordadora (July 22, 2007). Arroyo can deliver SONA sans Speaker—Salonga. Philippine Daily Inquirer. http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view_article.php?article_id=78073. Retrieved 2008-09-03 .

Further reading

External links