I see from the Britannica site that the official languages of the Philippines are Pilipino and English. I know that the US occupied the Philippines for the first half of the 20th century, and so obviously they spoke English. But on all TV broadcasts, the politicians speak English, although not so comfortably. What do most people grow up speaking, what do they learn in school, etc?
Around Manila, most people speak English and Tagalog, Tagolog being substantially similar to Filipino. At home they speak Tagalog, but they learn English in school and generally speak it pretty well.
In other parts of the Philippines, people still speak English, but also speak other languages like Illocano.
Their Tagalog is not as good and I would imagine that some don’t (won’t?) speak it at all.
As with other countries, including the United States, there are minorities who speak other languages. For example, there are many Fukien Chinese living in the Philippines who speak Fukienese at home. Also, there are people who speak Spanish at home.
This is a bit beside the point but I suggest that if you get the opportunity you watch some Filipino TV or a Filipino movie. What you will notice is that people will frequently switch back and forth between Tagalog and English without dropping a beat. I gather from this that the the producers assume that their audience has no problem understanding both languages. I’ve seen older Filipino movies in which the actors used not only Tagalog and English but threw in a fair amount of Sapnish as well.
Pilipino, and English are both the official languages of the Philippines. During the Spanish era, it was Spanish. Spanish was taught in schools during the Spanish era, because it was the language of education, business, and government. Apparently, some still speak Spanish at home (Grandma says that some of her relatives speak it) With the coming of the US, English became the language for education, business (but, in a barrio market place, Pilipino or the native language would be spoken), and government. It is still very much used for those purposes (which is why you hear Politicians usually using it). News broadcasts are mostly in Pilipino, but certain phrases and words from English have been borrowed in, and it’s sometimes used as a shortcut where it would be much longer in Pilipino (which is really a colloquial thing). So, Filipinos with some education do know a good deal of English. You’d only find totally uneducated Filipinos having problems understanding some English. Fully educated Filipinos would more or less know at least three languages (Pilipino, their native tongue, and English)
Pilipino is NOT a form of Spanish. It’s based off of Tagalog with some token words from other Philippine languages thrown in. It’s not really even Tagalog either, though it’s primarily based off of it (Some Cebuanos in Cebu city will pretend they don’t know it, however, because they felt Cebuano should have been the base) There’s an effort to phase out the use of English. But, because it’s seen as a mark of “status” people still continue to learn and use it (Pilipino is becoming seen as a mark of status among Filipinos as well).
BTW, the root word loans Pilipino has are: 5,000 words from Spanish, 3,200 from Malayo-Indonesian, 1,500 from different languages of Chinese, 1,500 from English, 300 from Sanskrit, 250 from Arabic, and a smattering from other languages. Then there are around 30,000 root words total.
Pretty much what Doobieous said. I’ll add:
The archipelago has about a score of distinct “native” languages, generally from the Malay family. (This is not counting dialects and sub-dialects, BTW.) The best known groups are Tagalog (in the capitol area, Southern Luzon), Ilocano (north Luzon), and Cebuano.
Since the Spanish era, there was always a push for a “national language” for trade, and for a while Spanish was it. English was next, during the US colonial era (lasting either until 1947, 1993, or today, depending how you figure these things…).
Pilipino was created in evocation of Ghandi’s push for a common language for India, and is based primarily on Tagalog, the language prevailing around the capitol, and the majority of the ruling elite. Anyone speaking Tagalog
easily understands Pilipino though not necessarily the reverse. It is supposed to have become the official national language, but English is still leaned on heavily; heck, most Filipinos speak better than your average inner-city high school student in the U.S., although the vocabulary includes lots of strange or archaic constructions borrowed from U.S.-era military industrial complex/CIA English.
As FatherJohn sez, lotsa places avoid Tagalog and Pilipino altogether for political reasons… for example, folk in the highlands of the Central Cordilleras speak their own native languages (Benguet, Kankan-ey, et al.) and use Ilocano as the trading lingua franca, but prefer to speak English with non-Ilocano speaking outsiders.
These various languages are similar in grammar, but that’s about it. Interestingly also, some of the lesser used (and older) languages echo other languages in the Pacific. You can hear correlates with Polynesian languages, for example, in Bicolano (spoken in SE Luzon, near Mayon volcano).
Spanish is still known a bit by older folk, and also in two areas (Zamboanga and Cavite) where it “morphed” into something called Chabacano, essentially Spanish with Malay grammar.
Also interesting is the inclusion of words like palenque from indigenous Mexico.
Whew, i was worried for a sec Jorge was here to correct some misinformation on my part ;).
On Chavacano (Chabakano), it’s actually a creole. Forms of it appeared in towns with high concentrations of Spanish Speakers, such as Zamboanga and Cavite. It’s a very interesting language to hear spoken (My friend Liz speaks it fluently, and she talks to her mom ont he phone in it).
As to Pilipino, I think the linguists that formed the group who invented it, could have done a MUCH better job at constructing a national language. So that was less regionally biased, and a little more fair to the other languages of the Philippines (it wouldnt be fully fair, but a better job could have been done). Of course, it would take a while,but i think the result would have been better.
As for my family, grandpa spoke Aklanon (akeanon - said something like ak-ga-non, but it’s not quite a g sound there), and Ilonggo, both of which are spoken on the island of Panay (Along with Kiniray-a). .