Wovld Englishes, Vol. 23, No. l, pp. 59–75, 2004.

0883–29l9

The Philippine language situation

CURTIS D. McFARLAND◆

ABSTRACT: The Philippines is a country rich in languages, more than l00 distinct languages. Linguists
note that there are large differences among the languages, and that they may be grouped into language
families, include a northern group (including Ilokano, Pangasinan, and kapampangan), and a
central group (including Tagalog, Bikol, Hiligaynon, and Cebuano). The linguistic diversity of the
Philippines arises from natural processes broadly relating to language change, the divergence
between linguistic communities caused by lack of communication, and the converse convergence
caused by a high rate of communication between communities. The people ofthe Philippines are
experiencing a period of language convergence, marked by high levels ofborrowing from large languages
such as English, Tagalog, as well as from regionally important languages. In this process, for better or
worse, some languages are abandoned altogether and become extinct.

The Philippines is a rich country, at least ifwealth is measured in the number oflanguages
it has. People sometimes tell me with pride, ‘You know, we have 77 (or some other
number) dialects.’ Letting them know that I am a linguist, I correct them politely, ‘Actually
they aren’t dialects, but separate languages.’
In this context, we might ask what the difference between a language and a dialect is.
Various definitions of both terms exist, depending on one’s field of study. Sociolinguists
have given us a number of criteria for deciding whether a speech variety should be
classified as a language or as a dialect.l According to certain of these criteria, only Tagalog
(in the guise of Filipino) would qualify as a language, by virtue of the fact that it is the only
indigenous official language, and has a high degree of standardization. Other criteria, such
as autonomy, vitality, and the existence of an extensive body of written literature might
also serve to mark out certain varieties as ‘languages’, but such distinctions are often
indeterminate.
In order to more accurately determine the degrees of difference among the Philippine
languages and the range of differences over the entire set, we can apply two different tools
or concepts. The first of these is the idea of mutual intelligibility, formulated by Bloomfield
many years ago, when he noted that:
Every language changes at a rate which leaves contemporary persons free to communicate
without disturbance. ....Among persons, linguistic change is uniform in ratio with the amount of
communication between them. . . . If linguistic change results in groups between
which communication is disturbed, these groups speak dialects o f the language. If
linguistic
change results in groups of persons between which communication is impossible, these groups
speak velated languages. (Bloomfield, l926: l62)2

Although questions ofmutual intelligibility are quite clear in many cases (e.g. Tagalog and
Cebuano are clearly not mutually intelligible), this issue is difficult to determine in
borderline cases, and to my knowledge has not been extensively tested for most Philippine
languages.

◆ School of Science and Engineering, Waseda University, Japan. E-mail: mcfarlandcurtis@hotmail.com

© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2004, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, Uk and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02l48, USA.
 A second tool that can be applied to the identification of languages and varieties in this
context involves the theory ofglottochronology or lexicostatistics,3 in which it is assumed
that the basic ‘core’ vocabulary of a language is replaced at a fairly uniform rate. Therefore
the percentage ofcore vocabulary shared by two languages can serve as a measure of the
degree ofdistance between the languages and as an indication of the time depth or at least
the order of separation of a proto-language into a language family. This method also
makes predictions about the existence and/or degree ofmutual intelligibility between two
languages.
The subgroupings contained in A Linguistic Atlas of the Philippines (McFarland, l980)
relied heavily on Walton (l977), which used lexicostatistics. Using his data, I made the
assumption that a shared core vocabulary of 70 per cent indicated the loss of mutual
intelligibility between languages. It was on this basis that I identified ll8 languages. More
recent studies have produced different numbers. Constantino (l998) shows about ll0.
Ethnologue 2002 lists l63 (including a large number ofNegrito languages not included in
the Atlas) (Grimes, 2002).
To understand the degree of difference among the Philippine languages, we might begin
by considering the characteristics of some of the largest ones, bearing in mind that there
are other languages which are more different than these.4 As we would expect there are
major differences in many items of vocabulary among these languages. For example, the
word for ‘brother’ is variously realized in a number of Philippine languages: e.g. Tagalog
kapatid, Hiligaynon utod, Cebuano igsoon, Bikol tugang, kapampangan kapatad, Panga-
sinan agi, and Ilokano kabsat. On the other hand, since they are related languages, there
are some words shared by all ifnot most Philippine languages, such as the word for ‘eye’:
Tagalog mata, Hiligaynon mata, Cebuano mata, Bikol mata, kapampangan mata,
Pangasinan mata, Ilokano mata. In addition, there are differences in the historical
development of the sound systems so that some shared words have strikingly different
pronunciations, such as the word for ‘rice (husked or polished)’: Tagalog bigas, Hiligaynon
bugas, Cebuano bugas, Bikol bagas, kapampangan abyas, Pangasinan belas, Ilokano
bagas. The distribution of vocabulary, shared and distinctive, forms many complex
patterns, and these patterns frequently give us clues about the arrangement of the
Philippine languages in families and sub-families. The word for ‘water’ in Tagalog is
túbig, compared with Hiligaynon túbig, Cebuano túbig, Bikol túbig, kapampangan danum,
Pangasinan danum, Ilokano danum.
At the grammatical level, one might not expect to find major differences in the basic
grammatical structures ofthe various languages. We tend to think oftranslation from one
Philippine language to another as a simple matter ofsubstituting a word in one language
for the corresponding word in the other language. Such is not the case, as may be
demonstrated by an examination of two aspects of the grammatical structure, i.e. case-
marking through particles and negation.
Tagalog has three case-marking particles, ang, ng (pronounced /nang/), and sa. The
primary function of ang is to mark or identify the grammatical subject (the subject is
almost always assumed to have definite reference), as in the first sentence below:
l. Matal´ıno ang titsev. ‘The teacher is intelligent.’

The particle ng has three major functions:

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2. ‘Possessor’ of a noun: anak ng titsev ‘child of the teacher’.

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 The Philippine language situation 6l

Table l. Case-marking particles in Tagalog

Function l 2–3 4 (5) 6–7

Indefinite ng (mga)
Definite ang (mga) sa (mga)

Table 2. Case-marking particles in Cebuano

Function l 2–3–4 (5) 6–7

Indefinite ug (mga)
Definite ang (mga) sa (mga)

Table 3. Case-marking particles in Hiligaynon

Function l 2–3–4 (5) 6–7

Indefinite sing (mga)

Definite ang (mga) sang (mga) sa (mga)

3. ‘Actor’ of a ‘passive’ verb: Nak´ıta ng titsev si Ramon. ‘The teacher saw Ramon.’
4. Indefinite object: Bumili ng computev ang titsev. ‘The teacher bought a computer.’

The particle sa also has three major functions:

5. Definite object (found only in a relativized clause): ang titsev na bumili sa compuJer ‘the
teacher who bought the computer’.
6. ‘Indirect object’: Ibinigay ko ito sa JiJser. ‘I gave this to the teacher.’
7. Location or direction: Pumunta ang titsev sa Cebu. ‘The teacher went to Cebu.’

The particle mga (pronounced /manga/) expresses the plurality of nouns, among other
things, in Tagalog, and this particle is placed between the case-marking particle and the
noun. Plurality does not have to be explicitly shown. These points can be displayed in
Table l, where the numbers refer to the functions discussed above.
Like Tagalog, Cebuano has three case-marking particles (ug instead of ng) and the plural
particle mga. In contrast to Tagalog, Cebuano sa expresses definiteness in all of the
functions of ng, including the possessor and actor (see Table 2).
Hiligaynon has a similar pattern, but with sing for indefinite ng and sang (not sa) for
definite ng (see Table 3).
Bikol (Legazpi) adds another form to this pattern, which is an emphatic form for the
subject corresponding to ang in Tagalog (see Table 4).
As we move to the northern languages the differences become more striking. A feature
found (in the Philippines) only in Eapampangan and languages closely related to it is the
redundancy of pronouns. That is, if the nominative or genitive referent (functions l–5)
is personal and definite, then the third person pronoun must be stated along with the
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noun: ya ‘he’; na ‘his/her, by him/her’; la ‘they’; da ‘their, by them’. A second difference
is that

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 The Philippine language situation 6

Table 4. Case-marking particles in Bikol

Function l 2–3–4 (5) 6–7

Indefinite ki (mga)
Definite an (mga) kan (mga) sa (mga)
Emphatic su (mga)

Table 5. Case-marking particles in kapampangan

Function l 2–3–4 (5) 6–7

Indefinite ning
Definite (ya) ing na ‡ ning king
Plural (la) ding da ‡ ding kaving

Table 6. Case-marking particles in Pangasinan

Function l 2–3–4 (5) 6–7

Indefinite
Definite su na ed
Emphatic say

plurality is expressed with distinctive case-marking particles ding and kaving. The pattern
shown in Table 5 appears.
In Pangasinan the pattern is much simpler, without all the definite and plural distinc-
tions. However there is an emphatic nominative form say which seems to behave like su in
Bikol. Plurality is expressed in Pangasinan through reduplication in the nouns (bii
‘woman’; bibii ‘women’), which can be supplemented by the plural form of a deictic
(demonstrative) pronoun, ofwhich Pangasinan has many. In addition common nouns are
treated as personal names and are marked accordingly (si, nen, etc.), as illustrated in
Table 6.
In Ilokano the case-marking system is virtually non-existent. There are two singular
particles, ti and iti. For the most part, ti performs functions l–5, and iti 6 and 7. (Case
marking is similarly limited with personal names, but is maintained in the pronouns.) No
definite/indefinite distinction is made; however iti is also used for emphasis in the genitive
functions (2–5) and occasionally even in the subject (function l). There are plural particles
dagiti and kadagiti, corresponding to ti and iti. Plurality is also expressed, as in Pangasinan
and many Northern languages, through reduplication in the noun (babái ‘woman’; babbái
‘women’) and with plural deictic pronouns; contributing to a system that may be
represented as in Table 7.
The system ofnegation is a somewhat complicated matter in the Philippine languages. In
Tagalog the general negator is hindˆı (short form dˆı) placed in front of the word being
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 The Philippine language situation 6

Table 7. Case-marking particles in

Ilokano

Function l 2–3–4 6–7

(5)
Indefinite
Definite ti iti
Emphatic iti
Plural dagiti kadagiti

negated. However, some words have their own negators which replace the original words
in the process of negation. These negators are walâ ‘there isn’t’ (mayvoon ‘there is’); áyaw
‘not want’ (gusto ‘want’) and huwag ‘don’t’ (negative command). In Cebuano and
Hiligaynon walâ expresses ‘there isn’t’, but is also the negator for some verbs (mostly
perfective-aspect verbs). The rest of the range of Tagalog hindˆı is covered by d´ılˆı. But d´ılˆı
(or dı́lı̂ buut) also corresponds to áyaw ‘not want’. And áyaw in the Bisayan languages
corresponds to huwag ‘don’t’ in Tagalog. Bikol has a separate negator bakô for nouns and
adjectives (in fact for everything but verbs). Verbs are negated by dai, which also
corresponds to huwag and (in Legazpi) to walâ in Tagalog. Bikol (Naga) has máyô,
corresponding to Tagalog walâ. Bikol habô corresponds to Tagalog áyaw. Eapampangan
has a long negator alˆı and a short one e corresponding to Tagalog hindˆı. These words also
express ‘don’t’. ‘There isn’t’ is alâ; and ‘not want’ is e buvi or e bisa. Like Bikol, Pangasinan
has a distinctive negator aliwa for nouns and adjectives, with ag for verbs. However,
remarkable as these agreements between Bikol and Pangasinan are, they do not indicate a
close relationship. The two languages are very different and quite distant cousins within
the Philippine family. Ag also expresses ‘don’t’; and ag labay, ‘not want’. A somewhat
interesting and potentially humorous feature of Pangasinan is that wala means ‘there is’
(opposite of Tagalog walâ), and ‘there isn’t’ is expressed by anggapo (short form andi).
Corresponding to hindˆı, Ilokano has a long form saan (which again creates the potential for
humor as Tagalog saan means ‘where’) and a short form di which combines with
pronouns and enclitic pronouns. These two negators also express ‘don’t’; and ‘don’t
want’ is di kayat. ‘There isn’t’ is awan. The system of negation across such languages is
illustrated in Table 8.
From this brief discussion, readers should be able to appreciate that the Philippine
languages are indeed very different, more different than simple ‘dialects’, and that
communication between the groups of speakers of various languages, in the absence of
another known language, would be impossible.

Table 8. Negation in Philippine languages

Tagalog Cebuano Hiligaynon Bikol kapampangan Pangasinan Ilokan

o
hindˆı dı́lı̂/walâ dı́lı̂/walâ bakô/dai alˆı/e aliwa/ag saan/di
walâ walâ walâ dai (máyô) alâ anggapo/andi awan
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 The Philippine language situation 6

áyaw d´ılˆı (buut) d´ılˆı (buut) habô e buvi ag labay di kayat

huwag áyaw áyaw dai alˆı/e ag saan/di

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 The Philippine language situation 6

LINGFISTIC RELATIONSHIPS AND LANGFAGE FAMILIES

On the basis ofdata such as those presented in the preceding section, linguists are able to
make hypotheses about the closeness of relationships between different languages, their
arrangement into families and sub-families, and the historical developments that produced
these arrangements.
For example, while Cebuano is classified as a Bisayan language, and considered by
many people to be the primary Bisayan language, it is more closely related to Tausug than
to the other Bisayan languages (Hiligaynon, Samar-Leyte, etc.). At the same time, other
Bisayan languages may be as closely related to Bikol and Tagalog as they are to Cebuano.
Cebuano-speaking people are the dominant group throughout the central Philippines, with
the result that many Cebuano words have been borrowed into the other Bisayan
languages, making them appear to be more closely related than historically they actually
are.
Taken together Cebuano, Hiligaynon, Bikol, and Tagalog are more closely related to
each other than any ofthem is to any ofthe northern languages. This is an indication ofa
major separation between the proto-language (the language that was the ancestor) ofthe
northern languages and that of the languages further to the south. If kapampangan
seems more like Tagalog and the central languages, it is again only because that language
has borrowed heavily from Tagalog. Our three northern languages – kapampangan,
Pangasinan, and Ilokano – are less closely related to each other than are the central
languages. The comparative study ofPhilippine languages is still very incomplete, partly as
a result of the large number of languages involved, and the small number of linguists
available. However, at this time we are able to suggest a number ofconclusions, namely:5

l. All Philippine languages except Chavacano and the imported languages (Chinese, English,
Spanish, etc.) are Austronesian languages (along with most Indonesian and South Pacific
languages) and Hesperonesian (Western Austronesian) languages. Chavacano is a creole
language spoken in a number ofplaces, including Cavite and Zamboanga, which is purported
to have an essentially Spanish vocabulary combined with a basically ‘Philippine’ grammar.
2. It is not clear whether the Philippine languages, that is, the Austronesian languages found in
the Philippines, constitute a subgroup or not. It is possible that some ofthe southern languages
are more closely related to some Indonesian languages.
3. There are three large groups of Philippine languages: northern Philippine, meso-Philippine,
and southern Philippine (including Maranao and Manobo). The predominant feature of the
Philippine linguistic landscape is the boundary separating Tagalog and the languages to the
south from kapampangan and the languages to the north.
4. The meso-Philippine and southern Philippine groups probably combine into a single group.
5. The Ivatan languages, the south Mindanao languages (Bagobo, Blaan, Tboli, and Tiruray), the
Sama languages, and Sangil do not belong to any of the three large groups of Philippine
languages.
6. The relationship between the northern Philippine languages and the groups/subgroups named
in (4) and (5), and the relationships between these languages and other Austronesian
languages, cannot be determined at this time.
7. Within the northern Philippine group there is a Cordilleran subgroup which includes the
Dumagat languages, the northern Cordilleran languages (including Ibanag), Ilokano, the
central Cordilleran languages (including kalinga, Bontok, kankanaey, and Ifugao), and the
southern Cordilleran languages (including Pangasinan). Contrary to popular beliefthere is no
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 The Philippine language situation 6

sharp division between upland (Igorot) languages and lowland languages. There are close

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 The Philippine language situation 6

relationships between lowland Pangasinan and upland languages such as Inibaloi, and between
lowland Ibanag and upland languages such as Isnag. kapampangan and the Sambalic
languages form a subgroup on a parallel level with the Cordilleran subgroup within the
northern group.
8. Within the meso-Philippine group, there is a central Philippine subgroup which includes
Tagalog, the Bikol languages, the Bisayan languages, and the east Mindanao languages.
9. Within the central Philippine subgroup, the west Bisayan languages (including Hiligaynon)
and the central Bisayan languages (including Samar-Leyte) combine to form the north Bisayan
subgroup. Cebuano lies outside of this subgroup.

A tentative and partial subgrouping of the Philippine languages, with the locations of
the fifteen largest (by population) languages is shown in Table 9 (abridged from
McFarland, l980: 59–6l), and in Figure l which provides a sketch map of Philippine
languages for reference.

THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF PHILIPPINE LANGFAGES.

One question that is central in this context is: How does the kind of diversity in the
Philippine languages described above (and indeed the diversity ofall languages) arise?6 As

Figure l. A map of major Philippine languages

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 The Philippine language situation 6

Table 9. A tentative subgrouping of Philippine languages

I. Ivatan languages
II. Northern Philippine languages
A. Cordilleran languages
l. Dumagat languages
2. Northern Cordilleran languages
IBANAG (l5)
3. ILOkANO (3)
4. Central Cordilleran languages
5. Southern Cordilleran languages
PANGASINAN (8)
B. ILONGOT
C. Sambalic languages
kAPAMPANGAN (7)
III. Meso-Philippine languages
A. North Mangyan languages
B. South Mangyan languages
C. Palawan languages
l. North Palawan languages
2. South Palawan languages
D. Central Philippine languages
l. TAGALOG (2)
2. Bikol languages (5)
3. North Bisayan languages
a. West Bisayan languages
AkLANON (l3)
kINARAY-A (ll)
b. Central Bisayan languages
HILIGAYNON (4)
MASBATEÑ O (l4)
SAMAR-LEYTE (6)
4. South Bisayan languages
CEBUANO (l)
TAUSUG (l2)
5. East Mindanao languages
IV. Southern Philippine languages
A. Subanon languages
B. Danao languages
l. MARANAO (9)
2. MAGINDANAO (l0)
C. Manobo languages
V. Sama languages
VI. South Mindanao languages
VII. SANGIL

quoted earlier, Bloomfield told us that languages change constantly, but he did not tell us
why. There may be only one possible answer: Languages change because it is impossible
for them to remain static; it is impossible for them not to change.
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 The Philippine language situation 6

Linguists refer to the set of speech habits possessed by a single individual as an idiolect.7

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 The Philippine language situation 7

It is generally accepted that no two people have exactly the same set ofspeech habits and
thus no two idiolects are exactly the same. At the same time, people who live together, or
close to each other, and are in close contact with each other, possess in common a very
large set of shared speech habits, though there are minor individual differences. This set of
speech habits constitutes a speech variety, and may be shared by a fairly large community.
In conducting linguistic research we generally assume – unless and until proven otherwise –
that a small community, such as a small town or barrio, shares a single speech variety, and
that the idiolect ofany resident ofthat community is representative ofthe speech variety
shared by the overall community.
A speech variety has continuity in the sense that it is passed on from one generation
to the next within the community. But in being continuous it is not static, as
every speech variety is constantly changing. Before the nineteenth century, many
people tended to look upon language change as something unusual and
undesirable. They devised various explanations for the linguistic diversity that
existed in the world. One such explanation is that which is found in the Bible, and in
the story of the Tower of Babel, where God created different languages so that
people would be unable to communicate with each other and to build their tower
up to heaven. Others believed that languages changed as a result of deterioration,
because of a lack of education or simple ‘carelessness’; all through the corruption that
was caused by contact with other languages. It was later learned that languages
change constantly, even if completely isolated from other languages, and in spite of
advanced education systems.8 One might compare twentieth-century English with the
English of Shakespeare, or that of the king James version of the Bible, both of which
were in their time ‘everyday’ English. Even nineteenth-century English, such as that
of Charles Dickens or Nathaniel Hawthorne, is noticeably different from the language
today. Similarly there are noticeable differences in the colloquial English used in the
sitcoms of the l950s if we compare them with those of today.
Language is so vast that no one ever learns his language completely. As we learned long
ago from Saussure (Saussure, l965) there is a difference between language (langue) and
speech ( pavole) or production. Language is a system that exists inside the brains of
speakers, and speech is what is produced by that system. It is impossible for a child
acquiring a language to observe directly the language or idiolect possessed by their parents
or any other people. A child can only observe the output ofthose idiolects, the things that
people actually say and write. She must then work backward to create her own idiolect
(langue) by trying to reconstruct the idiolects that produced the speech ( pavole) she has
observed. In the process the child never gets enough data, enough examples to completely
reconstruct the parent idiolects or to provide for all possible situations. As she goes
through life she repeatedly uses sentences which she has never heard, and is forced to use
language in new situations which she has never been able to observe. She must repeatedly
guess at what is the ‘right’ thing to say. She might thus guess the same way as her ancestors
would have done, or she might make a different guess, and say something that has never
been said before, or use a word in a way it has never been used before. Such a different
guess is a linguistic innoration. If other speakers make the same innovation or copy her
innovation, the innovation may spread and become an established part of the speech
variety in the community.
An innovation occurring in one community tends to make its speech variety different
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 The Philippine language situation 7

from the speech varieties of other communities. If this community is isolated from other

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 The Philippine language situation 7

communities, and has no contact with them, over a period oftime, the innovations in the
community will make its speech variety very different from the others. If enough time
passes – say a thousand years – its speech variety will no longer be understood
by communities which had originally shared essentially the same set of speech
habits. Innovations occur every day and can ultimately affect every aspect of
language. The sounds oflanguage – pronunciation – may change until they become
completely different. Words can be replaced; grammatical rules can change; even the most
common words, such as the personal pronouns, can be replaced. No part oflanguage is
immune to innovation. On the other hand, different idiolects tend to be similar to each
other in proportion to the amount of communication between the various speakers. Or, if
their speech is different to begin with, it will tend to become more similar in
proportion to the amount of communication. For example, there are noticeable
differences among various dialects of American English. The speech of John kennedy
(from Massachusetts) was very different from that of Jimmy Carter (from Georgia).
If a boy from Georgia goes to college in Massachusetts, he is easily identifiable as a
Southerner, and will continue to be throughout his stay there. Neither he nor any ofhis
fellow students will notice any change in his speech habits. But when he returns to
Georgia after a year, he will be told that he sounds like a ‘Yankee’ (Northerner). The
changes in his idiolect, through contact with Northerners, are
immediately apparent to his family and friends. 9
Because the rate ofcommunication within a small community is very high, innovations
arising anywhere within that community tend to be spread around it; and the speech habits
ofthe whole community tend to remain highly homogeneous even while its speech variety
is changing. Likewise, if the rate of communication between neighboring communities is
high, they will tend to exchange their respective innovations and retain a high degree of
similarity in their speech varieties. If communication is easy, such as in coastal plains,
along rivers, on the shores of easily navigated seas, the communities of a very large
area may maintain a high level of communication and thus a high degree of similarity in
their speech varieties. Thus the large languages of the Philippines, in particular Tagalog,
Cebuano, Ilokano, and Hiligaynon, are spoken over extensive areas. If communication
is difficult, such as in mountainous areas, e.g. northern Luzon, even neighboring
communities may have low levels of contact and thus diversify very rapidly.

kpeech habits become dialects

Suppose there are two communities which share essentially the same speech habits, and
have a sufficiently high level of communication that all the important innovations in each
community are shared with the other. Now suppose that for some reason the level
of communication between the two communities drops. For example, one community
may move to a distant location where it is more difficult to maintain contact with the
other community. Other factors, such as warfare, changes in political and economic
alignments, etc., may also contribute to a change in the level of communication. Now
the level of communication is not high enough for all important innovations to be
exchanged; and the speech varieties ofthe two communities will begin to diverge. Ifthis
situation continues for a period of time, the linguistic differences between the two
communities can become quite large. At the point at which the differences between the two
speech varieties become large enough to be ‘noticeable’, we begin to speak of dialectal
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 The Philippine language situation 7

differences, or different dialects.

What do we mean by ‘noticeable’ differences? According to Bloomfield’s definition,
whenever linguistic change results in a situation in which communication between two

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 The Philippine language situation 7

groups is ‘disturbed’, then the two groups are considered to speak different dialects. The
occurrence of ‘disturbance’ is frequently difficult to determine; and, in actual practice, we
frequently speak of dialectal differences where no significant amount of ‘disturbance’ can
be observed. It is probably more understandable ifwe speak in terms ofthe extralinguistic
information carried by speech. We usually think of language in terms of the transmission
ofa particular message. A speaker has a particular message which he wants to transmit to
another person. He converts his message into a group of words arranged in a particular
order. He moves the muscles ofhis mouth, nose, and throat in such a way as to produce a
particular set ofsounds. These sounds are heard by the other person, converted back into a
group ofwords, and then into a message, which is presumably essentially the same message
that the speaker had in mind to begin with.
In addition to this linguistic information, the speaker involuntarily transmits other types
of information as well, such as the quality of his voice. He may be heard to have a ‘nice
voice’, ‘a weak voice’, etc. In many cases differences in voice quality are sufficient to
identify the sex of the speaker. If the voice is familiar, it may reveal the identity of the
speaker, as when a person hears the voice of a friend over the telephone. Emotions or
health may affect the sound of the message, telling the hearer that the speaker is angry, has
a cold, etc. If the speaker has some kind of speech defect, that information will also be
carried. In the same way, the speaker may involuntarily reveal information about where he
lives or what group he belongs to – through his pronunciation, intonation, choice ofwords,
etc. If this is the case, if there is sufficient difference between the speech varieties of two
communities that a resident ofone can tell from the speech ofa resident of the other where
he comes from – or at least that he comes from a different speech community – then we can
say that there are dialectal differences between the two communities.
It is common to speak of‘dialects’ as though they can be clearly distinguished one from
another. Actually there are at least three different situations to which we apply the term
‘dialect’: (l) dialectal variation within a geographical area, (2) discrete dialects, (3) social
dialects. The most common situation is that ofgradual variation over an extended area.l0
Imagine a string ofcommunities – towns, barrios – perhaps arranged along the banks ofa
river. The difference between the speech variety of the community farthest downstream
and that of the second community may be too slight to be noticeable to their respective
residents. Similarly the second and third communities may have no noticeable speech
differences; likewise the third and fourth communities. But if someone from the first
community meets someone from the fourth community, the differences in their speech may
be immediately apparent; likewise the second and fifth communities, etc. Thus there are
dialectal differences, dialectal variation; but we are unable to divide the string into distinct
dialect areas. If we travel from Nueva Ecija through Bulacan, Rizal, and Laguna into
Cavite and Batangas, and observe the Tagalog spoken in the various communities, we will
find fairly extensive variation. But we will be unable to divide this Tagalog area into
distinct dialect areas. In such cases we can discuss the dialectal variation – the distribution
ofparticular words, pronunciation, and the like throughout the area. Or it may be useful to
refer to, and analyze, the speech varieties found in various places throughout the area,
as for example, the Laguna dialect (or ‘Laguna Tagalog’), the Batangas dialect, the
Cabanatuan dialect, etc., even though it is impossible to say, for example, where the
Batangas dialect area ends and the Laguna dialect area begins.
In the second situation, we refer to dialects or groups speaking dialects as clearly distinct
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from each other. One such case occurs when the movement of the one or both (or many)

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communities has resulted in a physical obstacle being placed between the communities – a
body of water, a mountain, etc. In such cases, communication between the communities
becomes difficult, so that few innovations are interchanged, and diversification between
the speech varieties proceeds at a high rate. Marinduque, for example, is physically
separated from the rest of the Tagalog-speaking area, and the variety of Tagalog spoken
there is noticeably different. There is no community in Marinduque whose speech variety
could be mistaken for ‘mainland’ Tagalog; nor is there any community in Batangas or
Quezon whose speech variety could be mistaken for Marinduque Tagalog. Thus the
Marinduque dialect area is clearly defined, and we can speak with confidence of the
Marinduque dialect of Tagalog. Internally Marinduque exhibits the same conditions of
gradual dialectal variation to be found elsewhere in the Tagalog-speaking area.
There are also some cases in which we actually find dialect boundaries.ll That is, we will
find places in which the speech varieties found in the neighboring towns (or neighboring
barrios) – between which there is a high level ofcommunication – are noticeably different.
Such boundaries can arise from a number of causes. One is that the movement of one or
more communities has brought communities which were originally separated and had
noticeably different speech varieties into close contact with each other. Economic condi-
tions, warfare, and natural disasters frequently result in the relocation of communities. In
another case a boundary arises when communities which had been physically separated
from each other have re-established contact in some way. As a hypothetical example, an
original community splits into Community A and Community B; Community B moves to
a new location 20 kilometers away, separated from Community A by thick jungle with no
roads. They maintain a very low level of contact with the A people, and their speech
varieties begin to diversify. Subsequently both communities prosper and increase in
population; they expand and establish new villages in the jungle. As each community
expands over a larger area, dialectal diversification continues to develop; but the speech
varieties of all the villages associated with Community B continue to become more
different from the speech varieties of all the villages associated with Community A.
Finally, the two communities expand so much that some oftheir villages or barrios become
neighbors; a high level of communication develops between them. By this time their
respective speech varieties have become noticeably different and a dialect boundary is
created.
A third case involves changes in the conditions of communication. As in the previous
example, two communities may be separated by 20 kilometers of forest, preventing
practically all communication between the two; their speech varieties become noticeably
different. Subsequently a road is built connecting the two, and a high level of commu-
nication is able to develop; and with it a dialect boundary. The development of modern
means of transportation has contributed to a tremendous increase in the level of
communication between all communities in the Philippines, and in the world. It was
earlier observed that the degree of similarity between two speech varieties tends to be
proportionate to the level ofcommunication between the two communities. Similarly the
speech varieties in different communities will tend to converge – become more similar – in
proportion to the level ofcommunication. Thus whenever a high level ofcommunication
exists between communities separated by a dialect boundary, their speech varieties will
tend to converge. The differences of each dialect – accumulated innovations – tend to be
passed to the other dialect. Given enough time, the dialect boundary may disappear
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 The Philippine language situation 7

altogether.

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 The Philippine language situation 7l

In recent years it has become common to hear of‘social’, as opposed to ‘geographical’,

dialects (Wardhaugh, 2002: 48–9).l2 That is, persons belonging to a particular social
class may constitute a speech community whose speech is noticeably different from other
social classes, even though all classes occupy the same geographical territory. The
development ofsuch social dialects depends upon the conditions ofcommunication,
education, etc. In pre-modern times, especially in rural areas, transportation and
communication facilities were poor. Thus the level of communication tended to be
proportionate to the distance between speakers. Within a small settlement we generally
assume that everybody talks to everybody else. Or more precisely, ifwe charted the
communications ofall speakers in the community, they would overlap into a single
network, so that it is impossible to divide the community into groups such that
substantially more communication takes place within groups than between them. We
thus assume a high rate of communication among the members of the community
and a relatively homogenous speech variety. The level of communication between the
community as a whole and the next community may be high, although not as high as
that within the community, and only a few differences may develop. With more
distant communities the level of communication will be proportio- nately less and the
degree of dialectal difference will be great. In such a situation it is relatively easy to
plot dialectal diversity on a map, with each divergent feature or discrete dialect
occupying a particular geographical area.
In larger communities, in which are found a higher degree ofspecialization oflabor and
social functions, and greater differences in economic and political power, we begin to find
a higher concentration of communication within groups than between them, and the
development of dialectal differences based on social or economic relationships rather than
on relative distance. The development of modern transportation and long-distance
communication, as well as the intensification of the division of labor, and the division
of wealth, in today’s highly industrialized societies, have increased the division into
different communicating groups. Thus different dialects are developed and spoken by
different groups of speakers who occupy essentially the same territory, but who are
differentiated by such factors as social class, occupational association, etc. ‘Social’ dialects
are not essentially different from ‘geographical’ dialects, but are more difficult to define;
and the relationships between ‘social’ dialects are likely to be more complex than those
between ‘geographical’ dialects.l3

Dialects become languages

If the differences between speech varieties (dialects) become great enough, there will
indeed be disturbance of communication; speakers of the different dialects will have
difficulty understanding each other, and communication between them will become less
efficient. As long as the two dialects, in spite of the difficulty, can still be understood by
their respective speakers – that is, they are still mutually intelligible – then the two dialects
are taken to belong to the same language. Ifthe differences become even greater, they may
reach the point where speakers of the different dialects cannot understand each other at all,
in which case we say that the two dialects are no longer mutually intelligible and thus
belong to different languages.
To summarize: If speakers of two speech varieties can communicate easily with each
other and observe no noticeable differences between their respective speech, then the two
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speech varieties are considered to be part of the same dialect and, of course, the same
language. If speakers of two speech varieties can observe noticeable differences between

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 The Philippine language situation 7

their respective speech, but can nonetheless communicate with each other, perhaps with
difficulty, then there are dialectal differences between the two speech varieties, and under
some circumstances they will be considered discrete dialects. They are nonetheless part of
the same language. Ifspeakers oftwo speech varieties cannot communicate with each other
at all, then the two speech varieties are considered to belong to different languages.

ENGLISH AND THE PHILIPPINE LANGFAGES IN AN AGE OF CONVERGENCE

We are living in an age ofunprecedented levels ofcommunication. With jet-set means of

transportation, cable and satellite television, the Internet, and cellular phones, every
language in the world is in contact with at least some other languages. As discussed
above, communication across language or dialect boundaries creates the conditions for
linguistic convergence. Ifthe boundary is between two dialects that are not very different,
words and other features can pass smoothly and unconsciously from one side to the other.
Eventually the two dialects might merge into a single speech variety. If the differences
between the two speech varieties are greater, for example, if they are different languages,
there are two immediate consequences.
First, communication is itself made more difficult, such that speakers must make a
conscious effort to communicate across the boundary (maybe to the extent of taking
language classes) and will be fully aware of switching from one language to another, or of
introducing words from the other language into one’s own language.
Second, if the differences between languages are great, words from one language will fit
less comfortably into the other language, because of differences in pronunciation, the
grammatical systems, etc. These words tend to stand out as borrowed, foreign elements,
even to unsophisticated speakers. The Philippine languages have borrowed heavily from
Spanish, where necessary making adaptations so that these words fit comfortably into
the native phonology and grammar. Yet most of these words are still clearly
identifiable as Spanish borrowings. These languages are now borrowing heavily
from English, and these borrowings are even more distinctive and identifiable
→
(McFarland, 2000: 49–56). English words borrowed into Japanese are often so far
→
adapted (film huivumu; sexual harassment sekuhava) that
they are no longer recognizable to a speaker of English, yet they are easily recognized
by Japanese speakers as alien, even if they don’t know the original words. Thus at
this level it is more appropriate to speak of borrowing than of convergence. And
borrowing tends to be one-sided. Words are usually borrowed from a dominant
language into a subordinate one. (The situation ofdominance can change: in the Middle
Ages, English borrowed heavily from French; now French is borrowing heavily from
English, to the dismay of some Frenchmen.) The reasons for this one-sidedness
should be fairly obvious. One is simply a matter of numbers. Every Filipino who goes to
school studies English, and many learn to speak it very well. These people constitute a
ready source ofborrowing from English into Tagalog and other Philippine languages. On
the other hand, very few English-speaking people study Philippine languages, with the
result that the movement ofTagalog words into English is virtually impossible. Although
there may be local effects, as when we find Tagalog borrowings in Philippine English, but
not in English as a whole. Similarly school-going Filipinos study ‘Tagalog-based’ Filipino,
providing a route for Tagalog borrowings into the other languages; while a small
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percentage of Tagalogs learn to speak other Philippine languages, so that few words
from those languages make it into Tagalog. A second reason is necessity or utility. A

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language is dominant because its speakers have power – economic, political, social,
religious, etc. Speakers ofsubordinate languages who want a share ofthat power, through
finding employment, doing business, getting into show business, etc., will have a strong
motivation to study the dominant language, again providing a conduit for borrowing into
their mother tongue. There is little such motivation for studying the subordinate language,
unless one is a linguist, anthropologist, etc.
Thus the convergence that is taking place moves in the direction of the dominant
language, rather than toward some middle ground. At the worldwide level this movement
is towards English; while in the Philippines, the movement is towards Tagalog and towards
other regionally dominant languages such as Cebuano and Ilokano. The ultimate form of
convergence occurs when a speaker gives up his own language altogether and adopts
another. Or when children abandon the language of their parents in favor of a more
‘salable’ language. Ifenough people do this a language may die out altogether, and become
extinct. And this is happening now in the Philippines. Many small languages, such as Isinai
and other languages in the north, are on the verge ofdisappearing in favor ofIlokano. One
of the remarkable things we see as we look at Philippine linguistic geography is the fact
that neither Tagalog nor Ilokano has any close-relative languages, and neither has
extensive dialectal variation. This may be evidence that over time, the dominant position
of both of these languages enabled them to absorb whatever dialects developed and to
prevent diversification into separate languages.
Much as linguists may regret it, extinction of languages may not be such a bad thing.
After all one of the big problems ofthe Philippines is the absence ofone unifying national
language. And we must remember that one big advantage that the United States has had
over Europe is the possession o f a single national language, even though this involved the
abandonment by immigrants of their native tongues, and the suppression of Native
American groups and their languages.
The question that is then raised is whether English plays a part in the extinction of
Philippine languages. However, in this context, I would argue that it is misleading to place
the blame on languages. Linguistic developments result from social developments, rather
than causing them. IfEnglish is a dominant language, it is because the speakers ofEnglish
have a great deal ofpower. That power does not come from the dominance ofthe English
language. If a language becomes extinct, it is not because of any failing in the language
itself, but because its speakers lack the power to maintain it.
Certainly Tagalog (Filipino) is not at risk. The languages that do face extinction are the
small languages spoken in just one area. In this case, it is regional languages like Cebuano
and Ilokano, or smaller regional languages, that are doing the dirty work as ‘killer
languages’, not English nor even Tagalog. What we do see is a division ofthe country, and
especially Manila, into linguistic spheres: such as an English sphere as opposed to a
Tagalog sphere. English is the language of business, the hotels, the shopping malls.
Tagalog is the language of small talk (gossip), the wet market, small businesses.
English-speaking people take airplanes and ride in cars. Tagalog-speakers (we should
say those who cannot speak English) take boats and jeepneys. English is still the dominant
language of education; if you can’t cope with English you won’t get far in school. On
television, English news shows are not much different from CNN or BBC; Tagalog news
tends to focus on sensational news of murders and scandals. Even the content is different.
Mainstream newspapers are English, again much like English newspapers in other
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countries. Tagalog newspapers are tabloids, also with emphasis on the sensational. An

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 The Philippine language situation 7

item buried in the middle ofan article on page l0 of an English paper may be presented as
the page l headline in the Tagalog tabloid. Most articles found in the Tagalog papers are
absent in the English ones, and vice versa. Radio is a predominantly Tagalog medium, or a
local vernacular medium in other areas, and the views expressed there by announcers and
talk show callers are radically different from what is heard in the English media. For
example, while the English media are almost totally against the former president, Joseph
Estrada, Tagalog radio shows a great deal of support for him.
This split into language spheres, which is a reflection of a split into a dual economy
and/or dual society, is a problem which must be addressed, and until now has not been.
And it is primarily a social problem, not a linguistic one.

NOTES
l. For example, as discussed in Wardhaugh, 2002: 33–40.
2. See also Akmajian et al., 200l: 33–40.
3. Developed by Morris Swadesh (e.g. Swadesh, l952) and used extensively by Isidore Dyen for the
Austronesian languages (Dyen, l965).
4. Much of the following discussion is the outcome of a PhD class on Advanced Grammar of Philippine
Languages that I am presently conducting at De La Salle University. We are comparing the language found in
a number of books which are bilingual between Tagalog (TAG) and five of the other largest Philippine
languages: Cebuano (CEB), Hiligaynon (HIL), kapampangan (kPM), Pangasinan (PNG), and
Ilokano (ILk). Data from Bikol (BIk) comes from my own doctoral research in Bikol (McFarland, l974),
and from my wife, a native of the Bikol area.
5. McFarland l980: ll. Based on the work ofmany scholars including Dyen (l965); Gallman (l977); Headland
and Headland (l974); Pallesen (l977); Reid (l974); Tharp (l974); Walton (l977); and Zorc (l977).
6. The following discussion is taken from the Introduction of McFarland (l980).
7. Much ofthis discussion follows the discussion in ‘Idiolect, dialect, language’ in Hockett (l958: 32l–30).
See also Akmajian et al. (200l: 276–8); Bynon (l977: l–7).
8. For an interesting presentation of the development of comparative linguistics in the nineteenth century, see
Pedersen (l93l).
9. Based on my own experience with Southern friends at Harvard.
l0. Compare the situation of American dialectal diversity as presented for example in kurath
(l972). ll. These ideas came out ofmy own work in preparing McFarland (l974).
l2. See also Labov (l966); Trudgill (l974).
l3. Social dialectal differences should be distinguished from differences resulting from difference of register or
style. That is, the words a speaker chooses to express a particular message may be determined not only by the
content of the message, but also by such factors as the formality/informality of the situation, the relationship
between the speaker and the person he is talking to, the impression or atmosphere he is trying to create, etc.
The strength ofthese factors is to some extent a matter ofindividual preference, but to a larger extent depends
upon standards shared by the speech community as a whole. The resulting differences thus should not be
considered dialectal differences.

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