Endangerment of the Indigenous Languages of Palawan,

Philippines
Lewis, Paul & Simons (2015) listed eleven (11) languages indigenous to the province of Palawan,
Philippines. Seven (7) out of the 11 languages belong to the three autochthonous ethnic groups in
mainland Palawan, namely Batak, Palawán, and Tagbanwa. The other four languages native to
Palawan are mainly spoken in the island municipalities that are part of Palawan’s provincial
territory. These islands include Agutaya for Agutaynen, Cuyo for Cuyonon, Cagayancillo for
Kagayanen and Balabac for the Molbog language. Historical accounts of the province show that
mainland Palawan remained sparsely populated until the early 20th century (Eder 1990).
Palawan’s rich ecological habitat started to attract attention from migrants during the American
colonization period after the latter established civil rule in Palawan and subsequently initiated
numerous projects in the province. After World War II, the government initiated resettlement
programs to Palawan that further contributed to the rapid increase of migrant settlers in the
province.

The rapid influx of migrants not only compromised Palawan’s pristine environment but has also
dramatically reshaped Palawan’s ethnolinguistic profile. Tagalog speakers now comprise more
than half of the province’ 1.1 million population (per 2015 National Census) and has now replaced
Cuyonon as the province’ lingua franca. A growing number of Palawán speakers (as noted by
Macdonald 2007) as well speakers of other languages indigenous to the province are now fluent in
Tagalog, primarily due to the use of the latter as the medium of instruction in schools and the
primary language of media.

My recent fieldwork in the communities of Tagbanua and Palawán in Puerto Princesa City, the
provincial capital, and in the very remote community of the critically endangered Batak language
in the municipality of Roxas, reveal faster-than-expected language shift among the younger
generation which exacerbates the already alarming decline in the vitality of the aforementioned
languages. Through interviews conducted in the communities of the native speakers of these
languages, this study attempts to lay bare the multifarious factors that affect the attitude of the
indigenous peoples of Palawan towards their language and the various struggles that they face
while trying to negotiate their right to preserve their languages and their cultural identities amidst
the narrative of nation-building and the pressure to take part in broader relations and state-
initiated institutional arrangements.

Assoc. Prof. ALDRIN P. LEE, PhD

The speaker obtained his PhD in Korean Linguistics from the Academy of Korean Studies, South
Korea, where he also completed an interim MA in International Studies. He also obtained MA in
Linguistics from the University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman in 2007. He received his BA in
Linguistics also from UP Diliman with Magna Cum Laude honors in 2003. He is currently an
Associate Professor and has served the Department of Linguistics, UP Diliman as Chairperson
from 2012-2015. During his three and a half-year term, he steered the Department of Linguistics
towards becoming the CHED Center of Excellence in Foreign Languages in 2013 and in 2015. His
research interests include Formal Syntax, Korean Linguistics and Cultural Studies, Lexicography,
Ethnolinguistics and Linguistic Fieldwork/Language Documentation. His most recent publication
is about “how elicited gestures reflect word-order bias in world languages” - a product of
collaborative research he did with linguists from UCLA San Diego, Brown University, University
College Dublin and MIT. On top of his first language (mother tongue) which is Cuyonon (spoken
mainly in Palawan), Dr. Lee is fluent in four other languages (Hiligaynon, Tagalog, English &
Korean). While taking up Linguistics in UP, he studied varying levels of Spanish, Bahasa
Indonesia-Malaysia, Japanese and Mandarin. He has recently been appointed as Editor-in-Chief of
Diliman Review, a peer- reviewed publication managed by the Colleges of Science, Social Sciences
and Philosophy, and Arts & Letters of UP Diliman. He has just come back from a successful
visiting scholarship stint at Chuo University in Tokyo wherein he delivered lectures on Philippine
languages and linguistics.