Juris A.
Was supposed to report on the political, pedagogical, and sociological implications of language used in education today but my class got cancelled 😭
Really interesting stuff about the long-standing debate on which language to use for schools in the Philippines! ⏬
Juris A.
Our primary reference was Melendrez-Cruz's "Ang Pulitika ng Wikang Panturo" from 1985 and it's such a comprehensive read with points that still ring true despite having been published decades ago.
Juris A.
📜 Constitutionally, though, Filipino as a national language is meant to aggregate the many languages across the nation.
To do this, Filipino needs to be used by various ethnolinguistic groups so that they can help shape the language into the vision the constitution has for it -- but that takes work!
Juris A.
🏳️ By the time the PH finally freed itself from the clutches of previous colonizers, we already had our hands on English.
📚 At the time we had the bandwidth to do some nation-building and develop a national language (and arguably to this day), power was centralized in Manila thus having its language, Tagalog, adopted as basis of the still-controversial national language, Filipino.
Juris A.
Some important background:
🇵🇭 The PH technically didn't exist as a single nation until the Spanish Empire colonized the country in the 1500s.
💬 This means there was no single Filipino language used to begin with and after waves of colonizers that either (1) never bothered to impose their language or (2) restricted the use of indigenous language in favor of their own, the indigenous languages that developed were locked in regions across the archipelago.
Juris A.
It's important to note that of Filipino's 1000 basis words taken from Tagalog (in 1985), ~600 are shared with Kapampangan, ~500 with Cebuano, ~400 each with Cebuano and Hiligaynon, and ~300 with Tausug and Pangasinan.
However, to some etholinguistic groups, Filipino is "just as foreign" as English which puts us in a deadlock when we talk about having Filipino adopted across the nation.
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