It takes more than a language to unify a nation

[Laurence Horn]

At 12:29 AM -0800 2/25/07, Benjamin Barrett wrote:
>The language is officially called Filipino, a language based on Tagalog.
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filipino_language. BB

Sorry, but I don't understand that claim. If Filipino is based on
Tagalog, it's (at least by implication) not identical to it.  What
would it mean to say that "the language" (presumably Tagalog) is
offically called Filipino, which is then identified as a language
based on Tagalog?

LH

>Laurence Horn wrote:
>>---------------------- Information from the mail header
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>>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>At 2:07 PM -0500 2/24/07, Bethany K. Dumas wrote:
>>
>>>The choice was between Chinese, Korean,
>>>|Spanish, English or Tagalog [sic]. It seems to me not unreasonable that
>>>|since only U.S. citizens vote, and that one has to pass an English
>>>language test to become a citizen, the ballet should be in English.
>>>
>>(although I'm not sure why Tagalog earns a [sic]; is there some
>>reason why Filipinos
>>are inherently less worthy of accommodation?).
>
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