Some notes on Filipino

[Ildefonso Rubrico]

'THE NAME NOW GIVEN TO TAGALOG AS THE NATIONAL
LANGUAGE IS NO LONGER _PILIPINO_, BUT _FILIPINO_, SO
GREAT THE PRESTIGE OF /F/ IS, DESPITE ITS UTTER
USELESSNESS IN THIS LANGUAGE. " I HAVE THE (GOOD)
TAGALOG-TAGALOG DICTIONARY PUBLISHED IN 1989 BY AN
OFFICIAL BODY, AND ITS TITLE IS _DIKSYUNARYO NG WIKANG
FILIPINO_ ALTHOUGH THERE IS NO CHAPTER OF ENTRIES
BEGINNING WITH AN F. EVEN THE WORD _FILIPINO_ IS NOT
ENTERED.


SOME NOTES ON FILIPINO

Pursuant to Commonwealth Act No. 184  the  National
Language Institute  was established on November 13,
1936 to  “study of the Philippine dialects   in
general
for the purpose of evolving and adopting a common
national language based on one of the existing native
tongues.” This involved studying each  language spoken
by not less than half a million people; collecting and
collating cognate sets and phrases from these
languages; adopting  a system for Philippine phonetics
and ortography;  compare critically all  Philippine
affixes; and selecting the language which was the most
developed in structure and literature and widely
accepted and used by most Filipinos -- which will be
the basis for  the national language . (Sec. 5, Art.
1-5).

In 1937, the Institute recommended Tagalog and came up
with Balarila and Tagalog-English Dictionary. In 1959,
the Department of Education called the Tagalog-based
national language as Pilipino  and in 1970  ordered
the gradual shift to Pilipino as medium of instruction
in the elementary in history subjects in colleges and
universities.

 The 1973 Constitution provides that the National
Assembly  should endeavor towards developing and
formally adopting a common national language to be
called Filipino, Meantime, Pilipino and English remain
the official languages unless repealed by law.

The 1987 Constitution states: “The national language
of the Philippines is Filipino. As it evolves, it
shall be further developed and enriched on the basis
of existing Philippine and  other languages.”

Filipino was initially anchored on Pilipino but as it
evolves it will be  Tagalog/Pilipino + other
Philippine languages + loan words from foreign
languages (esp. Spanish, and now, English). Another
thing:  Filipino includes in its alphabet  [f and v],
(which are used in other Phil languages) [ch, j,  ñ]
. . . also the [ey] s now being in the ortography of
some schools like the University of the Philippines
and the University of Santo Thomas.

"The metamorphosis of Filipino" (philippine
linguistics at www.bigfoot.com/~ijrubrico) cites some
data representing a type of dominant Filipino being
used in the academe, language journals, TV newscasts,
radio, and some Metro Manila Filipino dailies.

The Contemporary English-Filipino dictionary by Dr.
Ernesto Constantino, Filipino linguist, researcher and
author of the forthcoming A Universal Dictionary of
Philippine Languages (includes 126 Philippine
Languages)  truly documents this evolving Filipino.


jessie grace u. rubrico











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