F/Pilipino

[potet]

"Dear Monsieur Potet,
I must correct you when you state,
>It is a well-known fact that the name of the official language of the
> >Philippines is "Filipino" because the constitution of the Philippines is
> >written in English, and English uses the Spanish term: Filipino.
> >Once it was called "Filipino", because of the constitutionality of the
> > >name, it had to be used in all the other languages of the Philippines,
> > >even those - the overwhelming majority - that have no /f/.
Only afterwards, in an effort to be more inclusive of ethno-linguistic
minorities and in order to assuage accusations of Tagalog purism and
"hegemony", did the language planning commission revise the name to
"Filipino" (not because the constitution was written in English)." Daniel
KAUFMAN

Dear Monsieur Kaufman

I thought the language planning commission had been established by the
Philippine government within the frame of the Philippine constitution.

Anyway, my point was to stress the fact that Tagalog, Pilipino and Filipino
are names given to the same language in so far as their grammar and the bulk
of their vocabulary are the same. This is only what matters for the
linguist. Borrowing terms from local dialects, provincial languages and
foreign languages doesn't make Filipino another language than Tagalog.

Of course I agree with the rest of your message. All this is well-known.
Slang also is playing an important part in the development of Filipino.

Best

Jean-Paul G. POTET, Ph.D.
B. P. 46. 92114 CLICHY CEDEX. FRANCE.

P.S.
1) Incidentally a book published in 1991 bears evidence of the cautious
non-committality [pardon my English] of many scholars as regards the
inclusion of /f/.

SALAZAR, Zeus A., patnugot [editor] (1991)
_Ang P/Filipino sa agham panlipunan at pilosopiya_ [P/Filipino in social
sciences and philosophy]
Manila: Kalikasan Press

2) May I recommend to those interested a collection of Almario's essays
about Tagalog/Pilipino/Filipino. He has several interesting remarks about
the failure of the coinages of _Maugnaying ..._ (1978).

ALMARIO, Virgilio S. (1993)
_Filipino ng mga Filipino_ [The Filipino of Filipinos]
Manila: Anvil Publishing