F/Pilipino

[Paz B. Naylor]

Dear Colleagues:

Dan's observations do mirror for the most part what went on and what is
going on but we need to look at the picture and assess what is happening in
light of several factors: dialect differences, different genres of text and
discourse,  the different speech styles and registers in the repertoire of
Tagalog/Filipino speakers and the necessary choices to meet the demands of
the context of communication.

Viewed in this light, there is nothing to lament.  "Pure Tagalog" is spoken
and written in the appropriate genres of text and discourse (ceremonial
speeches and literary pieces) just as Taglish and Tagalog-English
code-switching is rampant in familiar conversation, and "intellectualized"
Filipino is used in classroom lectures, and so on.  Davao Tagalog, as a
dialect of Tagalog,  is no less Tagalog for having more Visayan words in it
just as Bulacan Tagalog is no more Tagalog for having fewer loanwords in it.

Thanks for listening.  Regards, Paz


Paz Buenaventura Naylor, Ph.D.
Emeritus Professor, Asian Languages and Cultures
Faculty Associate, Center for Southeast Asian Studies
Program Associate, Linguistics
The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor MI 48109
Home Address: 2032 Winsted, Ann Arbor MI 48103
           Tel/Fax: (734) 995-2371


----- Original Message -----
From: "daniel kaufman" <dan_kaufman at hotmail.com>
To: " AUSTRONESIAN LANGUAGES AND LINGUISTICS" <AN-LANG at anu.edu.au>
Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2001 10:18 PM
Subject: Re: F/Pilipino


> 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/.
>
> The national language of the Philippines, prior to its current
incarnation,
> was called Pilipino. It was conceived as containing the basic phoneme
> inventory of Tagalog and the Meso-Philippine languages which as you
already
> know does not include /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). This accompanied the inclusion of more vocabulary items from
other
> Philippine languages and a spelling revision for English loan words which
> made them appear closer to the English. The only change that has stuck
> (lamentably?) has been the renouncement of purism in favor of wholesale
> borrowing; lexical items from other Philippine languages have barely made
a
> mark on the Filipino language.
> As concerns the synchronic distinction between Filipino and Tagalog, many
> Filipinos will identify certain words and idioms as "Filipino, not
Tagalog".
> These words and idioms belong to the Filipino academe, which has been the
> only "official" institution to employ the language rigorously. From this
> usage, an academic variety is indeed rapidly emerging although primarily
> restricted to the social sciences. On the other hand, the progress report
> from the street is not yet clear: the Filipino lingua franca, whose
> ascendancy has been predicted by linguists such as Dr.Constantino for many
> years now, has yet to take definite shape. Besides cultural factors, this
> might be due to the lack of prestige Filipino holds as a second language,
> resulting in the maintained use of the regional languages. Nonetheless,
> there does exist such a lingua franca, albeit not standardized, and we can
> see that the Filipino spoken in Davao for instance, is "less Tagalog" than
> that spoken in Bulacan. Much like the Indonesian spoken in Manado is "less
> Malay" than that spoken in Riau. The conclusion is, there are two
varieties
> of Tagalog developing on separate tracks which I believe may be
justifiably
> called Filipino; 1) the academic variety emerging from the universities
and
> 2) the lingua franca emerging from increased inter-regional communication
> and migration. Although there is no question that these are mutually
> intelligible with Tagalog at the present time, we must also note that what
> is called Filipino is indeed drifting from Tagalog as spoken in the
Tagalog
> provinces.
>
> Sorry for the wordiness,
> Daniel K.
>
> Dept. of Linguistics
> Cornell University
> Ithaca, NY
> _________________________________________________________________
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