Save our languages (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

Friday, September 07, 2007
EDITORIAL
Manila in Sydney

Save our languages

http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2007/sept/07/yehey/opinion/20070907opi1.html

Of the 175 to 180-plus languages of the Filipinos, many are going extinct
every so often—there being only 5, 10, 20 to 1,000 living speakers of those
languages. These are mostly Negrito (or Agta or Aeta) languages. The
children of Agta folk end up speaking only Tagalog, Ilocano or Bisayan.
They might live on for another 70 to 80 years speaking a language not their
own. They are no longer really Agta.

Ethnologists agree that a language with only 300,000 speakers is a dying
language. Under this definition only about two dozen of the Philippine
languages are not yet moribund.

It shocks people to realize that all Philippine languages except Tagalog are
bound to die. Experts give both the Kapampangan and Pangasinan languages
only 20 years of remaining life.

Linguistics experts, including those of the heroic scientists of the Summer
Institute of Linguistics, see this as a result of the government policy (a)
to promote Tagalog as the national language (called Pilipino or Filipino);
(b) to teach Tagalog/Pilipino/Filipino—as the national language—to all
Filipino schoolchildren and (b) to use it as the preferred medium of
instruction alongside English.

This policy—along with other factors like the Tagalog areas, including Metro
Manila, being for decades the seat of political and commercial power —causes
the native speakers of all other Filipino languages, except Tagalog, to
decline in number and as a percentage of the Philippine population.

This decline has happened not just to the so-called “minor languages”—such
as the languages of the Agta, Ifugao, Kalinga, Aklanon, T’boli, Maranao,
and so on—whose native-speaker populations are very much less than those of
the eight “major languages” whose native speakers are in the millions.

Of the eight “major languages,” Tagalog has the most number of native
speakers. In 1948, Tagalog speakers composed only 19 percent of the
population. In 1995 Tagalog speakers made up 29.29 percent of the
population; they are much more now in 2007.

In 1948, Cebuanos made up 25 percent of the population, in 1995 Cebuanos
composed only 21.17 percent (less now in 2007).

Here is the decline of the other “major languages” from 1948 to the present:
Ilocano 12 percent in 1948, now less than 9.31 percent. Ilonggo (or
Hiligaynon) 12 percent, now less than 9.11 percent. Bicolano 8 percent, now
less than 5.69 percent. Waray 6 percent, now less than 3.81 percent. decline
is at the top. Kapampangan 3 percent, now less than 2.9 percent. Pangasinan
3 percent, now less than 1.01 percent.

Linguistics scientists forecast the extinction of the Kapampangan and
Pangasinan languages in 20 years. Waray and Bicolano would follow soon
enough and the others, perhaps even including Cebuano, before a century is
over.

 The death process of the Philippine languages other than Tagalog is the
same everywhere. Parents no longer encourage their children to speak their
native language because mastery of Tagalog (or Pilipino/Filipino) gives
them an edge in class and later when they go to study in Metro Manila. In
the case of the Aetas, they don’t even realize that they have lost their
languages and that their ethnolinguistic tribes have only five or ten
speakers and that they will soon be extinct.

The Save our Language through Federalization Foundation Inc. campaigns for
the reduction of the importance of Tagalog in the school system because
every inch of added Tagalog dominance means an inch nearer to extinction
for the other languages.

SOLFED also recommends that the other languages be used with English as the
medium of instruction in their respective territories.

It also urges that the government undertake the work that so far only the
Summer Institute of Linguistics has been doing for our vanishing tribal and
aboriginal languages: Recording these and publishing syllabuses that will at
least preserve a knowledge of these languages.

Language, culture and traditions define a people. No matter how much
Kapampangan blood still flows in a person’s veins, he would no longer be a
Kapam­pangan if he cannot speak and understand the language of his
ancestors, read the writings of Juan Crisos­tomo Soto and Amado Yuzon or
appreciate the Crissotan poetical jousts.

We believe laws must be passed to fund and organize the effort to save or at
least preserve in writing and through syllabuses our “minor” languages.

We owe it to our future generations not to waste treasures of our human
diversity. Let it not be said of our generation that we paid more attention
to saving animal and plant species than our own human species.