[lg policy] Phillipines: Tell it to Sun.Star: National language

[Harold Schiffman]

Tell it to Sun.Star: National language
 Monday, August 17, 2015

THIS month is the Buwan ng Wika or Language Month. August was chosen as the
Buwan ng Wika Month because the person who was responsible of approving
Tagalog as the basis of the national language, Manuel L. Quezón, was born
on that month.

>From 1937 to 1959, Tagalog was the name of the national language until it
was changed to Pilipino because of protests from the Visayan region. In
1973, during the promulgation of 1973 Constitution, the name of the
national language was again changed to Filipino. It also stated that as
Filipino evolves, it shall be further developed and enriched on the basis
of existing Philippine and other languages.

The mandate of the 1987 constitution that Filipino language has to be
further developed has not yet happened and because of that, the debate on
the national or official language is still ongoing.

I write this to help resolve the debate on what should be the basis of the
national language or should we have a national language at all. There are
four factions in that debate: the purist or Tagalista group, which is
insisting that Tagalog should be the main basis of the national language
Filipino; the universalist or universalista group, which is insisting that
the national language should evolve according to the diversity of 171
languages in the country; the Sajonista or English first group, which is
insisting that English should be the sole official or the national language
of the country; the Hispanista or Spanish first group, which is insisting
that Spanish language should be the official or national language co-equal
with Filipino/Tagalog and English.

I belong to last three groups. I believe with the universalist thought that
Filipino language should evolve. I also believe with the thought of the
Sajonistas that English language should remain as official language but not
as national language. I also believe with the Hispanistas that Spanish
language should be revived as one of the official languages in the country.

I suggest revisiting the language provisions in the 1987 Constitution
through preferably in a Constitutional Convention to fix the
one-size-fits-all language policy of the country. I suggest that the basis
of the Filipino language be a neutral one like Malay, which does not
associate with any Philippine language to avoid favoritism. After doing so
we should further enrich Malay by adding to it vocabularies from Philippine
languages, English and Spanish.

English should be one of the official languages in the country so that we
Filipinos can communicate with the rest of the world. To improve our
deteriorating English proficiency, I suggest the government to import
teachers from the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New
Zealand to teach the proper way of speaking the English language.

To revive Spanish as co-equal language with English and Filipino to be used
in daily lives, I suggest the government to import teachers from Spain and
Latin America to teach Spanish all over the country. I also suggest that
the religious and the judiciary sectors should lead the revival of Spanish,
to restore its use in religious service and court proceedings.

I want Mandarin, Hokkien, Japanese, and Korean aside from Arabic to be
recognized as foreign language to be taught in their respective communities
in the country. Regarding the regional Philippine languages, I want these
languages to become the official language in their respective regions and
also make them as medium of instruction if they want.

I hope these suggestions of mine will be heard not only by the government
but also by the linguistic scholars and politicians who would be
responsible of altering the language policies in the country stated in our
1987 Constitution. I want the readers to discern what I am suggesting in
order to have an orderly discussion on how to fix our language policies in
our country. *--Joseph Solis Alcayde, graduating Political Science student
of University of San Carlos*

*Published in the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on August 18, 2015.*


*http://www.sunstar.com.ph/cebu/opinion/2015/08/17/tell-it-sunstar-national-language-425231
<http://www.sunstar.com.ph/cebu/opinion/2015/08/17/tell-it-sunstar-national-language-425231>*

-- 
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