Spanish in the Philippines Idioma español en Filipinas
Pronunciation:	/espa'ɲol/, /kaste'ʎano/ or /kaste'ʝano/
Spoken in:	the Philippines
Total speakers:	First languagea: 322<[1][2]- c. 400 million[3][4][5] Totala: 400–500 million[6][7][8] aAll numbers are approximate.rank = 2-4 (native)[9][10][11][12] Total: 3fam2 = Italicfam3 = Romancefam4 = Italo-Westernfam5 = Gallo-Iberianfam6 = Ibero-Romancefam7 = West Iberianfam7 = Spanishscript = Latin (Spanish variant)nation =agency = Academia Filipina de la Lengua Españolaiso1 = fil-esiso2 = fil-esiso3 = fil-es
Language family:	}}}  Spanish in the Philippines}}}
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	none
ISO 639-2:	—
ISO 639-3:	—

Spanish was the first official language of the Philippines since the conquest by Spain in the 16th century. Spanish was proclaimed the official language of the independent First Philippine Republic by the Malolos Constitution of 1899 which was itself written in Spanish. Following the Philippine-American War, the First Philippine Republic was abolished and US sectarian colonist implemented English as the language of education and government, leaving Spanish and Tagalog language as co-official. Nevertheless, Spanish continued to be the language of business, culture, and to a certain extent politics, until the 1970s. However, as younger and new generations of Filipinos educated in the English language became fluent in American pop culture, the use of Spanish gradually declined and no longer spoken by the majority of the population. Spanish remained an official language until ratification of the 1973 constitution on January 17, 1973.

There are thousands of Spanish loan words in 170 indigenous Philippine languages. According to the 1990 Philippine census, there are 2,658 native Spanish speakers (Spanish being their first language) and 607,200 Spanish-based creole Chavacano speakers in the country. However, there is a total of 2.9 million Spanish-speaking people in the Philippines including those who speak it as a second, third, or even fourth language (according to the book, "Getting By in Spanish", published by BBC Worldwide Ltd. and the Barron's Educational Series) . A 2006 study conducted by the Instituto Cervantes and the Consejería de Educación de la Embajada de España (Education Council, Embassy of Spain), in coordination with the Academia Filipina de la Lengua Española (Philippine Academy of the Spanish Language) also produced an estimated figure of 3.18 million Spanish speakers.

On August 8, 2007, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo announced that Spanish will be reinstated as an official language of the Philippines by January 2008, and has asked help from the Spanish government in her plan, which will include an official ceremony and reintroduce Spanish as a required subject in the Philippine school system.^[13]

History

The Spanish colonial era

Spanish was first introduced to the Philippines in 1565, when the conquistador, Miguel López de Legazpi founded the first Spanish settlement on the island of Cebu. The Philippines, ruled from Mexico City was a Spanish territory for 333 years (1565-1898).

Although the language was never compulsory while under Spanish colonial rule, Spanish was at one time spoken by around 10% of the population. It was the first and only language of the Spanish and Filipino-Spanish mestizos minority, and the second but most important language of the educated native Ilustrados. The stance of the Roman Catholic Church and its missionaries was also to preach to the natives in local languages, and not in Spanish. The priests and friars preached in local languages and employed indigenous peoples as translators, creating a bilingual class known as ladinos. The natives, generally were not taught Spanish, but the bilingual individuals, notably poet-translator Gaspar Aquino de Belén, produced devotional poetry written in the Roman script in the Tagalog language. Pasyon is a narrative of the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ begun by Gaspar Aquino de Belén, which has circulated in many versions. Later, the Spanish ballads of chivalry, the corrido, provided a model for secular literature. Verse narratives, or komedya, were performed in the regional languages for the illiterate majority.

A reason that Spanish did not expand as much as it did in the Americas is attributed to the fact that the archipelago was not a direct colony of Spain, but instead was administered from Mexico City (in what was then New Spain) thereby lessening the possibility of large scale Spanish migration to the Philippines. Another reason is the large distance separating Spain from the Philippines as compared to the Americas. Yet another is the actual population of Spaniards settling in the Philippines was believed to be quite less than that of the Americas.

The more important reason however, is that the Philippines was prevented from consolidating its independent statehood under the First Philippine Republic and the Constitution of Malolos in 1899, which had established Spanish as the sole official language and would have continued the use of Spanish in public schools and universities as the medium of instruction. This would have increased the numbers of Filipino Spanish speakers considerably in a few generations, a phenomenon which took place in most Hispanic countries in Latin America after their independence during the 19th century. In the Philippines this was frustrated due to the US occupation and change of educational policy. Indigenous Philippine languages remained in use and Spanish was substituted for English as the medium of instruction. Also crucial in explaining the decrease of Spanish was the Philippine-American War in which thousands of Spanish-speaking Filipinos perished. In the 20th century, the US colonial governments increasingly marginalized Spanish by gradually forcing the press, schools and other institutions to abandon this language.

In 1593, the first printing press was founded. A great portion of the colonial history of the Philippines is written in Spanish. Up until recently, many land titles, contracts, newspapers and literature were still written in Spanish, and though it is no longer an official language, legal documents in Spanish are still recognized in Filipino courts of law.

The Universidad de Santo Tomas, one of the oldest existing educational institutions in Asia, was inaugurated in 1611 and continues to this day as the property of both Spain and the Roman Catholic church. Hence, the words "Royal" and "Pontifical" are part of the university's official title.

In 1863, Queen Isabel II of Spain decreed the establishment of a public school system.

A 17th century book to learn Castilian

In the early seventeenth century a Tagalog printer, Tomas Pinpin, set out to write a book in romanized phonetic script to teach Tagalogs how to learn Castilian. His book, published by the Dominican press where he worked, appeared in 1610, the same year as Blancas's arte. Unlike the missionary's grammar (which Pinpin had set in type), the Tagalog native's book dealt with the language of the dominant rather than the subordinate other. Pinpin's book was the first such work ever written and published by a Philippine native. As such, it is richly instructive for what it tells us about the interests that animated Tagalog translation and, by implication, Tagalog conversion in the early colonial period. Pinpin construed translation in ways that tended less to oppose than to elude the totalizing claims of Spanish signifying conventions.

The role of Spanish in rising nationalism

Propagandists during the Spanish era spread nationalism through Spanish. José Rizal's novels Noli Me Tangere, Graciano López-Jaena's satirical articles, Marcelo Hilario del Pilar's anti-clerical manifestos, the bi-weekly La Solidaridad (published in Spain) and other materials in awakening nationalism were written in Spanish. The country's first constitution was written in Spanish, as well as the National Anthem. The constitution proclaimed Spanish as an official language. According to Horacio de la Costa, nationalism would not have been possible without Spanish. It is through Spanish that natives became aware of nationalistic ideas and independence movements in other countries.

Spanish was used by the first Filipino patriots like José Rizal, Andrés Bonifacio and Emilio Aguinaldo, who chose Spanish as the national language of independent Philippines. Spanish was used to write the country's first constitution, Constitución Política de Malolos, the original national anthem, (Himno Nacional Filipino), as well as nationalistic propaganda material and literature, like José Rizal's Noli Me Tangere. Indeed, Philippine nationalism was first propagated in the Spanish language.

During the Spanish colonial era, and also through the early American period, Philippine nationalism, government reforms, the country's first constitution and historic novels were written in Spanish. While not widely understood by the majority of the population, Spanish at this time was nonetheless the unifying language since Tagalog was not as prominent or ubiquitous as it is today and each region had their own culture and language, and would rather speak in their local languages. Denizens of each region thought of themselves as Ilocano, Cebuano, Bicolano, et cetera, and not as Filipinos.

Throughout the colonial era the term "Filipino" originally referred to only the Filipino-born Spaniards and Filipino mestizos; while indigenous Filipinos (who are referred to as Indios) referred to them as 'Castila' or 'Cachila'.

The Ilustrados or "The Enlightened Ones", which included Philippine-born Spaniards, certain Mestizos, Sangleys (or Chinese mestizos) and prominent indigenous Filipinos, were the educated elite who promoted and propagated nationalism and a modern Filipino consciousness. The unifying force is primary reasons historians say that the Spanish authorities did not want to promote the language.

José Rizal propagated Filipino consciousness and identity in Spanish. One material highly instrumental in developing nationalism was the novel Noli Me Tangere (Latin for "Do not touch me") which exposed abuses of the Spanish government and clergy. Nevertheless, Rizal promoted the use of the indigenous languages.

The novel Noli Me Tangere's very own notoriety among the Spanish authorities, government and clergy, propelled its popularity even more among Filipinos. Reading it was forbidden because it exposed and parodied Spanish clergy and government authority.

The American era

See also:

With the era of the Philippines as a Spanish colony having just ended, a considerable amount of media, newspapers, radios, government proceedings, education, etc. were still written and produced in Spanish. Ironically, the public school system the Americans established served to further promote Spanish-language literacy among the masses. Even in the early 20th century a hegemony of Spanish was still in force.

Although the English language had begun to be heavily promoted and used as the medium of education and government proceedings, the majority of Spanish literature by indigenous Filipinos was produced at this time. Among the great Filipino literary writers of the period were Fernando Ma. Guerrero, Rafael Palma, Cecilio Apóstol, Jesús Balmori, Manuel Bernabé, Trinidad Pardo de Tavera and Teodoro M. Kalaw.

This explosion of Spanish language literature occurred because the upper class minority were educated in Spanish. For the first time, Filipinos experienced a greater degree of freedom of expression and even support, since the Spanish authorities weren't too receptive to Filipino writers and intellectuals during the colonial period. As a result, Spanish became the most important language in the country despite that the majority was composed of non-Spanish speaking natives.

The new Philippine Republic established Spanish as the official language in the constitution of 1898, drawn up during the Constitutional Convention in Malolos, Bulacan. The language was then free to be taught and learned by all the natives, and not just by the select few. Its officialization was in an attempt to increase its speakers so it would serve as a common language in a nation of over 80 different local languages, each with its many dialects

In his 1899 book “Yesterdays in the Philippines”, the American John Early Stevens wrote: Spanish, of course, is the court and commercial language and, except among the uneducated native who have a lingua of their own or among the few members of the Anglo-Saxon colony, it has a monopoly everywhere. No one can really get on without it, and even the Chinese come in with their peculiar pidgin variety. (Page 11).

While the 1903 census officially reported the number of Spanish-speakers at only 1% of the population, it only considered those who were monolingual in the language and had Spanish as their one and only tongue, ie. Peninsulares (Spanish-born Spaniards), Insulares (Filipino-born Spaniards), and other Europeans (Filipino-born, Spanish-speaking Italian families, among others). It completely disregarded the bilingual Spanish-mestizo and multilingual Chinese-mestizo and Chinese minorities who - although spoke two or more languages - utilized Spanish as their primary language of business and culture. Furthermore, the indigenous Filipino illustrado class, who were academically instructed in the Spanish language, also used Spanish as their primary language despite having any one of the many native languages as their mother tongue. These together would have placed the numbers at 10% of the 8 million Filipinos of that era as Spanish-speakers.

The 1916 report by Henry Ford to President Woodrow Wilson says

...as I traveled through the Philippine Islands, using ordinary transportation and mixing with all classes of people under all conditions. Although based on the school statistics it is said that more Filipinos speak English than any other language, no one can be in agreement with this declaration if they base their assessment on what they hear...

Spanish is everywhere the language of business and social intercourse...In order for anyone to obtain prompt service from anyone, Spanish turns out to be more useful than English...And outside of Manila it is almost indispensable. The Americans who travel around all the islands customarily use it.

In 1924, the Philippine Academy of the Spanish Language was created. In 1936, Filipino films in Spanish began to be produced.

Decline of the Spanish language

Spanish has been in decline since the 20th century due to the introduction of the English language, "lacked" of promotion to the public sphere and guidance by the Filipino government.

During World War II many of the centuries old Spanish-speaking families of Philippines migrated to Spain, Latin America and the United States following the US bombing of Intramuros home to thousands of Spanish-speaking families. Many migrated also during the Marcos regime. By 1940 the number of Spanish-speakers in the Philippines was approximately 6 million, however, as a percentage of the total population the numbers had actually dropped. By the 1950 Census Spanish-speakers constituted 6% of the population, down from a 10% peak. However, down through the 1960s and 1970s, Filipinos were still being exposed to the Spanish language through print and audiovisual media even before they learned to speak Filipino or English.

Spanish was abolished as an official language in 1973 during the Marcos regime and as a compulsory school subject in 1987 by Corazon Aquino.

The state of Spanish today

Today, Spanish is only used for cultural heritage purposes and on an optional basis. Recently there seems to have been a resurgence in interest in the language among educated youth as seen in recent survey by the Academia Filipina de la Lengua Española (English: Philippine Academy of the Spanish Language), which showed that there were roughly 2,900,000 Spanish speakers in the Philippines (as a first, second, third, or fourth language) in 2006. The language is spoken and maintained mostly by Spanish-Filipinos living in minor communities throughout the country.

The reinstatement of Spanish as an official language

On August 8, 2007, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo announced that Spanish will be "reinstated as an official language" of the Philippines by January 2008, and has asked help from the Spanish government in her plan, which will include an official ceremony and reintroduce Spanish as a required subject in the Philippine school system.^[13]

The reintroduction of Spanish as an official language is still in heavy dispute. On one side, much of the history and culture of the Philippines is embedded in the language, including the original Malolos Constitution and the works of national hero José Rizal. On the other, Spanish is seen by some as the language of the former Philippine elite. In any case there are an estimated 13 million manuscripts from the 16th century to 1898 in the Spanish language, which include government documents, economics, trade disputes, legal matters, patriotic material, religious material, registrations etc. Up to the 1960s, birth certificates were printed in both English and Spanish. There is still a very strong need to translate a great number of historical documents for academic and research purposes.

As Article XIV, Section 7 of the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines mandates that: "For purposes of communication and instruction, the official languages of the Philippines are Filipino and, until otherwise provided by law, English. The regional languages are the auxiliary official languages in the regions and shall serve as auxiliary media of instruction therein. Spanish and Arabic shall be promoted on a voluntary and optional basis", the reinstatement of Spanish as an official language may arguably require a constitutional change.^[14]

Spanish as is used in the Philippines

Since the Philippines was administered by New Spain (Mexico) rather than Spain itself during the colonial period, the Spanish language spoken in the Philippines had a greater affinity to Mexican Spanish (ie. Spanish as spoken in Mexico) rather than that of European Spanish (as spoken in Spain) and indigenous Philippine languages. Today, many of the Spanish families existing have stronger ties to Spain rather than Mexico, therefore European Spanish or has gained more ground.

Phonology

When pronouncing Spanish words (such as names of people or places), there are tendencies among the majority non-Spanish-speaking population to:

• Stress words differently than would Spanish speakers,
• Raise the mid vowels /o/ and /e/,
• Insert a glottal stop [/] before stressed syllable-initial vowels,
• Palatalize (or affricate) alveolar sounds when they appear before [j],
• Seseo, as in Latin America and Andalusia (where the tendency originated from). The modern European Castilian phoneme IPA /θ/ as in ciento, caza (interdental voiceless fricative, like English th in thin) does not exist in traditional Philippine Spanish nor in any native Philippine language; it combined with /s/ as in siento, casa,
• Pronounce d as [d] in all positions,
• Pronounce g as [g] in all positions,
• Pronounce both b and v as [b] or differentiate between the two, resulting in v sounding as in English,
• Pronounce z as [z],
• Pronounce sce and sci as [se] and [si] respectively,
• Not distinguish between r and rr,
• Pronounce the h,
• Pronounce au as [o],
• Pronounce eu as [ju],
• Pronounce sr as [sr] or [zr] ,
• Pronounce final m as [m].

Ll is invariably pronounced as [ʎ].

Vocabulary

There are Native Americanisms, archaisms and borrowings from indigenous Philippine languages. In fact, of the great number of Spanish loan words that exist in the various Filipino languages, a few are actually of Nahuatl origin that were first incorporated into Mexican Spanish, and which do not exist in European Spanish. These include nanay(nantl), tatay(tatle), bayabas [from guayaba(s), guava], abokado (avocado), papaya, zapote, etc.

Writing

Diacritic marks are almost always left out, save for the tilde on the ñ. Spanish words however are vocally stressed as they would be by Spanish speakers, by older generations and an increasing number of younger Filipinos.

Philippine computer keyboards currently and have always used the US standard layout, which includes neither ñ nor combining diacritics. Typewriters sometimes include the ñ but not accented vowels.

Influence on the languages of the Philippines

There are approximately 4,000 Spanish words in Tagalog, and around 6,000 Spanish words in Visayan and other languages. The Spanish counting system, calendar, time, etc. are still in use with slight modifications. Archaic Spanish words have been preserved in Tagalog and the other vernaculars such as pera (coins), sabon [jabón (at the beginning of Spanish rule, the j used to be pronounced as [ʃ], the voiceless postalveolar fricative or the "sh" sound) - soap], relos [reloj (with the j sound) - watch], kwarta (cuarta), etc. The Spaniards and the language are referred to as either Kastila or Katsila (especially in most Visayan languages) after Castilla or Castile, the original Spanish Kingdom under which Spain was unified in 1492, which later became a Spanish region.

Chavacano, also called Zamboangueño, is a Spanish-based creole language spoken in the Philippines. Chavacano is concentrated mostly in the South, in the provinces of Zamboanga, with some speakers are found in Cavite. As a large number of workers to build military and other Spanish establishments in Zamboanga and other areas in the South, were imported from different linguistic regions, Chavacano developed and became the main language in the Zamboanga peninsula.

Meaning changes

While many Spanish words have made their way to Philippine languages, many of these words have had a shift in meaning from the original Spanish. This has resulted in false friends, related words that exist in two languages with different meanings. A sampling of these words are shown below:

Word	Language	Meaning in the Philippines	Original Spanish word	Spanish meaning
madre	Tagalog	nun (only)	madre	mother (parent) and nun
padre	Tagalog	priest (only, inflexible)	padre	father (parent) and priest
muchacha	Tagalog	maid (only)	muchacha	maid (Mexico and Spain) and girl
querida	Tagalog	mistress (only)	querida	dear (used for female loved ones including mothers, sisters, aunts, and friends) and mistress (when used as "la querida")
entonses	Tagalog	elite class	entonces	then, afterwards
chika	Tagalog	gossip and girl	chica	girl
pare	Tagalog	friend (slang)	pare	to stop, and friend (Caribbean Spanish) from "com-padre"
amigo/a	Tagalog	friend	amigo/a	friend
asar	Tagalog	to annoy	azar	luck, chance
asta	Tagalog	rude movements	hasta	until
bale	Tagalog	well and worth, wages, pay	vale	ok! and voucher or promissory note
balon	Tagalog	well	balon	ball
banda	Tagalog	"near a place" and band	banda	band, side
barat	Tagalog	cheap	barato	cheap, low prices
maldito/a	Tagalog	naughty "little devil"	maldito/a	curse word
bomba	Tagalog	erotica/nudity and bomb	bomba	bomb, and impressive or surprising (slang) used as an exclamation ("la bomba!")
onse	Tagalog	eleven and hustle	once	eleven
pitso	Tagalog	chicken breast (only)	pecho	breast (in general including humans and other animals)
regla	Tagalog	menstruation	regla	rule/ruler/menstruation
siguro	Tagalog, Chabacano, Cebuano, Ilokano, Hiligaynon	maybe	seguro	secure, stable, sure
syempre	Tagalog, Chabacano, Cebuano, Hiligaynon	of course	siempre	always
pwerta	Tagalog	door	puerta	door
konyo	Tagalog	gold digger	coño	Exclamation and curse word (coño!)
letse	Tagalog	milk and curse word	leche	milk, and curse word
pirmi	Hiligaynon, Cebuano, Chabacano	steady	firme	firm, steady
basta	Tagalog, Chabacano, Cebuano, Hiligaynon	as long as	basta ; hasta	enough, stop!; until
Impakto	Tagalog	spirit causing temporary madness (originally elemental spirit from the earth)''	impacto	impact, shock
maske, maski	Tagalog, Chabacano (spelled masquen), Cebuano, Hiligaynon	even if	por más que/ más que	as much as; even if; even then;/more than
kubeta	Tagalog	toilet, outhouse	cubeta	bucket
kasilyas	Tagalog, Cebuano, Chabacano, Ilokano	Comfort room (toilet)	casillas	squares, cube, hut
barkada	Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilokano	group of friends	barcada	boatload
sugal	Tagalog, Cebuano	gambling	jugar	to play, to gamble
mamon	Tagalog, Cebuano	fluffy bread	mamón (de "mamar"), mamón (de "mamas")	suckle (from mamar "to suckle") mammary glands (as in the English word "mammaries") Also papaya in the Caribbean
pera	Tagalog	money	pera	silver coin; pear
silbi	Tagalog, Cebuano	to serve	servir	to serve
suplado	Tagalog, Cebuano	snobbish, snooty, stubborn(child), brat	soplado	blown
palengke	Tagalog	market	palenque	palisade
bida	Tagalog	lead actor/actress	vida	life
kontrabida	Tagalog, Cebuano	villain	contra vida	against life

False cognates

The following words do not fall under false friends. They are still a source of confusion:

Word	Language	Meaning in the Philippines	Similar Spanish word	Spanish meaning
Ama	Tagalog, Ilocano	father	ama	housewife, to love
Lupa	Tagalog	ground, earth	lupa	magnifying glass
Luto	Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilonggo	cook	luto	mourn
Puto	Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilocano, Ilonggo	a type of rice cake	puto	curse word
Baho	Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilonggo	pungent, smelly	bajo	low, short
Sabi	Tagalog	to say	saber	to know
Kasí, kasé	Tagalog	because	casi	almost

List of Spanish words of Philippine origin

Although the greatest linguistic impact and wordloans have been from Spanish to the languages of the Philippines, the Filipino languages have also loaned some words to Spanish.

Following are some of the words of Philippine origin that can be found in the DRAE (the dictionary published by the Royal Spanish Academy):

• abacá(from Abaká)
• baguio (from bagyo), typhoon/hurricane
• barangay(from Balangay, Balanghai)
• bolo, a big knife or short sword
• carabao (from kalabaw)
• caracoa, (from Karakau)small barge
• cogón, (from Kogon)a grass
• gumamela, a flower
• paipay,(from Pamaypay) a kind of fan
• palay, unhusked rice
• pantalán, wooden pier
• sampaguita, a flower
• yoyó

Trivia

• The city of Ozamiz announced plans to recommission the Guardia Civil, who will be required to take Spanish language courses and whose first task will be to guard a local 250-year-old fortress.
• Manuel L. Quezon brought a Spanish dictionary to the United States when he was in exile, as he was more fluent in the language.
• Manila is home to the main East Asian branch of the Instituto Cervantes, the Spanish government's official overseas institute for the promotion of Spanish language. The Spanish language enjoys popularity as a language of choice for learning a foreign language among new generations of young Filipinos.

See also

• Philippine Academy of the Spanish Language
• Hispanic culture in the Philippines
• Spanish Filipinos
• Latin Union
• Chavacano language
• Spanish language
• Literature of the Philippines
• Black Legend
• Language shift
• Tagalog loanwords

References

• About History:
• La Solidaridad article on teaching of Spanish during the Spanish Period
• "Statistics: Spanish Language in the Philippines"
• Archives,Spanish
• About Philippine Spanish
• Spanish in the Philippines, by Ian Mackenzie
• Philippine Spanish Literature by Professor Resil Mojares
• Chabacano, Spanish and the Philippine Linguistic Identity, by John M. Lipski
• About the influence on the languages of the Philippines
• Spanish words in Tagalog
• id="CITEREFLipskic.2002">Lipski, John (c.2002), Spanish world-wide: the last century of language contacts, <[1] (retrieved on 2007-08-03).
  • Others:
  • Alas Filipinas, the first and only Filipino blog written entirely in Spanish.
  • Instituto Cervantes in Manila.
  • Spanish Speaking call -center
  • General:
  1. ^ Ethlogue-Spanish-language]
  2. ^ Encarta-Most Spoken languages
  3. ^ Ciberamerica-Castellano
  4. ^ El Nuevo Diario
  5. ^ Terra Noticias
  6. ^ Universidad de México
  7. ^ Instituto Cervantes ("El Mundo" news)
  8. ^ Yahoo Press Room
  9. ^ Languages of the world by Ethnologue
  10. ^ Most widely spoken languges by Nations Online
  11. ^ Most spoken languages by Ask Men
  12. ^ Encarta Languages Spoken by More Than 10 Million People
  13. ^ La presidenta filipina pedirá ayuda a España para oficializar el español (Spanish). MSN Noticias. Retrieved on 2007-08-30.
  14. ^ The 1987 Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines; Article 14: Education, Science and Technology, Arts, Culture, and Sports. Government of thePhilippines. Retrieved on 2007-10-04.
  

  External links

  • Círculo Hispanofilipino, a group which aims to preserve and revive the use of the Spanish language in the Philippines.
  • Espaniero, An Online Conversation Group for Pinoys
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  ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages. The three-letter codes given for each language in this part of the standard are referred to as "Alpha-3" codes. There are 464 language codes in the list.
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  ISO 639-3 is an international standard for language codes. It extends the ISO 639-2 alpha-3 codes with an aim to cover all known natural languages. The standard was published by ISO on 5 February 2007^[1].
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  An official language is a language that is given a special legal status in the countries, states, and other territories. It is typically the language used in a nation's legislative bodies, though the law in many nations requires that government documents be produced in other
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  Motto
  "Plus Ultra"   (Latin)
  "Further Beyond"
  Anthem
  "Marcha Real" ¹
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  The First Philippine Republic, officially República Filipina (English: Philippine Republic) was the shortlived government of the Philippines formally established with the proclamation of the Malolos Constitution on January 23, 1899 in Malolos, Bulacan until
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  18th century - 19th century - 20th century
  1860s  1870s  1880s  - 1890s -  1900s  1910s  1920s
  1896 1897 1898 - 1899 - 1900 1901 1902
  
  :
  Subjects:     Archaeology - Architecture -
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  Philippine-American War^[7] was an armed military conflict between the United States of America and the First Philippine Republic, fought between 1899 to at least 1902, which occurred from a Filipino political struggle against U.S. occupation of the Philippines.
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  Philippine English is the variety of English used in the Republic of the Philippines by the media and the vast majority of educated Filipinos. English is taught in schools as one of the two official languages of the country, the other being Filipino, the standardized dialect of
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  Tagalog}}} 
  Writing system: Latin (Filipino variant);
  Historically written in Baybayin 
  Official status
  Official language of: Philippines (in the form of Filipino)
  Regulated by: Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino (Commission on the Filipino language)
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  Motto
  "In God We Trust"   (since 1956)
  "E Pluribus Unum"   ("From Many, One"; Latin, traditional)
  Anthem
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  Popular culture (or pop culture) is the widespread cultural elements in any given society that are perpetuated through that society's vernacular language or lingua franca.
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  January 17 is the 1st day of the year (2nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 0 days remaining.

  Events

  • 38 BC - Octavian marries Livia Drusilla.

  
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  19th century - 20th century - 21st century
  1940s  1950s  1960s  - 1970s -  1980s  1990s  2000s
  1970 1971 1972 - 1973 - 1974 1975 1976

  For the song by James Blunt, see .

  
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  A loanword (or loan word) is a word directly taken into one language from another with little or no translation. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept whereby it is the meaning or idiom that is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself.
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  There are over 170 languages in the Philippines; almost all of them belong to the Austronesian language family. Of all of these languages, only 2 are considered official in the country, at least 10 are considered major and at least 8 are considered co-official.
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  20th century - 21st century
  1960s  1970s  1980s  - 1990s -  2000s  2010s  2020s
  1987 1988 1989 - 1990 - 1991 1992 1993
  
  Year 1990 (MCMXC) was a common year starting on Monday (link displays the 1990 Gregorian calendar).
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