Philippines Southern Leyte
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LANGUAGES OF PHILIPPINES
There are over 170 languages in the Philippines; almost all of them belong to the Austronesian language family. Throughout the Spanish colonial period, which lasted more than three centuries, Spanish was the official language of the country. After the Spanish-American War of 1898, Spanish was reaffirmed as the official language in the 1899 Malolos Constitution.By 1901, public education was institutionalized, with English serving as the medium of instruction. The 1935 Constitution added English as an official language alongside Spanish. A provision in this constitution also called for Congress to "take steps toward the development and adoption of a common national language based on one of the existing native languages." On November 12, 1937, the First National Assembly created the National Language Institute. President Manuel L. Quezon appointed native Waray-Waray speaker Jaime C. De Veyra to chair a committee of speakers of other regional languages. Their aim was to select a national language among the other regional languages. Ultimately, Tagalog was chosen on December 31, 1937.
Although the teaching of the national language in schools began in 1940, Tagalog was not made an official language until the restoration of its independence on July 4, 1946. The 1973 Constitution under the Marcos administration retained English and Pilipino as official languages, dropping Spanish. There was another provision stating that the National Assembly should "take steps towards the development and formal adoption of a common national language to be known as Filipino."
The present constitution, ratified in 1987, stated that Filipino and English are both the official languages of the country. Filipino also had the distinction of being a national language that was to be "developed and enriched on the basis of existing Philippine and other languages." Although not explicitly stated in the constitution, Filipino is in practice almost completely composed of the Tagalog as spoken in Manila, however, organizations such as the University of the Philippines began publishing dictionaries such as the UP Diksyonaryong Filipino in which words from various Philippine languages were also included.
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