What are the major languages spoken in Philippines and where does Spanish stand?

Question

Could u tell me more about Spain involvement in Phillipines prior WW2, Tks!

Answer 1

spanish was the official language for the 300 years the spaniards colonized the philippines. that's why some history stuff about the country are in spanish. after the war and all, use of spanish declined, americans introduced english and it was added as another official language alongside spanish. there came a time that one president decided to make one dialect as the national language. tagalog was chosen but wasnt final until the 1940s. they chose to call it pilipino rather than tagalog. at present, english and filipino are the official languages (spanish not included) in the philippines. filipino as the national language.

Answer 2

English and Tagalog are the two major languages currently spoken in the Philippines. English supplanted Spanish when the Americans took over, but a few extremely wealthy families (by this I mean the Ayalas and the Zobels) still speak and even write in Spanish. Apart from that, though, Spanish is used mostly by the expatriate community and by the academe.

As for other major languages, you could count Chinese due the sizable Chinese population in the country, and the many major dialects in the Philippines, such as Cebuano, Hiligaynon (Ilonggo), Ilocano, and innumerable other dialects that I cannot name off the top of my head. Do remember, however, that more people speak Cebuano (also called Bisaya) than Tagalog; Tagalog is merely called the "national language" because the center of government has traditionally been located in the National Capital Region, and the people in that region primarily speak Tagalog.

Still, that is a long, old, and very tiring debate, so I will not go into it very much.

As for Spanish involvement prior to the Second World War... It must be said that the Philippines was a Spanish colony for the better part of 333 years, and hence has left an indelible mark on Filipino culture and identity. There is too much to be discussed in one go, hence it would be best to look it up in history books or online.

Answer 3

Spanish haven't been spoken that widely in the Philippines in over 100 years. Well I guess because the American kicked the Spaniards out during the Spanish-American war. The official languages of the Philippines are now Filipino (an amalgamation of several Filipino languages but mostly Tagalog) and English. Now while Spanish has been required subjects in some high schools and college courses throughout Philippines until a generation ago, most of the older people wouldn't still be able to converse in straight Spanish as they have never really practiced it and most only learned the basics--less so with the younger generation. Many Filipino words (and words of other Philippines languages) have incorporated Spanish words so a Spanish speaker might still be able to communicate limitedly with Filipinos (old and young) but be aware that some of the borrowed Spanish words might mean something else, "puto" for example.

Answer 4

The Philippines has 2 official languages: Filipino based on Tagalog and English.

Tagalog is widely spoken while English is the chief language of the Philippine media, business, politics, law and education.

Spanish used to be a part of the college curriculum but in 1988 (I thnk it was 1988), it was removed because the use of Spanish language was not already recognized at that time.

Anyway, other major languages in the Philipines are Ilocano, Cebuano, Pangasisnence, Waray, Kapampangan, etc.

However, in some sources, it is said that Cebuano or the Visayan Language is the most widely-spoken in the Philippines though many or all of the Visayan-speaking people know Tagalog. Next to that would be Tagalog and then Ilocano. Some books would say that these three languages and the other languages are called LANGuAGE instead of dialect because these are widely spoken in the Philippines.

tagalog, being the official language, is used to communicate with other people living in another part of the country for we may not know each other's language

Answer 5

Filipino is the national language... English the 2nd language

Since the Philippines was a Spanish Colony for over 300 years, Filipinos of that era learnt to use the language. some Spaniards married natives hence the language was used and passed down to generations. Some speaking families left are mostly the affluent ones. But the Spanish language is not widely used even during the Spanish era since it Filipinos were never taught the language because they were considered 2nd class citizen in their own land...

English as a Universal Language is widely used.. It is the medium of teaching in schools nationwide unless the subject is Filipino...

Answer 6

Filipino is the national language, in the vernacular it is spelled Pilipino bec "f" doesn't exist in the alphabet. More than 48 dialects are spoken by Filipinos.Tagalog is considered a major dialect of Luzon. Spanish language have been integrated mostly in the Visayan dialects because the previous colonizers had most of the "haciendas" or sugar farms in these places, tobacco plantations in Northern Luzon & rice fields in Central Luzon. Spain brought the Catholic Christian faith and education to the Philipines since 1521 until 1898, that's why in Asia, we had the first university, University of Sto. Thomas, and one of the oldest churches in Iloilo, Miargao. Most preserved beautiful Spanish colonial church architecture is preserved in the Visayas because Manila was heavily bombed during WWII, especially the walled city of Intramuros.

Answer 7

Are u chinese?

anyway... Filipino is the national language, but then we also use English so it can also be counted as a major language.

Spanish isn't that much used now and isn't that much popular as back in the early 1900's i guess. Spain colonized the Philippines. it was only after 300+ years that we got our Spanish independence. So basically they laid down the groundwork for the Filipino psyche today.

Answer 8

the languages spoken here in the philippines are filipino and english.

the spaniards, although conquered the philippines for 333 years, never intended filipinos to become their equals. only the ilustrados (the rich filipinos or spaniards born in the philippines) were given the chance to have education. so even after their 3 century occupation, spanish never really became a major language.

although i remember, it was required to learn spanish in school, after the americans left the country, up to about 1970s.

Answer 9

the philippines national language is filipino. but the medium of instructions in school is english.

major dialects are tagalog, cebuano, ilocano, waray-waray and more.

major foreign language are english, chinese and spanish.

although the philippines is colonized by the spanish for more than 300 yrs. you can hardly find people who can really speak fluent spanish there anymore. although some of the words in our dialects are borrowed by spanish.

Answer 10

tagalog is the national language. there are over 6000 local dialects, like, pangasinan, ilocano, visayan, and too many to list. the spanish were there for about 500 years, and had some influence on the language. the word for work is trabajo, but i think it's spelled different. como esta usted? in spanish is now kumusta? in tagalog. they also use the spanish peso for their money.. there's a lot more info to be found