Why did the Spanish preserve and not destroy the flipino native languages?

Question

Today, most Filipinos do not speak a word of Spanish but speak in their native dialects -- Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilonggo, Ilocano, etc. In other former Spanish and Portuguese colonies in Latin America, the native dialects seem to have died out, and Spanish and Portuguese are the vernacular, or am I wrong?

Just seems so odd that they pretty much wiped out the old culture but left the languages intact. If they did it to keep the natives ignorant, why isn't this the case in Mexico, Brazil and other Latin American countries? Did the missionaries just not bother to learn the native languages? Or was their military conquest so complete, they could afford to destroy erase the old languages and not pit one tribe against another as they did in the Philippines?

Answer 1

It's like during the period of slavery in America where the owners punished slaves who tried to read and cut off fingers for those who wanted to learn how to write.

Unlike communism where the USSR made it a point for the masses to be educated, the Spanish at that time wanted to keep the people ignorant by not giving them access to their language as well as subjugating them mentally with their religion. From another point view, Filipinos did not want to learn Spanish because it was a form of rebellion towards the Spanish colonists. Actually a Filipino chieftain killed Magellan, the spaniard who discovered the country.

Answer 2

The native dialects didn't died out, about 5 or 10% of Latin Americans still speak native languages. And the reason the other Latin Americans don't speak native languages, is that they are not natives, so I don't see why they should speak native languages.

EDITION
To you, or whoever that gaved me a bad thumb. You can't compare Philippines with Latin America. Philippines was a colony of Spain, but it wasn't settled by Spanish. Hundred of thousands of Spanish and Portuguese moved to Latin America, and they communicated among themselfes in their native languages: that is: Spanish and Portuguese. Only the natives kept talking on their native language. People of mixed race would also speak in Spanish, because that was the stablishment language. And most Latin Americans are of mixed race. By the way, in some countries, like Cuba or Brazil, the natives were massacred, how would their language survive? If you don't like it, swallow it.

Answer 3

The Europeans were round a entire lot longer than America - but we now have succeeded in blending each and every viable tradition and ethnicity into one typical individuals and one typical language - Americans and English. And in just a little over 2 hundred years we now have controversial turn out to be the finest country on this planet - a literal magnet for immigrants, each authorized and unlawful. Why might we desire to difference or undertake insurance policies that have no longer traditionally produced nations as nice as ours? As some distance as a moment language, right here within the north east, I suspect French might be the option. In different sections of the nation, I'm definite they might have one other tackle whether or not Spanish will have to or should not be the moment local language relying at the percent of extraordinary cultures that have settled there.

Answer 4

Two reasons, basically. First of all, Spanish rule in the Philippines was tenuous and their control did not extend much further than Manila. The Philippines were really more in the Portuguese sphere of influence and belonged to Portugal according to the original Papal Bull inter caetera agreement of 1497 between the Pope, Spain and Portugal. However, later, the Spanish edged the Portuguese out of there. Spain's claim to the Philippines was based on Magellan's expedition there in 1521.

Secondly, the Spanish had somewhat of a tendency to "go native" . They would often intermarry with the native peoples they encountered in their colonies and adopt some of their culture too. Only the French and Portuguese were greater at this than the Spanish. Quechua and Guarani are still alive and well in several South American countries desite Spanish colonization.

Answer 5

Spaniards who came here in the philippines were missionaries and they speak in the native tongue of the people in order for them to be understood. The secular Spanish who came here in the late nineteenth century where not so numerous and had a little impact in the Filipino society. And most Filipinos in the provinces during that time were uneducated

Also when the Spanish conquered the Philippines they have a hard time destroying the natives. Believe me philippines is smaller than Mexico but they had hard time conquering this 7,107 islands.

Answer 6

Spaniards were not so interested in wiping out the natives (as English men seem). Yes, there were debates about whether natives were humans or not. But they "left" them use their language. Of course, with a limitant: Spanish was going to the be language to be used.
And the influence of Spanish language in languages like Nahuatl or Mixtec is so huge, that it can be compared to English respect to Cornish.
I don't rally know the case of the Philippines. But at least in Mexico, they could still use their language. The problem for them is that it has always been as slummy.

Answer 7

I agree with the above. I'd like to add that i feel geography had a part. The Philippines is an archipelago of over 7,000 islands and it was probably more diffficult to erradicate the many languages and dialects as many islands were left relatively untouched.

Answer 8

they left that language intact because they looked down on the filipinos [calling them indios]. they refused to teach spanish to the natives because they thought it would give them the power to rebel against them. being able to speak spanish was a sign of being educated.