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KeithD
8th October 2014, 18:22
As an archipelago consisting of 7,107 islands, the Philippines is considered diverse in terms of spoken languages. Its diversity was due to the pre-historic events, the topographical situation and the colonization of different foreign countries. Along with the culture acquisition, through the years, many cultural groups developed their own languages. There are 185 distinct languages in the Philippines identified by Ethnologue; however, some are no longer spoken. Here are the lists of widely used languages as being categorized according to its function.


National and official languages. Filipino and English are constitutionally designated as the national and official languages of the Philippines. Filipino is the formal name of Tagalog. It is called Filipino when it is used to differentiate languages of another country, whereas in differentiating languages within the country it is called Tagalog. Filipino is the official language in education, broadcast media and cinema. It is widely used as the first language by over one-third of the Philippine population, spoken and written in Manila as the capital city of the Philippines. As the second language, English is used also in education, government, religion, and economy.


Regional Languages. The major languages of the northern region are Ilokano, Tagalog, Kapampanganang Pangasinan languages which are located in the northern and central Luzon. The largest group of central languages is the Bicol and Visayan Languages which are composed of Cebuano, Hiligaynon, and Waray. While the southern languages include Maranao and Subanon which are concentrated in Mindanao. Through time major languages are being broken down into various indigenous languages which are called dialect (native to a particular place or ethnic group).


Major Foreign Languages. Philippines is an open country for trade and business, education and tourism. Many foreign individual lived here permanently, making this country known as having the most hospitable people. Through this reason foreign languages developed and still continue to spread. In fact, there are some schools taught foreign languages. Mandarin Chinese is the medium instruction in Chinese schools. Arabic is used by some Filipino Muslim in both liturgical and instructional since the arrival of Islam. There are some Japanese descendants makes their language active until now. Malay/Indonesian is spoken in the southernmost part of the county. Spanish still exists, but not widely used.


Regardless of the differences in languages, What’s important is the unity of the people to achieve a common goal for the goodness of the country.


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