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Latin Asia is a term used to designate the countries of Asia that are heavily influenced by nations whose languages are one of the modern-day Romance languages. Unlike the rest of the Latin world, French, Portuguese, and Spanish and are not the prevalent languages in daily speech. Rather, these are just one of the official languages of the country or territory. Others have even completely eliminated the official functions of the language yet these languages remain to be a strong minority.
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Countries by Linguistic Affiliation
French
French is important in the former colony of Indochina. Today, the French language has an official status in Lebanon. It is also preserved in some countries in Southeast Asia, especially Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia, which all belonged to the former French Indochina.
French also remains an important language in the territory known as French India.
Portuguese
Unlike Spanish and French, Portuguese remains an official language to the former colonies of the Portuguese Empire. Today, it is an official language of two states in Asia, specifically Timor Leste, Macau. It is also preserved in Goa, India and some parts of Malaysia, especially in the state of Malacca. Portuguese also has a moderate influence in Japanese.
Spanish
The Philippines is the only colony of the Spanish Empire in Asia. Hence, the Philippines is the only country in Asia that has a strong Spanish influence both in culture, religion, people, and in language.
Today, the promotion of Spanish is mentioned in the constitution as to be of voluntary basis only . The Philippines also maintains an organisation called the Philippine Academy of the Spanish Language, which corresponds to the Royal Spanish Academy of Spain. It also maintains membership to the Latin Union because of its historical affiliation with Spain. Moreover the Philippines is a member of Hispanidad comprising all countries with hispanic culture.
During the Presidency of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, moves were done to re-introduce the language in the curriculum.
Spanish was official in the Philippines until 1986 and it was taught as a compulsory subject until 1987.
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