Spanish language in the Philippines

Spanish in the Philippines
Español de Filipinas.
Spoken in	Philippines
Total speakers	2,500 [1]
Ranking	2-4 (native speakers)[2][3][4][5]
Language family	Indo-European Italic Romance Italo-Western Gallo-Iberian Ibero-Romance West Iberian Spanish Spanish in the Philippines
Writing system	Latin (Spanish variant)
Language codes
ISO 639-1	es
ISO 639-2	spa
ISO 639-3	spa
Spanish-speaking Ilustrados: José Rizal, Marcelo H. del Pilar and Mariano Ponce.
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Spanish in the Philippines was an official language since conquered by Miguel López de Legazpi in the 16th century until the change of Constitution in 1987. The First Philippine Republic of 1899 chose Spanish as its official language, but during the US occupation and administration of the islands English was imposed and Spanish became gradually marginalized. Spanish was never spoken by the majority, or even a large portion, of the Filipino people, despite its place in the Philippines' history.

Spanish was language of government, education and trade throughout the Spanish colonial period and became the lingua franca of the country's elites in the 19th and early 20th centuries, especially that of educated Filipinos and Ilustrados, despite the fact that it wasn't known by the majority of the people. National hero José Rizal and other intellectuals wrote most of their works in Spanish, which was the language of the Philippine Revolution, but not the people. Spanish was also the official language of the independent Philippines, according to the Constitucion de Malolos of 1899.^[6]

Following the Philippine-American War, the U.S. administration gradually imposed English as the official language and medium of instruction in schools and universities. Although the Taft Commission allowed their guests to use the language of their choice^[7], Spanish became increasingly marginalized at an official level. As English and American influenced pop culture became the norm, the use of Spanish in all aspects gradually declined. Spanish remained an official language of government until ratification of a new constitution in 1987 after the fall of the Marcos government.^[8]

There are thousands of Spanish loan words in 170 native Philippine languages, and Spanish orthography has influenced the spelling system used for writing Philippine languages. According to the 1990 Philippine census, there were 2,660 native Spanish speakers in the Philippines.^[9] An additional 607,200 speak Chabacano, a Spanish-based creole. However, the Instituto Cervantes in Manila puts the number of Spanish-speakers in the Philippines in the area of two to three million.^{[10][not in citation given]} which includes non-native speakers as well, meaning Filipinos who speak Spanish as second, or third language.

History

The Spanish colonial period

Miguel Lopez de Legazpi

Spanish was first introduced to the Philippines in 1565, when the conquistador, Miguel López de Legazpi founded the first Spanish settlement on the island of Cebu.^[11] The Philippines, ruled first from Mexico City and later from Madrid, was a Spanish territory for 333 years (1565–1898).^[12] Schooling was a priority, however. The Augustinianss opened a school immediately upon arriving in Cebu in 1565; the Franciscans followed suit when they arrived in 1577, as did the Dominicans when they arrived in 1587. Besides religious instruction, these schools taught how to read and write and imparted industrial and agricultural techniques.^[13]

By law, each town had to build two schools, one for boys and the other for girls, to teach the Spanish language and the Christian catechism. There were never enough trained teachers, however, and several provincial schools were mere sheds open to the rain. This discouraged the attendence at school and illiteracy was high in the provinces until the 19th century, when public education was introduced. The conditions were better in the larger towns. To qualify as an independent civil town, a barrio or group of barrios had to have a priest's residence, a townhall, boys' and girls' schools; streets had to be straight and at right angles to one another so that the town could grow in size; the town had to be near a good water source and land for farming and grazing.^[14]

In the early seventeenth century a Tagalog-Chinese printer, Tomas Pinpin, set out to write a book in romanized phonetic script to teach Tagalogs how to learn Castilian. His book, published by the Dominican press where he worked, appeared in 1610, the same year as Blancas's arte. Unlike the missionary's grammar (which Pinpin had set in type), the Tagalog native's book dealt with the language of the dominant rather than the subordinate other. Pinpin's book was the first such work ever written and published by a Philippine native. As such, it is richly instructive for what it tells us about the interests that animated Tagalog translation and, by implication, Tagalog conversion in the early colonial period. Pinpin construed translation in ways that tended less to oppose than to elude the totalizing claims of Spanish signifying conventions.^{[clarification needed]}.

Better school conditions in towns and cities led to more effective instruction in the Spanish language and in other subjects. Between 1600 and 1865, a number of colleges and universities were established, which graduated many important colonial officials and church prelates, bishops, and archbishops—several of whom served the church in South America. The increased level of education eventually led to the rise of the Ilustrados. In 1846, French traveler Jean Baptiste Mallat was surprised at how advanced Philippine schools were.^[13] In 1865, the government inaugurated the Escuela Normal (English: Normal school), an institute to train future primary school teachers. At the same time, primary schooling was made compulsory for all children.

Spanish was, of course, the language of the Peninsulares and Insulares, but it was also used by mestizos, Indios, chinos, and generally the middle classes. Initially, the stance of the Roman Catholic Church and its missionaries was to preach to the natives in local languages, not in Spanish. The priests learned the native languages and sometimes employed indigenous peoples as translators, creating a bilingual class known as ladinos. Before the 19th century, the natives generally were not taught Spanish. However, there were notable bilingual individuals such as poet-translator Gaspar Aquino de Belén. Gaspar produced Christian devotional poetry written in the Roman script in the Tagalog language. Pasyon is a narrative of the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ begun by Gaspar Aquino de Belén, which has circulated in many versions. Later, the Spanish ballads of chivalry, the corrido, provided a model for secular literature. Verse narratives, or komedya, were performed in the regional languages for the illiterate majority.

First Philippine universities

University of Santo Tomas in Manila

In the 16th and 17th centuries, the oldest educational institutions in the country were set up by Spanish religious orders. These schools and universities played a crucial role in the development of the Spanish language in the islands. The University of San Carlos in Cebu, was established as the Colegio de San Ildefonso in 1595 by the Jesuits. In 1611 the Universidad de Santo Tomas, considered as the oldest existing university in Asia, was inaugurated in Manila by the Dominicans. In the 18th century, fluent male Spanish speakers in the Philippines were generally the graduates of these schools, as well as of the Colegio de San Juan de Letran, established in 1620. In 1706 a Convent School for Philippine women known as Beaterios was established. It admitted both Spanish and native girls, and taught Religion, Reading, Writing and Arithmetic with Music and Embroidery. Female graduates from Beaterios were fluent in the language as well. In 1859 the Ateneo de Manila University was established by the Jesuits.

Spanish public school system

In 1863, Queen Isabel II of Spain decreed the establishment of a public school system, following the requests of the Spanish authorities in the islands, who saw the need of teaching Spanish to the wider population. This measure was at the vanguard of contemporary Asian countries, and led to an important class of educated natives which sometimes followed their studies abroad, like national hero Jose Rizal, who studied in Europe. This class of writers, poets and intellectuals is often referred to as Ilustrados. Ironically, it was during the initial years of American occupation in the early 20th century, that Spanish literature and press flourished. This was the result both of a considerable Spanish-speaking population, as well as the partial freedom of press which the American rulers allowed.

The role of Spanish in rising nationalism

Early flag of the Filipino revolutionaries. The first two constitutions were written in Spanish.

Before the 19th century, Philippine revolts were small-scale and did not extend beyond linguistic boundaries. Thus, they were easily neutralized by Spanish forces^[15]. With the small period of the spread of Spanish through a free public school system (1863) and the rise of an educated class, nationalists from different parts of the archipelago were able to communicate in a common language. José Rizal's novels Noli Me Tangere and El filibusterismo, Graciano López Jaena's satirical articles, Marcelo H. del Pilar's anti-clerical manifestos, the bi-weekly La Solidaridad (published in Spain), and other materials in awakening nationalism were written in Spanish. The Philippine Revolution fought for reforms and later for independence from Spain. However, it did not oppose Spain's small cultural legacy in the islands or the Spanish language.^[16] In fact the Malolos Congress of 1899 chose Spanish as the official language. According to Horacio de la Costa, nationalism would not have been possible without Spanish.^[15] by then increasingly aware of nationalistic ideas and independence movements in other countries.

Propaganda in Spanish

Spanish was used by the first Filipino patriots like José Rizal, Andrés Bonifacio and, to a lesser extent,^[17] Emilio Aguinaldo, who chose Spanish as the official, common, and unifying language of the newly-independent Philippines;^[17][6] previously, this status was accorded to Tagalog.^[6] Spanish was used to write the Constitution of Biak-na-Bato, Malolos Constitution, the original national anthem, (Himno Nacional Filipino), as well as nationalistic propaganda material and literature, like José Rizal's Noli Me Tangere.

During the Spanish colonial era, and also through the early American period, Philippine nationalism, government reforms, the country's first two constitutions and historic novels were written in Spanish. While not widely understood by the majority of the population, Spanish at this time was nonetheless the unifying language since Tagalog was not as prominent or ubiquitous as it is today and each region had their own culture and language, and would rather speak in their local languages. Before the spread of Filipino nationalism, denizens of each region still thought of themselves as Ilocano, Cebuano, Bicolano, etc., and not as Filipinos.

Throughout the colonial era the term Filipino referred only to Insulares, or Philippine-born Spaniards. The majority of the pre-Hispanic native population were referred to as Indios. The Indios in turn referred to the Insulares as Kastila or Katsila.

The Spanish language was taught freely beginning in 1863, when a Spanish public school system was set up for the entire population.^{[citation needed]} The Spanish-speaking Ilustrados, literally "The Enlightened Ones", which included Insulares and Mestizos as well as Indios, were the educated elite who promoted and propagated nationalism and a modern Filipino consciousness.

José Rizal propagated Filipino consciousness and identity in Spanish. One material highly instrumental in developing nationalism was the novel Noli Me Tangere (Latin for "Touch Me Not") which exposed abuses of the Spanish government and clergy. Rizal also promoted the use of the indigenous languages. The novel Noli Me Tangere's very own notoriety among the Spanish authorities, government and clergy, propelled its popularity even more among Filipinos. Reading it was forbidden because it exposed and parodied Spanish clergy and government authority.

The Ilustrados and later writers formed the basis of a Philippine classical literature which developed in the 19th century.

In Manila the Spanish had been more or less widespread, to the point where it has been estimated at around 50% of the population knew Spanish in the late nineteenth century.^[18]

In his 1898 book “Yesterdays in the Philippines”, covering a period beginning in 1893, the American Joseph Earle Stevens, an American who resided in Manila from 1893-1894, wrote: "Spanish, of course, is the court and commercial language and, except among the uneducated native who have a lingua of their own or among the few members of the Anglo-Saxon colony, it has a monopoly everywhere. No one can really get on without it, and even the Chinese come in with their peculiar pidgin variety."^[19]

18-19th century Revolutionary governments

The Tagalog was briefly proclaimed the official language by the revolutionary Tejeros Convention of 1897,^[20]

The revolutionary Malolos Republic (1899) designated the Spanish language for official use.^[6] During the period of 1898-1899, the Malolos republic published a number of laws, acts, decrees, and other official issuances. These were published variously in the Spanish, English, and Tagalog languages, with the Spanish language predominating.^[21]

The American period

With the era of the Philippines as a Spanish colony having just ended, a considerable amount of media, newspapers, radios, and government proceedings were still written and produced in Spanish. Ironically, the partial freedom of press allowed by the American rulers served to further promote Spanish-language literacy among the masses. Even in the early 20th century a hegemony of Spanish was still in force.

Although the English language had begun to be heavily promoted and used as the medium of education and government proceedings, the majority of literature produced by indigenous Filipinos during this period was in Spanish.^[18] Among the great Filipino literary writers of the period were Fernando Ma. Guerrero, Rafael Palma, Cecilio Apóstol, Jesús Balmori, Manuel Bernabé, Trinidad Pardo de Tavera and Teodoro M. Kalaw.^[22] This explosion of Spanish language literature occurred because the Philippine middle and upper classes were educated in Spanish. For the first time, Filipinos experienced a greater degree of freedom of expression and even support, since the Spanish authorities weren't too receptive to Filipino writers and intellectuals during most of the colonial period. As a result, Spanish had become the most important language in the country despite roughly half of the population not speaking the language.

The First Philippine Republic of the Philippine-American War had established Spanish as the official language in its constitution of 1898, drawn up during the Constitutional Convention in Malolos, Bulacan. The nascent Philippine Republic had decided to continue this policy of free universal education, and the officialization of Spanish aimed to increase its speakers so it would serve as a common language in a nation of over 80 different local languages, each with its many dialects.^{[citation needed]}

While the 1903 census officially reported the number of Spanish-speakers at only 1% of the population, it only considered those who were monolingual. It completely disregarded the bilingual population.^{[citation needed]} Furthermore, the Ilustrado class, who were academically instructed in the Spanish language, also used Spanish as their primary language despite having any one of the many native languages as their mother tongue. These together would have placed the numbers at 10% of the 8 million Filipinos of that era as Spanish-speakers.

A 1916 report by Henry Ford to President Woodrow Wilson said

...as I traveled through the Philippine Islands, using ordinary transportation and mixing with all classes of people under all conditions. Although based on the school statistics it is said that more Filipinos speak English than any other language, no one can be in agreement with this declaration if they base their assessment on what they hear...

Spanish is everywhere the language of business and social intercourse...In order for anyone to obtain prompt service from anyone, Spanish turns out to be more useful than English...And outside of Manila it is almost indispensable. The Americans who travel around all the islands customarily use it.^[23]

In 1924, the Philippine Academy of the Spanish Language was created. In 1936, Filipino films in Spanish began to be produced.

Until the Second World War, Spanish was the language of Manila.^[18] Manuel L. Quezon brought a Spanish dictionary to the United States when he was in exile, as he was more fluent in Spanish than in English.^{[citation needed]}

After the war, the English-speaking U.S. having won three wars (in 1898, against Spain; in 1902 against the Filipino independence; in 1945 against Japan) the English language was imposed.^[18]

Decline of the Spanish language

Spanish declined in the 20th century due to the imposition of English as the official language and medium of instruction in schools and universities. Although the Spanish language flourished in the first two decades of the 20th century due to the partial freedom of press, the American administration increasingly forced editorials and newspapers to switch to English, leaving Spanish in a marginal position. By the 1940s as children educated in English became adults, the Spanish language became progressively out of use. Still, a significant community of Filipino Spanish-speakers lived in the bigger cities. However, with the destruction of Intramuros by the US Air Force during the Second World War, the heart of the Spanish language of the Philippines was dismantled. Many Spanish-speaking Filipino families perished during the bombing, and those who survived were forced to migrate in the later years. In 1973, Spanish lost its status as an official language of the Philippines.^[8] The 21st century has seen a revival of interest in the language, with the numbers of those studying it formally at college or taking private courses rising markedly in recent years.

Today

Today, the Philippine constitution provides that Spanish shall be promoted on a voluntary and optional basis.^[24] A great portion of the history of the Philippines is written in Spanish and, up until recently, many land titles, contracts, newspapers and literature were still written in Spanish.^[25] Today, Spanish is being revived in the Philippines, by making it a compulsory subject in school.^[26]

Characteristics of Philippine Spanish

Since the Philippines was a former territory of the Viceroyalty of New Spain (1565-1821) for most of the Spanish colonial period, Spanish as was spoken in the Philippines had a greater affinity to Mexican Spanish rather than that of European Spanish.

Phonology

When pronouncing Spanish words (such as names of people or places), there are tendencies among the majority non-Spanish-speaking population to employ the phonologies of their respective native languages, for example, of Tagalog, Cebuano, or Ilocano.

As was the case in all varieties of the language, Spanish as was spoken in the Philippines used to distinguish between ll and y.^[27][28] This distinction is maintained when transliterating Spanish words using Filipino orthography, except in a few notable cases such as kabayo (from caballo, "horse") and sibuyas (from cebollas, "onions").

Vocabulary

There are Native Americanisms, archaisms and borrowings from indigenous Philippine languages. In fact, of the great number of Spanish loan words that exist in the various Filipino languages, a few are actually of Nahuatl origin that were first incorporated into Mexican Spanish and do not have origins in European Spanish.^[29] These include nanay(nantl), tatay (tatle), bayabas [from guayaba(s), guava], papaya, zapote, etc.

Writing

Philippine computer keyboards currently and have always used the US standard layout, which includes neither ñ nor combining diacritics. Typewriters sometimes include the ñ but not accented vowels. For this reason, diacritic marks are almost always left out, save for the tilde on the ñ. Spanish words however are vocally stressed by older generations as they would be by Spanish speakers.

Influence on the languages of the Philippines

There are approximately 4,000 Spanish words in Tagalog, and around 6,000 Spanish words in Visayan and other languages. The Spanish counting system, calendar, time, etc. are still in use with slight modifications. Archaic Spanish words have been preserved in Tagalog and the other vernaculars such as pera (coins), sabon [jabón (at the beginning of Spanish rule, the j used to be pronounced [ʃ], the voiceless postalveolar fricative or the "sh" sound) - soap], relos [reloj (with the j sound) - watch], kwarta (cuarta), etc. The Spaniards and the language are referred to as either Kastila or Katsila (especially in most Visayan languages) after Castilla or Castile, the original Spanish Kingdom under which Spain was unified in 1492, which later became a Spanish region.

Chavacano, also called Zamboangueño, is a Spanish-based creole language spoken mainly in the southern province of Zamboanga and, to a much lesser extent, in the province of Cavite in the northern region of Luzon.^[30] Chavacano became the main language in the Zamboanga peninsula as a result of the migration into the area of a large number of workers who came from different linguistic regions to build military and other Spanish establishments.

Meaning changes

While many Spanish words have made their way to Philippine languages, many of these words have had a shift in meaning from the original Spanish. This has resulted in false friends, related words that exist in two languages with different meanings. A sampling of these words are shown below:

False cognates

The following words do not fall under false friends. They are still a source of confusion:

List of Spanish words of Philippine origin

Although the greatest linguistic impact and wordloans have been from Spanish to the languages of the Philippines, the Filipino languages have also loaned some words to Spanish.

Following are some of the words of Philippine origin that can be found in the DRAE (the dictionary published by the Royal Spanish Academy):

• abacá (from Abaká)
• baguio (from bagyo), typhoon/hurricane
• barangay (from Balangay, Balanghai)
• bolo, a big knife or short sword
• carabao (from kalabaw)
• caracoa, (from Karakau) small barge
• cogón, (from Kogon) a grass
• gumamela, a flower (hibiscus)
• paipay, (from Pamaypay) a kind of fan
• palay, unhusked rice
• pantalán, wooden pier
• sampaguita, a flower
• yoyó

See also

• Philippine Academy of the Spanish Language
• Latin Union
• Filipinas, Ahora Mismo
• Chavacano language

References

Bibliography

• Escalante, Rene R. (2007), The Bearer of Pax Americana: The Philippine Career of William H. Taft, 1900-1903, Quezon City, Philippines: New Day Publishers, http://books.google.com/books?id=obZwAAAAMAAJ  ISBN 9711011662, ISBN 9789711011666.
• Forbes, William Cameron (1945), The Philippine Islands, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, http://books.google.com/books?id=HBpbAAAAIAAJ .
• Guerrero, León María (1987), The First Filipino, a Biography of José Rizal, National Heroes Commission, http://books.google.com/books?id=EPw1AAAAIAAJ .

External links

• The Teaching of Spanish in the Philippines, UNESCO, February 1968
• Guillermo Gómez Rivera, Statistics: Spanish Language in the Philippines, Spanish culture and language in the Philippines, Geocities.com
• List of Tagalog words of Spanish origin, self-published, tripod.com
• Círculo Hispanofilipino, a group which aims to preserve and revive the use of the Spanish language in the Philippines.
• Alas Filipinas, the first and only Spanish blog in the Philippines.

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