By Peter La. Julian
Northern Luzon Bureau
BATAC, Ilocos Norte–Instead of focusing solely on the national language, Filipino, the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino (KWF or Commission on the Filipino Language) has revised its vision toward the development, propagation, and preservation of the country’s more than 179 dialects and regional languages.
“The KWF leadership has agreed to establish a center for information, documentation, and research on the languages and various literatures of the Philippines,” said Dr. Ricardo Ma. Nolasco, KWF chairman.
Nolasco, a Bicolano who spoke in Filipino, delivered the keynote address in a recent international gathering here of 182 Filipino educators, scholars, and writers from the Ilocos, Cagayan Valley, Cordillera, the United States, and Japan.
Called “Nakem” (consciousness or maturity in Iloko), the three-day affair tackled, beside the Ilocano diaspora, the state of Philippine dialects and languages, and was held at the Mariano Marcos Memorial State University here.
Nolasco said the center, to be established within three years, will create original and model dictionary, grammar, and orthography (spelling), scholarly journals and literacy materials and references for teaching various disciplines.
He said the center will be a storehouse of data on various dialects and languages, equipped with audio and video recording of communicative events, including annotations and commentaries.
The project is in line with the policy, “Isang Bansa, Maraming Wika” (One Nation, Many Languages), which is the basis for this year’s language theme, “Many Languages, Strong Country,” Nolasco said.
He said English, as one of the country’s official languages, would also be enhanced.
He said the policy has been formulated in keeping with the fact that the Filipino is multi-lingual and multi-cultural and that the country’s having more than 170 dialects and regional languages is not a handicap but a big advantage.
“It is ordinary for a Filipino to know how to speak two or more languages,” Nolasco said, citing the case of President Macapagal-Arroyo who can speak Kapampangan, Sinebwano, Iloko, Tagalog, English, and Spanish.
He said, however, that the country has a national language, Filipino, that has become a common language for various ethno-linguistic groups.
He nevertheless admitted that Filipino is simply Tagalog in syntax and grammar, with no grammatical element or lexicon coming from Iloko, Sinebwuano, Ilonggo, and other major Philippine languages.
This is contrary to the intention, he said, of Republic Act 7104 that requires that the national language should be developed and enriched by the lexicon of the country’s other dialects and languages.
The KWF is working toward that direction and would conduct research and studies not only on the national language but also on the country’s dialects and languages, Nolasco said.
August 20th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
Language is one of the tools who made us unique as people in the Philippines.The preservation of RP’s other language is a great move.As though our official language must be English that made Filipinos well verse,well adjusted,well known,language gifted.
Go on!We are proud being Filipino here in China
June 13th, 2007 at 5:11 am
And along with their knowledge, the Filipino children will learn about the ways, the cultural heritage of all Filipinos…their songs, their tulaan or poetry, their customs and traditions that have been burried under the onslought of spanish culture that Spain brought to the Philippines. I like to see how different ethnic groups way of naming or callling one another, formally and informally. I like to know if they can trace their ancestors through their names and what other racial lines do they have, malay, chinese, hindus, or what not. It is nice to see how their songs sounds so that our youth can hear them, listen to them, and from them, create their own unique songs, the blending of different tribes’ music, which they can then call their own, as Filipinos. To this day I marble at how some Filipinos can speak multilanguages, the northern dialects and mixes them up with the Tagalog. Preserving them, indexing them in the historical records of the Philippines will provide reach resources for cultural enlightenment of the next generations of Filipinos. Who knows, we may turn out to be a strong people who although many of our young girls marry foreigners, their children will know their mother’s heritage and will be proud of it. Out of this chaos, of allegations of corruptions and moral degradation of present day Filipino societies a renessaince will emerge as the result of our willingness to reflect and discuss as to who we are as a people. There are some pain along the way for many us have been children of mixed marriages between the subjugated and the subjugating colonizer. But I think that make us more unique among the peoples of the world because we are free to gather and glean for what’s beautiful from among the arays of cultural influences our diverse ancestors left us.
I am very much in favor of this move. And some of their vocabulary words and expression can be incorporated to what we consider as the Filipino language. Language is dynamic and fluid. It is continuously growing according to the needs of the people to communicate. This move should make us better communicate with one another as a people.
June 11th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
Many languages are even virtually unknown or wrongly classified. Ilonggo is not a language , it refers to a group of people who lives in Iloilo. Their language is Hiligaynon, a child language of Kinaray-a.
This endeavor will not only preserve our languages but will also highlight and enhance the cultural diversity we have in the Philippines.