The People's Republic of China (China) has Mandarin as their official National Language. China also has a myriad of dialects... but for some logical reason - they picked (or maybe voted) Mandarin to be their National Language? Why? Mostly because the majority of the Chinese population uses/speaks/understands Mandarin.

I don't mean to be regionalistic or something - I just want to be logical. China, India and Indonesia (and so did other countries) picked a dialect that was the "most-used" to be their National Language and if that logic is applied in the Philippines, then the most widely-used/spoken/understood dialect should be chosen as the Official National Language. Right?

Just thought of this off-topic joke below: 2
There were these 3 Filipino girls, and they were the ugliest Filipino girls ever! They finally got so tired of being ugly that they decide to go to the plastic surgeon for help. The doctor looks at them and says, "Well, this is a tough one, but this is what you have to do; jump into a river and say the name of someone you think is beautiful and you will look exactly like that person."

So the first one goes and says "Britney Spears" and when she gets out of the water she looked just like Britney Spears.

Then the second one went and she said "Alyssa Milano" and became Alyssa Milano.

Then came the third one... When she jumped into the river (being so terrified of high places and all) said "AY TAE!" (means $hit)

No offense but I didn't get the joke. Maybe I'm just slow. Anyway, in my opinion, it's just logical that we use the most-spoken language in our country as our national language. Is it English or Cebuano? But we should put in our minds that this will cost us a thick amount of money. This is an important issue but not as urgent as other issues we have in the Philippines. Maybe we should let charter change get passed first then we talk about English... or Cebuano.

Personally I think its far too late to change the national language. Changing it to cebuano will only create the same problem, this wont fix anything.

Its hard to admit but i say lets give Pilipino aka tagalog a chance.

It would never happen, ya just can't force someone to abandon their own dialect
that's just wrong n wrong...

Niether Tagalog or Cebuano should be the national language.


I'd be wary of Philippine government censuses that say Tagalog has more native speakers than Cebuano. I think the government is manipulating the numbers to make it appear as tho Tagalog is the leader in terms of numbers. One in three Manileños speaks another Philippine language. It could be that they count all those people in Manila as native speakers of Tagalog.


Many native speakers of Cebuano don't identify as Cebuano, that is, they don't think of themselves as people from Cebu but more they think of themselves as Mindanao Visayans, Bol-anons, Leyteños etc.

the United States has no National Language

India has 24 national languages





or we can just create a whole new language,

i think its too late to change our national language to something else

if there's one thing that needs to be modified, then it should be the spanish last names that we have...change them back to filipino

Oh and then what erase the spanish names of places, the country, eradicate the spanish words in the vocabulary etc.????

What would this really achieve other than mass confusion??

I say leave it as is and just work with what we have.

Damn, if we altered all of that, it would be quite perplexing. I agree that we should just keep them the way they are.

well i was just merely suggesting to change our last names to filipino names so we would have more of an identity outside the philippines....spanish places and words are fine...just our names

But why exactly? to achieve what?? to be more ..er.. Filipino<-- spanish influenced word

yeah, to be more filipino...arent u guys proud of your culture?? and with filipino names, those ignorant fools wouldnt mistake us for hispanics

by the way, it was just a suggestion...i just wanted people to avoid those freakin what-are-filipino issues n make them talk about something else

First off why should you even care what other people think??? an idiot will be idiot let live with thier ignorance.

As much of an inconvenience it is to u our colonial history is and will always be a part of us. I dont think we should be ashamed of it after all it is probobly the only thing that unites us.

my mexican friends ask, why ppl call us filipinos & ppl dont call them mexicanos

what are regularly called then???

^Mexicans

beaner, wet backs ..........lol just kiddin

Haha, I still don't understand the origin of the 'wet back' term for Mexicans.

Filipino based from Tagalog dialect

since Tagalog is the most widely used in both written , oral, literature

I think Cebuano is the most widely spoken dialect in the Phil. And I think changing our national language to Cebuano is a good idea. Majority of the people in Visayas and Mindanao speaks Cebuano or Bisaya and many of them experienced a hard time in speaking and understanding Tagalog.

Since English is the universal language, and there are about 35 million Filipinos who speak and understand English, so why not make English as the primary language of the Philippines? If English is the primary language, who knows, the Filipinos might be united after all.

There are about 250+ languages in the United States, but the primary language is English. Philippines, on the other hand, has over 100 languages and dialects, so I guess it would be better off if the Philippines have one primary langauge which would be English. This way you don't see the Tagalogs telling the Ilocanos, Cebuanos or the other Filipinos to speak Tagalog when he or she is trying make a conversation. (No offense to Tagalog, but when I was talking to my friend, we were talking in Ilocano, but then our Tagalog speaking "friend" butt-in in our conversation and demanded us to speak Tagalog even though he knows that the person i was talking to doesn't speak Tagalog that well).


BTW, to make the Filipino language acceptable to all Filipinos, the "expert" of the Filipino language are adding some words from other languages to the national langauge. But this is all BS because Filipino is all based in Tagalog. In the Filipino-English dictionary, I don't see the words "Maanyag (Cebuano)," or "Napintas (Ilocano)," or "Masampat (Kapampangan)"

IMHO, there is no such thing as Filipino language. When people ask me if I speak Filipino, I answered them, "No, I don't speak Filipino, but I speak Tagalog (which by the way is my third language).

Every "Linggo ng Wika," they always say, "Mahalin natin ang ating sariling wika."
Well, Ilocano is my langauge, and proud of it.

Most Filipinos (as "educated" as we are) understand English fairly well... hehe... so English is an alternative... I mean we could use English as our National Language... again no offense to Cebuano-speaking and Tagalog-speaking people.

Pilipino (or the language that's always mistaken as Tagalog) is one of the most incomplete languages in the world:
In Pilipino, the word husband is equal to "awawa" - and it is the same as wife.
In Visayan, husband is "bana", and wife is "asawa".

thier backs are wet from crossing the river to cross the border, Rio Grande i think

USA and the Philippines are different. Majority of the Americans are original or native speakers of English language, Pinoy are not. I think we must base our national language to a dialect natively spoken by the majority of the Pilipino.

Tagalog: Not the most widely spoken, but it is spoken the most in the NCR, which is the economic centre of the Philippines and where the federal government is located. You can't afford to have confusion in this part of the country, unless the change is done slowly. allso, i don't understand bisaya.. so please... lol. also, most filpinos know how to speak tagalog anyways (since it's the national language)

Cebuano: Most widely spoken. However, changing the official language to Cebuano will be a hard and complicated process for filipinos.

English: most people speak english as a second language, and using english would unite the country, but at the same time, getting rid of local languages will make the american influence on the philippines even greater.

Spanish: lol. no.

Some hybrid language like mandarin: could fly... again it might cause confusing but all sides will be satisfied. also, by mixing the dialects, you could get the sexiest sounding word from each dialect.

Then we must also transfer our capital..transfer it somewhere in Visayas or Mindanao...lol.. Government in the Phil is not federal I think. Three major cities (Cebu, Davao and CDO) that used bisaya as a native language is also an economic center so probably the change is just proper. Confusion can be eliminated by introducing bisaya in our schools while we still use tagalog language, then, maybe after ten generations, we can use bisaya as a national language.

maybe after ten generations, we can use bisaya as a national language.

ten generations?

we might be speaking some alien language at that time

Don't worry, it will never happen, unless an alien being will envade us in the next five years. Ten generation is no more than 20 years I guess..

lol 20 yrs, is only about 2 generations

maybe 100 yrs...?

U.S.A. (United States of Antarctica) will be the world super power by that time

I see..I was wrong..so maybe what I meant is five generation..

United States of Antartica??? Maybe.. I guess the more likely is FRE (Federal Republic of Earth).

I think it's quite too late to change our National Language right now. 90% of Filipinos are now bilingual, like what RL33, it would just create confusion. All we need to do is to accept that Filipino was based on Tagalog. Nuff of the strong regionalism

Fukien anyone? Para hindi na mag-away ang mga Tagalog, Bisaya, Ilocano, etc.... Hehehe... English and Spanish, marami ring magagalit if ever yan ang papalit.

Come on dudes, Manuel L Quezon even said that if ever Mangyan will be the chosen national language, then he is willing to learn it. Why can't we all be like him?

Mexicans are called "wet backs" because they sweat a lot and their backs are wet with sweat. But do you know why they sweat a lot? That's because most of them don't have cars, they just walk the streets from point A to point B. Secondly, most of them do manual labor. And lastly, when they cross the border - do you think they ride on an air-conditioned BMW?

oh ok^

Not really, just like starting anew. There will be no confusion if the transition is carefully carried out.

Its not that its too late to change but that many tagalog speakers would not be willing to learn Bisaya as "Some" view it as being low class.

almost 90 million Filipinos compared to the less that 20 million Filipinos duriing the time of Quezon.

Acceptance ang kailangan. Marami na rin ang at least "familiar" sa Tagalog. Let's say masmarami ang native speakers ng Bisaya kesa sa Tagalog, but the point is, masmaraming at least "familiar" sa Tagalog kesa sa Bisaya.

Mahilig kasi sa bigotry ang Pinoy.

i say let nature determine which language should rule the philippines by not making either tagalog or bisaya official for a certain time and see which language spreads faster and is more accepted.

I totally disagree about viewing bisaya as a low class language. It is a fine language, finer than tagalog.

If the transition will happen, tagalog speakers have no choice but to learn it, no matter what they think about bisaya dialect.



Malaki ang kaibahan sa salita na pamilyar mo sa salita na talagang gamit mo. Makikita natin ito sa ating edukasyon. Mas madali tayong matuto pag talagang saliring wika mo ang gamit sa pagtuturo kesa wika na pamilyar mo lang. So ibig sabihin mas malaking bilang ng Pinoy ang may tamang edukasyon dahil sa karamihan na atin ay natural na nagsasalita sa wika na ginagamit ng ating aklat.

Kaya nga sa previous post ko sinabi ko na probably 5 decades is more than enough para matutuhan mga Pinoy ang bagong wika kung ito ay babaguhin.

You may not see it that way but alot of tagalogs do.....its just one of those things you tend to notice when you hand around them alot.

I know.. Even some of bisaya-nga-dako itself also considered it as low class. We can't blame them as they can't blame me in viewing tagalog as a poor choice to be national language. No offense to tagalog people.

I dont know about visayan languages as being low class, but to me nothing sounds more low class than Tag-lish its "$hit".

Agree!!!

Taglish like how this Kris Aquino speaks on TV? LOL. She sounds so "KORNI" speaking Taglish. I used to hate Sharon Cuneta speak Taglish, but this Kris Aquino way surpassed Sharon's "yucky" style.

No naman! you are so madali to judge the preferences of us to speak kung ano ang like namin, no! 2

dunno! Tagalog/Filipino is okay.. it's just that some have been prejudiced about it being the National language.. imperial manila ek-ek, right. Or population count as basis... more Visayans so let's make Bisaya as national language, or more Ilokanos, so let's make Ilokano the National Language...

what makes us think that once we change the NL, the Bicolanos would not develop the same mindsets as those who rejects Tagalog/Filipino as NL now?

Why not intensify the usage of the current NAtional Language? why not instead of fueling the imperialistic manila idea, just use the National Language... why not support it?

As i see it, the reason why it is not as nationwide as it ought to be is because people keep on perpetuating mindsets that their dialect should be this or that language!

it doesn't mean that you'll be forgetting your own dialect, you get to use it once you go home from school after all... you are just to learn the national language so that you can communicate with your own people found accross the country...

i'll point out the way the japanese made it to their advantage (again as i believe i wrote about it previously). The Japaneses learned english so they can negotiate with the rest of the world of their technological creations...

in local, version, say, learn tagalog or english to barter with the rest of the Philippines your products or inventions... ganun lang... so you can broaden your market so to speak, kung may ibinibenta ka....

We never think like that. We based it on a simple logic, if bisaya>tagalog then use bisaya. We are on a democratic country, majority are supposed to prevail. If Bicolanos don't like it, let them do. We don't care.




Why intensify the usage when there is a language more appropriate to be our national language than that language? Why support it when there is greater language spoken by a greater number and area in the country?

As I also see, the reason why tagalog is not nationwide is because it was a poor choice as our national language. It exist only on a few parts of Luzon. Whereas, Bisaya exists on a greater part of Mindanao and Visayas.




Do you know why we can negotiate to rest of the world using English? Its because many nations in the world speaks english, while japanese language was spoken only in Japan. Like here in the Philippines, many regions and provinces used Binisaya as their primary language than tagalog. We don't need to learn tagalog to sell our products, since majority of the market here in the Philippines natively speak Binisaya.

What I want to point out is there is a big possibility that our country will prosper and can produce more talented Filipino if only our National Language is natively spoken by the majority of the Filipino. Mindanao is potentially richer than Luzon in terms of resources. We can actually live progressively and peacefully without Manila.

let's just follow what the United States did....No official language

I think English is the official language of US...

no

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_language



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_count...political_issue : i've just added the Philippines, lol

Nope they dont have one but it is "unoffcialy" though, but really who are they fooling hahaahaha

^the spanish speaking ppl of the US(who will get mad if they made english as the sole official language)

last time they were debating this at FoxNews