Languages Spoken in the Philippines

The Philippines are known for lots of things, from cheap airplane tickets to gorgeous beaches. And they are also known for the insane amount of spoken languages in the country – depending on who you ask and what you count, there are anywhere between 120 and 187 spoken languages in the region.

But why is that? Is there one single language that you can expect every Filipino person to speak? And just how prevalent is English in the country? You will get the answers to all those questions below, so read on to learn more about the languages spoken in the Philippines!

The Official Language

The official language in the Philippines is Filipino. It is based on Tagalog, which is the most widely spoken language in the country. Approximately 28 million people consider Tagalog their first language, while some 45 million speak it as their second language. However, it is important to remember that there are more than 100 different languages in the Philippines, and you should never just assume that someone speaks Tagalog.

The standard Filipino language is constantly evolving. It gets enriched by the other Philippine languages, and we can already notice some varieties of Filipino that have different grammatical properties from Tagalog.

In addition to that, English is the second language in the country, and it is spoken by the majority of the population. English has a long tradition in the Philippines, which dates back to the American occupation in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. But more on that later!

Filipino wasn’t always the official language in the country. For quite some time before that, English was the dominant language in the country. Before that, it was Spanish. And if you are up for a quick lesson on the linguistic history of the Philippines, I’m pretty sure you’re going to enjoy the rest of this article!

The Many Languages of the Philippines

I told you at the beginning that there are between 120 and 187 different spoken languages in the Philippines. The vast majority of those are native to the country, but Spanish, English, Mandarin, and a few others are spoken by a large part of the population. In fact, English is still one of the main languages in the country, and a lot of people in the Philippines can speak it.

When it comes to native Philippine languages, there are four that have about 9 million native speakers – Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilocano and Hiligaynon. There are ten additional languages that have anywhere from 1 to 3 million native speakers, and those are Waray, Bikol, Kapampangan, Maranao, Tausug, Maguindanao, Chavacano, Karay-a, and Surigaonon. Over 90% of the population in the Philippines can speak one or more of these languages fluently.

However, it is important to note that many of the 120 different Philippine languages differ vastly from one another. There is even more dialectal variation from language to language, especially with the languages of the Bicol region. And not only do those languages differ among themselves, but they are also extremely different from the official language.

Impact Of Colonization

Spanish colonial rule had the largest impact on the languages in the Philippines. Spanish was the official language of the country for over three centuries, and in 1863 there was even a free public school that taught the students Spanish. In the early 20^th century more than 60% of the population spoke Spanish as their first, second, or third language, which goes to show just how widespread it was.

But that didn’t last for too long. The American occupation of the Philippines began in the late 19^th century, and it lasted well into mid-20^th century. During that time, English was widely taught in public schools, and Americans created all sorts of incentives for Filipinos to learn English. This included career opportunities, politics, and various government services.

The American occupation was a difficult time for native Philippine languages. The Americans found them to be rather difficult, and there were just too many of them. This lead to a creation of a monolingual system centered around English, with some rather strict rules that incentivized people to speak English. It became the language synonymous with higher education and better opportunities, which ultimately lead Filipinos to embrace colonialism.

Keep in mind that this wasn’t just an introduction to the English language for the people in the Philippines. This was also the first time they were exposed to American customs and tradition, after more than three centuries of Spanish rule. People started to learn about an entirely different way of life, and it was that knowledge that ultimately separated an educated Filipino from the masses.

Tagalog was officially proclaimed as the basis of a national language in 1939, but English remained the dominant language even in the 1970s. But the reasons for that shifted – the 70’s saw the arrival of President Ferdinand Marcos’ dictatorship. He embraced English, but for the wrong reasons as his main goal was to force people to learn English and then advertise them as cheap labor that speaks your language.

After The Dictatorship

The dictatorship lasted for about two decades and after that period, things started to change for the better for native Philippine languages. The 1987 Constitution proclaimed Filipino as the official language of the country, and in 1991 the Commission on the Filipino Language was formed.

It’s worth noting that they started off with Tagalog as the official language but changed the name to Pilipino and then to Filipino, in order to make it less regionalistic. This would encourage more people who are not from the Tagalog region to accept it as the official language, which in turn made it the most widespread language in the country.

But, even though Filipino is the official language of the country today, English is still spoken by the majority of people. I think it’s safe to say that you will be able to interact with most locals if you speak nothing other than English, especially in the more urban regions like Manila and Cebu. It doesn’t hurt to learn some key Filipino phrases, but you shouldn’t just expect that people all over the country speak it fluently.