عنوان

Language, Tagalog Regionalism, and Filipino Nationalism: How a Language-Centered Tagalog Regionalism Helped to Develop a Philippine Nationalism

TL49661

انگلیسی

Language, Tagalog Regionalism, and Filipino Nationalism: How a Language-Centered Tagalog Regionalism Helped to Develop a Philippine Nationalism

[Thesis]

Christopher James Porter

Maier, Hendrik MJ

University of California, Riverside

2017

83

Committee members: Biggs, David A.; See, Sarita E.

Place of publication: United States, Ann Arbor; ISBN=978-0-355-29469-9

M.A.

Southeast Asian Studies

University of California, Riverside

2017

The nation-state of the Philippines is comprised of thousands of islands and over a hundred distinct languages, as well as over a thousand dialects of those languages. The archipelago has more than a dozen regional languages, which are recognized as the lingua franca of these different regions. For example, when one wanders the streets of Cavite, one will hear the natives speaking the Tagalog language, but if you are in Bacolod, the language that you will hear is Hiligaynon/Ilonggo. Such is the case for more than a dozen different regions in the Philippine archipelago. Now this phenomenon is not singular to the Philippines, but is also true for many other nation-states in Maritime Southeast Asia. The Philippines, unlike the other nation-states that comprise what has come to be known as Southeast Asia, is a predominantly Christian, or more specifically a Catholic, nationstate. Catholicism was brought to the islands by the Spanish in the 16th century. Prior to the arrival of the Spanish in the Philippine Islands, the majority of the inhabitants of the archipelago practiced either Islam or some form of animism (Islam having only arrived in the area a few hundred years before).1 The arrival of the Spanish in the Philippines brought more than just religion, it also brought western style educational institutions. These institutions were established by Catholic friars throughout the islands during the time of Spanish colonization, and would later be changed and developed by the Americans. During these times some educated Filipino elites saw the Spanish language, or Castellan as it was called, as a way of liberating themselves from the figurative and literal bondage which they had been subject to upon the arrival of the Spaniards. This new class of educated Filipino elite, known as the ilustrados, knew that only through coming to know Spanish as well as western ideas of liberalism, could they liberate themselves from the oppression of the Spanish. This liberation would be figurative, seeing as the ilustrado class were reformists, not revolutionaries. And since this time, Filipinos have seen formal education as a system of betterment, meaning that through education they hope to better themselves and create a better life for their children. With the arrival of the Americans in the late 19^th to early 20^th century a new colonial power took control of the archipelago. English would soon replace Spanish as the language of the elite as American educational institutions were established throughout the islands. Although today English has maintained its position as a language of power in the Philippines, the Tagalog-based Philippine national language, known as Filipino, has over time become more and more dominant in the archipelago, further supplanting English as the language of the elite. And although Tagalog-based Filipino has become more widely understood by non-native speakers, it has also increased its dominance in elite circles to the point where it is on par with English in terms of usage among elites, and in many instances has surpassed English.

Asian Studies

Social sciences

AlQurtas, Abdulrahman M.

Maier, Hendrik MJ

Southeast Asian Studies

University of California, Riverside

1976973148; 10287226

p

[Thesis]

276903

a

Y