History of the Spanish Language in the Philippines

"Prior to the Spanish colonization of the Philippines in 1565, there are no written records of the islands that make up the modern day Philippines. "3 In the year 1565, Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, the Conquistador travelled from Spain and founded the first Spanish settlement in the country, firstly on the island of Cebu. They occupied the kingdoms of Tondo and Manila, establishing it as the capital of the Spanish East Indies. "The Philippines were originally named after King Philip II of Spain- Las Islas Felipinas". 4The Philippines were part of Spanish territory for hundreds of years from this year on.It was firstly ruled from Mexico City but was later ruled from Madrid.

The Spanish language was imposed as an official language. The Philippines were under Spanish Rule for just over 300 years. However Jim Lipski states that “despite the lengthy Spanish presence in the Philippines, the Spanish language never became firmly implanted among Speakers of Indigenous language as occurred in Latin America... ”4 The Augustinians and the Franciscan monks arrived after Legazpi had settled and started setting up schools.

Education was extremely important to them. The children were taught in their indigenous languages which the monks embraced.However Spanish was spoken by those who had settled in the Philippines and was noted and invariably picked up by the natives. Spanish was not formally introduced to the school system until the 19th century. In 1863, Queen Isabella II of Spain decreed the establishment of a free public school system. The system used Spanish as the language of instruction as well as teaching the language as a compulsory subject.

The amount of schools which were set up under the Spanish Rule was impressive; this led to the high level of education that children received in the country.This led to an educated class known as the Ilustrados; these were native-born Philippine poets, writers and intellectuals who wrote in Spanish and sought more reform from the Spanish colonial rule. Some Ilustrados to be noted were Jose Rizal (who was executed for the part he played in the Philippine Revolution) and Emilio Aguinaldo (the leader of the revolution). Spanish-American War and Independence from Spain, First Filipine Republic The Philippine Revolution began in 1896 and was led by Emilio Aguinaldo.

The Philippine people were looking for secession from Spanish Rule. The evolution was not entirely successful however. Aguinaldo was exiled to Hong Kong. However the outbreak of the Spanish - American War in 1898 led to the Philippines siding with America against the Spanish government. America won the war and on the 12th of June, the Philippines announced their independence from Spain.

In 1899, the First Philippine Republic was created; this was an insurgent revolutionary government in the country. The government was put together due to the Philippine Revolution against the Spanish Rule. However, ironically I find, they established Spanish as an official language.It was during this short-lived government that the national anthem was written and also the Malolas Constitution, both were written in Spanish. The First Philippine Republic ended with the capture of Emilio Aguinaldo. America took control of the Philippines at this point and this was the real nail in the coffin for the Spanish language.

English was imposed on the natives who took to the language well. 20th century and the Spanish language In 1945, World War II spilled into the Philippines as Japan had invaded 3 years previously.The American and the Philippines fought the Japanese in the month long Battle of Manila. The battle resulted in many deaths and completely destroyed the city of Manila. This was a further devastating blow for Spanish as Manila was the centre of the Spanish language. In 1935, a constitution was declared stating that English and Spanish would continue as official languages.

“The Congress shall take steps toward the development and adoption of a common national language based on one of the existing native languages”.However in 1973, a new constitution was ratified in the country. It designated English and Philippino as official languages. Shortly after this constitution was announced, a proclamation was released. It stated that the Spanish language would still be an official language so long as government documents in the language remained untranslated. There is reportedly millions of legal material still untranslated from Spanish.

In 1987, a further blow came against the Spanish language. A decree was ratified to abolish Spanish as an official language in place of English and Philippino.The requirement that college students had to learn it was also abolished. Spanish, along with Arabic, was made a voluntary language. And so with this, the Spanish language was eliminated from the classroom. Here is Section 7 of Article XIV of this constitution (remained unchanged since) – “For purposes of communication and instruction, the official languages of the Philippines are Filipino and, until otherwise provided by law, English.

The regional languages are the auxiliary official languages in the regions and shall serve as auxiliary media of instruction therein.Spanish and Arabic shall be promoted on a voluntary and optional basis. ” Reasons for the decline in the language There were several noted reasons for the decline of the Spanish language. •During the American Era, English was imposed on the people of the country.

•They also led an aggressive campaign of De-Hispanicisation which stirred up hatred for all things Spanish. •With that, the propagating of La Leyenda Negra(The Black Legend) began. This refers to a style of writing that demonized the Spanish Conquisadores while portraying Spain and all things Spanish as evil.A characteristic of the Spanish Inquisition was the horrific disregard for human life and this was relived through La Leyenda Negra. It was used to incite animosity against the Spanish Rule and therefore get the natives to reject the Spanish language. •“To this may be added the always small number of Spaniards at any given time, in comparison to the indigenous population, the lack of significant demographic displacements among the indigenous population, which might have propelled the Spanish language into greater prominence.

These strategies led by the Americans worked and the Philippine people embraced the English language. Spanish was left by the wayside and as it was only a voluntary language, most of the population thought it unnecessary to study or learn the language. Recent times for the language- 21st century There is a real push from Spain and indeed many people in the Philippines to embrace the Spanish language again. Spanish is now one of the 3 major languages in the world and learning to speak it is seen as an investment.

In 2003 a bill was approved naming the 30th of June each year as Philippine-Spanish Friendship Day. “The Philippine Spanish Friendship Day was established by Republic Act No. 9187 of July 22, 2002, as a means to strengthen the relationship between two nations that share history, values and traditions. ” 8 In 2009, a pilot programme was put forward by the department of Education in the Philippines. This programme meant 17 state schools would offer Spanish as an optional language at secondary level, private schools and universities.

An agreement was signed in 2010 that encouraged teachers in Madrid to help •Train Spanish language teachers in the Philippines. •Develop curriculum for Spanish classes for schools •Provide electronic teaching aids to help with the language There is an increased interest among the youth of the Philippines in the Spanish language. With the increased influx of call centres being set up in the country, there is a definite draw back to the language. The natives understand that the ability to speak English and Spanish is extremely beneficial.Tagalog and the Spanish influence on the language Tagalog is one of the official languages in the Philippines.

Approximately 12million people speak the language as their mother tongue. “Approximately 20% or 4000 words Tagalog lexicon are loan words from Spanish”. 9 “Ironically, despite the failure of the Spanish language to situate itself among the native Philippine language and its later inability to resist the inroads of English, the number of Spanish borrowings in the Philippine languages far exceeds that of any native American or African language.The Tagalog language is similar to Latin American Spanish. They aspirate the seseo /x/ to a /h/ sounds as in Latin America.

Here is a list of some the Spanish loan words in Tagalog and the meaning in English. It can be easily seen how Spanish has influenced the Tagalog language. The spellings are different and the pronunciation can be slightly changed, but there are thousands of words that are taken almost fully from Spanish. Many Spanish natives can understand words and sentences in Tagalog which truly shows the influence that Spanish had on this country.