Feb 22, 2008

I guess it was not as clear to most that i was joking on my last post about Blogger Filipino Support.

So i want to make a clarification on why i said Tagalog was/is the Official language of the Philippines so i will quote from a note one of my Pinoy friends sent me as a

"you are right but...."

In a nutshell, Tagalog was chosen as the national language in 1937. In 1959, it was renamed to Pilipino (note the . This was reaffirmed in the 1973 constitution (but set the spark to develop a language called Filipino). Then in 1987 Filipino was made the national language, which "shall be further developed and enriched on the basis of existing Philippine and other languages."From my understanding, this was supposed to be some sort of Philippine Esperanto but instead Tagalog was used the base while vocabulary from other Philippine languages was to be imported. And in a sense, it kind of has. There has been a Filipino dictionary (which I've not yet seen) published by the University of the Philippines that has imported these words ===> something from that blog

That means i am fundamentally right from a historic point because even if Filipino is now the national name of the language, the reasons to be it so are merely political unlike when tagalog was named the national language as a ethnic identification of the Philippines.

So yeah, both ways are right, just that i have history on  my side to feel i am even more right. :P

My pinoy friend say this is one of those never ending controversies so why arguing with them when i see it in their own blogs like:

The Filipino vs. Tagalog debate: Bisalog

I hope this clears up the why of my last post.




4 comments:

Anonymous said...

filipino is tagalog. filipino is just a way for them to lessen the resentment from non-tagalog filipinos like me. FOR MORE ON THIS ISSUE http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DILA/ we are fighting extinction and marginalization

Avatar X said...

@Anon:

And that is exactly what i stated, of course i am not undermining what you try to state as what is the political problem in that controversy if that is what you meant. but as i am a foreign it is not my place to discuss on your own internal affairs.

As a Mexican i do understand the ethnic issue you point at, so i do appreciate your comment here.

Yesha Gee said...

Seriously, your post cracked me up. For me, there's no need to elucidate which way is best to describe the language. But talking about it, i'd rather use the 'tagalog' than the 'filipino' bcos i'm used to call it that way. Besides, if i speak of 'filipino', i thought of the person and not the language. ^_^

Avatar X said...

@Simpleyesa:

Thanks. i do think it is important to make certains point in the matter, even to me as a foreigner but. maybe that is just the way i am, wanting to put the dots in the "i" and all.

You also tell me right by the second part on you thinking on the distintion of person and language. so there you have it.

Thanks for your comment.

Post a Comment

Welcome To Bloggeratto. In here you can post any kind of comment you want. Seriously, Go ahead.

Lijit Ad Wijit

Categories

Followers

Powered By Blogger
Web Statistics