HISTORY OF

PHILIPPINE ENGLISH
JONALYN R. JARABATA
PhD. Language Teaching
The unprepared foreign visitor to the Philippines is often astounded
by the immediate encounter with this tropical society and the texture
of a daily life that includes crowded and chaotic cities, heat and rain,
music and dance, and friendly, hospitable, multi-tongued people in a
nation with more than a hundred recognized indigenous languages.
In the capital Manila (population twelve million), the street signs are
in English; the disc jockey on the radio woos the station’s listeners in
dulcet American; the bookstores are full of English books (many
penned by local writers); and the front pages of the major
newspapers assail readers with headlines such as ‘PNP Opposes Erap
Confinement’, ‘4 Pinoys Hurt in Ship Blast in Australia’, and ‘Local
Bets Troop to Comelec’.
Although most Manileños only speak English to other Filipinos in such
formal settings as the boardroom or the law court, and prefer to mix
English into a hybrid vernacular of Taglish (Tagalog and English) with
each other, the presence of an American-influenced variety of English
permeates public and private life in an unusual and surprising fashion.
The taxi driver may give you a nuanced account of local politics, the
coffee shop waitress may discuss Tess of the D’Urbervilles, and the
salesperson in a store may crack a joke in colloquial Philippine English
(Joke only!) — interactions unlikely to be repeated in other Asian cities.
Our foreign visitors may take this somehow for granted as they head to
their business meeting, or in the case of tourists, head for their beach
vacation. Or they may find time to consider and to ponder how it is that
this predominantly Malay society, with its diaspora of overseas emigrés
and workers, happened to become one of the largest English-speaking
societies in the world.
The Republic of the Philippines comprises 7,107 islands located close
to the equator, south of the China mainland, east of Vietnam, and
northeast of the Indonesian archipelago. For much of its existence as
a geographical entity, the Philippines has owed its identity and
borders to successive waves of colonialism, and the name Felipinas is
said to have been coined in 1543 by the Spanish explorer Ruy de
Villalobos in honor of Crown Prince Felipe (or Philip), later King
Philip II of Spain (1556–98) (Quimpo, 2003). Ethnically and
racially, the majority of Filipinos are considered Austronesian,
having a
kinship with similar populations in Indonesia and Malaysia, while
there are over one hundred indigenous Austronesian languages
spoken in the Philippines (McFarland, this volume).
The most important indigenous ethnic groups include the Tagalogs
on Luzon Island (the majority population in and around Manila), the
Cebuanos (or ‘Visayans’) in the southern islands, andthe Ilocanos
from northern Luzon. Philippine society is also noticeably creolized,
with significant groups of Philippine-Spanish, Philippine-Chinese,
and even Philippine-American ‘mestizo’ groups in the community,
particularly in the cities. McFerson comments that contemporary
Filipinos are ‘virtually “a race of races” ’, and that although
essentially Malay in racial composition, ‘they also have Negrito,
Indonesian, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Arab, European, and
American “bloods” ’ (2002: 15).
The first colonial power to rule the Philippines was Spain,
who governed the Philippines from Mexico from 1565 until
1898. During this period, Catholicism became strongly
established throughout Philippine society, and today eighty
percent of the population claim to be Catholic. Despite this,
various types of animistic and folk beliefs are still widely
held, while there is also a substantial Muslim population in
the south, in and around the island of Mindanao.
The Philippines was occupied and colonized by the US after
the Philippine-American War of 1899–1902, which
immediately followed the Spanish-American war, when
Spain also lost control over Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Guam.
The United States essentially maintained colonial control
over the Philippines until 1946, at which time the
Philippines became an independent nation (a third group of
colonizers were in fact the Japanese, who took control of the
islands during World War II, from 1941–1944).
Since then, the American government has continued
to exert a strong influence over Philippine politics,
which during the Vietnam War led the United States
to give prolonged support to Ferdinand Marcos,
whose presidency from 1965–1986 became a
dictatorship. After the fall of Marcos as a result of the
‘People Power’ movement in 1986, Philippine
domestic politics has continued to dismay many
observers.
The story of Philippine English has its historical origins in
the US intervention of 1898, and the American teachers who
arrived here toward the end of the Philippine-American War
These first teachers, known collectively as the ‘Thomasites’
(after the US army transport ship Thomas), arrived as early
as 1901 and were soon dispersed throughout the islands.
They had an important impact, not only as teachers, but
also as teacher-trainers, so that by 1921, 91 percent of all
teachers were native-born Filipinos and, thus, ‘almost from
the beginning, Filipinos learned English from Filipinos and
the seeds of what we now call Philippine English began’
(Gonzalez, 1997: 26–27).
By 1918, the census report noted that around 47 percent of
the population claimed to speak English, and 55.6 percent
claimed the ability to read and write the language. Official
American involvement in the teaching of English persisted
until the outbreak of war with the Japanese in December
1941, by which time census results indicated that around 27
percent of the population claimed to be able to speak
English. Judging by the experience of other colonized
nations, the extent to which English had been adopted
within the society by that time was remarkable, and
Gonzalez comments that:
The rapid spread of the English language in the
Philippines was unprecedented in colonial
history, for within the space of 41 years, the
American regime had done more to spread
English than the Spanish Government did in
333 years (1565–1898) of colonization, for at
the end of the Spanish Period, only 2% spoke
Spanish. (Gonzalez, 1997: 28)
In the post-independence era after 1946, English was
retained as an official language in government and
education, but was increasingly used alongside the
national language, first termed Wikang Pambansa
(‘national language’), then later ‘Pilipino’, and
‘Filipino’. Over the decades, Philippine English began
to develop as a ‘variety’ of English in its own right,
associated with a distinct accent, a localized
vocabulary, and even a body of creative writing by
Philippine writers in English.
From the 1960s onwards, local linguists began to describethis
localized variety in some detail, despite anxieties among some
educators and policy-makers that the recognition of ‘Philippine
English’ somehow involved the acceptance of a less-proficient variety
of the language (Bautista, 1997). However, the latest results from a
Social Weather Stations (2006) survey suggest that some 65 percent
of the population claim the ability to understand spoken and written
English, with 48 percent stating that they write English, but with
only 32 percent reporting that they speak the language. The same
report then goes on to explain that these totals indicate a marked
decline in English proficiency compared to results from 1993 and
2000 (Social Weather Stations, 2006).
Ironically, this decline (perceived or real) in English proficiency has
come at a time when the utility of the language and the demand for
English are probably at an all-time high, as a result of the
remarkable growth of the call center industry and related BPO
(business processing outsourcing) operations, including legal and
medical transcription, that have mushroomed in the Philippines
since the year 2000. The total of employees in the call center
industry in 2001 was around 2,000, but by 2006 that figure had
risen astonishingly to some 200,000 jobs. One recent report noted
that today ‘[t]he call center business is the fastest growing industry
in the country … [m]ore than 100 centers around the country have
created a new class of relatively affluent and independent young
Filipinos’ (Greenlees, 2006).
Nevertheless, despite the obvious utility of English in employment,
the power and prestige of the language continue to raise concerns
among Filipino intellectuals. One such concern has been that,
historically, the retention of English in the postcolonial period has
exacerbated social inequality and hindered the creation of an
authentic sense of nationalism among Filipinos. According to
Tollefson’s (1991) critique of Philippine language policy, ‘[t]he
key question in the politics of language in the Philippines is: what
language(s) should be used in education and in the exercise of
commerce, mass media, politics and government?’, as the issue of
language planning ‘has a crucial impact upon access to economic
resources, to policy-making institutions, and to political power’
(1991: 141).
Tollefson then presents a critique of the politics of language
from the 1960s to the 1990s. This includes discussion of the
communist New People’s Army’s promotion of ‘Pilipino’ (as
it was then called) to ensure that ‘the national language, art,
and literature shall be given revolutionary content’, Marcos’
promotion of English in order to match the needs of the
Philippine economy so that ‘most students had to be
educated for low-paying jobs requiring a little English’, and
the language policies of the Aquino administration, which
left English in a ‘dominant position’ (143–61).
The issue of English in relation to the national
language has been regularly debated in past decades.
Rolando Tinio, writing in the 1980s, argued that
reliance on English contributed to the colonized
mentality of the Filipino people, whose ‘greatest
setback is not our colonial past but our education and
development of consciousness in a colonial language’,
explaining that:
The dismal result of national dissemination of English in
the Philippines — Filipinos still exclaim with joy, “We are
the third largest English-speaking country in the world!” —
can be seen in the fact that the educated elite and
unlettered masses, though no two kinds of people could be
more dissimilar, are yet similar in one regard — both tend
to see the world through American eyes, accepting the
American yardstick as the proper standard for measuring
any kind of culture or life. (Tinio 1990: 86)
PRONUNCIATION
(1) Philippine English is
RHOTIC, but the local /r/ is
an alveolar flap, not an AmE
retroflex.
(2) It is syllabletimed, following
the rhythm of the local
languages; full value is
therefore given to unstressed
syllables and SCHWA is usually
realized as a full vowel.
The pronunciations given are those in use among educated urban
speakers of standard English in the Philippines.

1. Some Filipinos substitute [p] for [f] when they pronounce English
words containing [f].
Examples:

Fowerpul-(Powerful)
Pipteen-(Fifteen)
2. Some of the older generation of Filipinos would pronounce the letter
[v] in all English words as [b] such as "biolent"-(violent) and "billage"-
(village).
English words starting with s+consonant such as:

star- "istar", "slide"- "islide", and strict-"istrict"

(3) Certain polysyllables have
distinctive stress patterns, as
with elígible, establísh,
cerémony.
(4) Intonation is widely
characterized as ‘singsong’.

(5) Educated Filipinos aim at an

AmE accent, but have varying
success with the vowel contrasts in
sheep/ship, full/fool, and
boat/bought.
(6) Few Filipinos have the /æ/ in AmE
mask; instead, they use /ɑ/ as in AmE
father.
(7) The distinction between /s, z/ and /ʃ, ʒ/
is not made: azure is ‘ayshure’, pleasure
‘pleshure’, seize ‘sees’, cars ‘karss’.
(8) Interdental /ɵ, ð/ are often rendered as
/t, d/, so that three of these is spoken as
‘tree of dese’.
GRAMMAR

The following features occur at all social

levels:
(1) Loss of the singular inflection of verbs:
The family home rest on the bluff of a hill;
One of the boys give a report to the teacher
every morning.
(2) Use of present perfect for simple past
(I have seen her yesterday; I saw her
yesterday) and past perfect for present
perfect (He had already gone home; He has
already gone home).
(3) Use of the continuous tenses for
habitual aspect: He is going to school
regularly; He goes to school regularly.
(4) Use of the present forms of auxiliary
verbs in subordinate noun clauses rather
than past forms, and vice versa: He said he
has already seen you. He said he had
already seen you; She hoped that she can
visit you tomorrow. She hoped that she
could visit you tomorrow; He says that he
could visit you tomorrow. He says that he
can visit you tomorrow.
(5) An apparent reversal of the norms for
the use of the definite article: He is
studying at the Manuel Quezon University;
I am going to visit United States.

(6) Verbs that are generally transitive used

intransitively: Did you enjoy?; I cannot
afford; I don't like.
VOCABULARY AND IDIOMS

(1) Loans from Spanish: asalto, a surprise party;

bienvenida, a welcome party, despedida, a farewell
party, Don/Doña, title for a prominent
man/woman; estafa, a fraud, scandal; merienda,
mid-afternoon tea; plantilla, faculty assignments
and deployment in an academic department;
querida a mistress, viand (from vianda provisions
for a journey), a dish served to accompany rice in a
Filipino meal.
(2) LOAN-WORDS from Tagalog:
boondock (from bundok), mountain
(compare the AmE extension: the
boondocks): carabao (from kalabaw), a
water buffalo: kundiman, a love song;
sampaloc (from sampalok), the fruit of
the tamarind; tao man (as in the
common tao).
(3) LOAN TRANSLATIONS from local usages:
open the light/radio- turn on the light/radio
(also found in IndE), since before yet- for a long
time, joke only- I'm teasing you, you don't only
know- you just don't realize, he is playing and
playing- he keeps on playing, making
foolishness (of children)- misbehaving, I am
ashamed to you- I am embarrassed because I
have been asking you so many favours.
(4) Local NEOLOGISMS: agrupation (from
Spanish agrupación), a group: captain-ball,
team captain in basketball; carnap to steal
(kidnap) a car; cope up, to keep up and
cope with (something); hold-upper,
someone who engages in armed holdups;
jeepney (blending jeep and jitney, AmE a
small bus), a jeep converted into a
passenger vehicle.
WRITTEN MODELS
Because of the influence of reading and writing and the
academic context in which English is learned, local
speech tends to be based on written models. Filipinos
generally speak the way they write, in a formal style
based on Victorian prose models. Because of this,
spelling pronunciations are common, such as ‘lee-o-
pard’ for leopard, ‘subtill’ for subtle, and ‘worsester-
shire sauce’ for Worcestershire sauce. Style is not
differentiated and the formal style in general use has
been called the classroom compositional style.
CODE-SWITCHING
A register has developed for rapport and intimacy that
depends on CODE-MIXING AND CODE-SWITCHING
between Filipino and English. It is largely confined to Metro
Manila and other urban centres and used extensively in
motion pictures and on television and radio as well as in
certain types of informal writing in daily newspapers and
weekly magazines. Examples:(1) ‘Peks man,’ she swears,
‘Wala pang nangyayari sa amin ni Marlon. We want to
surprise each other on our honeymoon.’ [‘Cross my heart,’
she swears. ‘Nothing yet has happened between Marlon and
me …’] (from a movie gossip column).
SOCIAL ISSUES
Philippine English is currently competing in certain
domains with the rapidly spreading and developing Filipino,
which is in a process of register-building sometimes called
intellectualization. Filipino is not fully developed for
academic discourse, especially in the sciences, and there is
an ongoing debate on the use of Filipino instead of English
for school work and official purposes. There is also conflict
between the learning of Filipino for symbolic purposes and
the learning of English for utilitarian, largely economic,
purposes.
The two official languages are propagated
through a bilingual education scheme begun in
1974: mathematics and science continue to be
taught in English although it is envisaged that
when possible the teaching of these subjects at
certain grade levels shall be in Filipino. The
print media are dominated by English, but
television, radio, and local movies are
dominated by Filipino.
Philippine English is the variety of English
(similar and related to the American English)
used in the Philippines by the media and the
vast majority of educated Filipinos. English is
taught in schools as one of the two official
languages of the country.
Sub-varieties of Philippine English or
Philippine Englishes are emerging based on the
regional location and thus linguistic influences
of the speakers.
Sub-Varieties of Philippine English
1. Taglish- is a portmanteau of the words "Tagalog" and "English". Taglish is
perhaps most common in Metro Manila, where its use has become stereotype.
English
1. Can you explain it to me?
2. Have you finished your homework?
3. Please call the driver.

Tagalog
1. Pakipaliwanag mo sa akin?
2. Natapos mo na ba yung takdang-aralin mo?
3. Pakitawag ang tsuper.

Taglish
1. Paki-explain mo sa akin?
2. Finish na ba yung homework mo?
3. Paki-call ang driver.
2. Jejenese
The word Jejemon came from people who like to write "hehehe" as
"jejeje" because "jeje" is Spanish for hehe due to the sound J makes in
Spanish. "-Mon" is added at the end. This is from the Japanese anime
Pokémon. "-Mon" means "monster." They are "jeje-monsters."
Example:

1. I would like to know more about you, care to tell me your name?
Hehehehe!
- i wuD LLyK tO knOw moR3 bOut u. crE 2 t3ll mE yur N@me? jejejejeje!

2. 3ow ph0w, mUsZtAh nA?

- Hello, how are you?

3. iMiszqcKyuH!
- I miss you.
3. Swardspeak (or Chuva) - is a language that
came from the mixed language with the
names Taglish/ Englog. It is used by gay
people in the Philippines.

- Gay people use Swardpeak to make

themselves feel special. The language changes
a lot. People who use the language are called
"Bekimons". This word is from the words
bakla (gay).
The word "Swardspeak" came from the 1970's
book called "Swardspeak: A Preliminary
Study". "Sward" is slang for "gay male" in the
Philippines.
Example:
1. nyorts - trousers
2. julalay- assistant
3.jowabelles- lover
4. kyota - bata
5. kyoho - stinky
6. jonta - to go somewhere
4 .Coño English- is a creole of
Taglish and Englog that
originated from the children
in rich families of Manila.
Coño English sounds more
gentle and feminine.
Example:

1. "Let's make tusok-tusok the fish balls."

(Let's pierce the fish balls with bamboo
sticks.)
2. "You make hintay here while I make sundo
my kaibigan."
(You wait here while I fetch my friend.)
3. "I'm so init na, make paypay me naman o."
(I'm so hot, please fan me.)
 A SURVEY ON LANGUAGE USE,
ATTITUDES, IDENTITY, AND RELATION
TO PHILIPPINE ENGLISH AMONG
YOUNG GENERATION FILIPINOS: AN
INITIAL SAMPLE FROM A PRIVATE
UNIVERSITY

Ariane Macalinga Borlongan

De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines
RESULTS
RESULTS
RESULTS
RESULTS
RESULTS
RESULTS
RESULTS
RESULTS
RESULTS
RESULTS
RESULTS
Indeed, English is dominating. It is widely used at home in
mass media, in schools, workplace, even in courting, and in
other domains. Yet, still, Filipinos are confident that
Tagalog/Filipino best conveys their identity as Filipinos and
Philippine English could be a symbol of being a Filipino.

Since the study was undergone in a famous private school in

Manila, it is already expected that English really penetrates
in different contexts. The researcher could also undergo this
study in a more localized way.
Though English is dominating and it will really continue to
penetrate in our society, we should not forget to promote
and preserve our own language, Filipino.

#Preserve and enrich Filipino language.

#Use English.
#Promote Philippine English.
References:
https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-
and-maps/philippine-english

https://prezi.com/c-jh3qxsq_zj/sub-varieties-of-philippine-english/

https://hkupress.hku.hk/pro/con/45.pdf

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED505885.pdf