LINGAYEN, Pangasinan—How far has Filipino evolved into a national language that is based on the country’s regional languages? This question becomes relevant again as the country celebrates Buwan ng Wika this month.
“We’re almost there,” said National Artist for Literature Virgilio Almario, chair of Komisyon ng Wikang Filipino (KWF), who presided over a three-day national language planning congress at Sison Auditorium in Lingayen, Pangasinan, last week.
“But if you think about it, there’s still a lot to be done,” Almario said.
The KWF is tasked primarily to “formulate policies, plans and programs to ensure the further development, enrichment, propagation and preservation of Filipino and other Philippine languages.
“Developing Filipino into a national language and enriching it with regional languages have been a big challenge to the commission,” he said.
When he assumed office as KWF chair in 2013, Almario found that there had been no plan for the development of Filipino.
“Unfortunately in the last 75 years of the national language, there is no single document that will show that our previous administrators did any planning,” he said.
As a consequence, he said, whatever English words that were popular became part of the Filipino language.
“And because we are bombarded with English words every day, these are the words that have been added to our language,” he said.
In fact, he said, in the last two years, there were only fewer than 100 words from regional languages that were added to Filipino.
“That is why we are having this language planning congress. We have to have a methodical and systematic approach to develop, enrich and propagate our language,” Almario said.
Regional languages
Ma. Crisanta Flores, KWF commissioner for Pangasinan language, said the way to go in the next years would be to preserve and promote regional languages.
To do this, she said, there is a need to have a standard orthography for all regional languages.
“Different languages will have to draft their own orthography, which will follow the general ortograpiyang pambansa (national orthography). Why? Because we need harmonization,” she said.
ALMARIO
The need for standardized orthography becomes more important, she said, because of the implementation in 2012 of the mother tongue-based multilingual education (MTB-MLE) policy by the Department of Education. The policy requires teachers from Grades 1 to 3 to teach in their mother tongue.
Harmonization
“So, if you spell differently because your language is different and when you get to Grade 4, you’ll have different orthography, then it will be chaotic and it will create a lot confusion for students,” Flores said.
Teachers like the idea that whatever they teach using the mother tongue should continue in Filipino when pupils reach Grade 4, Almario said.
“This is harmonization. That’s why the regional orthography should be harmonized with the national orthography,” he said.
To date, about 20 regional languages, including Pangasinan and the Cordillera region’s languages, have working orthographies. With the standardization soon of the orthographies of all regional languages, intellectualization and modernization of the language follow next.
“Intellectualization of language means that you will use Filipino in ‘high functions,’ such as in the academe, courts, official correspondence in different fields, etc., and part of that is to create a glossary of terms in different domains of knowledge,” Flores said.
“Modernization is also corollary to intellectualization. When you modernize language, that means that you get it updated,” she said.
The KWF will push for the implementation of an executive order issued by then President Corazon Aquino in 1988 directing government agencies to use Filipino in official correspondence.
Library of knowledge
Almario stressed the need for a library of knowledge in Filipino that would help anyone interested in studying the classics, for example, translated into Filipino.
Flores said the language planning congress had given teachers and other participants the needed exposure because most of them had not participated in small forums or seminars about the language.
Participants were exposed to literature and documents on Filipino language. “I will give this credit to Chairman Almario. In his just two-year stint at KWF, he was able to publish a lot of books, even translation of classics,” Flores said.
The KWF, she said, had been able to translate the works of Anton Chekov, Plato, Rabindranath Tagore and other authors into Filipino.
“The teachers, I suppose, now look at translation as a major project, especially if you come from the region. We will not only translate foreign text into Filipino but I think, regional languages. Teachers who teach the MTB-MLE and even those who know the language … can be trained to translate from their mother tongue [into] Filipino,” Flores said.
On its 25th anniversary next year, the KWF will choose 25 words from the regional languages that will be added to Filipino.
These words should be culturally important to the native tongue and would help improve the knowledge of the national language, Almario said.