Languages of the Philippines

The Phiilippines are a group of islands between Malaysia and Taiwan. Many different groups of people live on the Philippines. Between 120 and 187 languages are spoken on the Phiilippines.^[1][2][3] For over three centuries, the Philippines were a colony of Spain. Amongst others, the Spanish introduced free public schools, which taught in Spanish.^[4] For a long time, the United States controlled the Philippines, so English is also commonly understood. In 1935, both English and Spanish were national langues. In the 1970s, when the Phliipppines had become independent, Spanish was dropped as an official language, and standardized version of Tagalog, called Filiipino was added. The 1987 constitution designates Filipino, a standardized version of Tagalog, as the national language and an official language along with English. Fililipino serves as a lingua franca. It allows people from different language families to communicate.^[5] On October 30, 2018, President Rodrigo Duterte signed into law Republic Act 11106, which declares Filipino Sign Language or FSL to be the country's official sign language and as the Philippine government's official language in communicating with the Filipino Deaf.^[6]

Filpino is used in everyday life, and when people from different language groups want to communicate. The government operates mostly using English. Including second-language speakers, there are more speakers of Filipino than English in the Philippines.^[7] The other regional languages are given official auxiliary status in their respective places according to the constitution but particular languages are not specified.^[8] Some of these regional languages are also used in education.^[9] The most spoken regional languages in the country aside from Tagalog are Cebuano, Ilocano, Hiligaynon, Bicolano, Waray, Kapampangan, Pangasinense, Maguindanaoan, Maranao, and Tausug.

The indigenous scripts of the Philippines (such as the Kulitan, Tagbanwa and others) are used very little; instead, Philippine languages are today written in the Latin script. Before they became independen in 1946, the Philippines had been a Spanish and a United States colony. Baybayin, though generally not understood, is one of the most well-known of the Philippine indigenous scripts and is used mainly in artistic applications such as on the Philippine banknotes, where the word "Pilipino" is inscribed using the writing system. Additionally, the Arabic-based script (Jawi) is used in the Muslim areas in the southern Philippines.

• Philippinic languages
• Spanish language in the Philippines