Philippine Spanish

Philippine Spanish (Spanish: Español filipino, Castellano filipino) is a variant of standard Spanish spoken in the Philippines mostly by Spanish Filipinos.

Philippine Spanish
Español filipino
Castellano filipino
Native to Philippines
Region Manila
Ethnicity Spanish Filipino
Native speakers
 (439,000 (2007) with "native knowledge"[1] cited 1990 census)[2]
2,700
Latin (Spanish alphabet)
Official status
Official language in
 Philippines
Regulated by Academia Filipina de la Lengua Española
Language codes
ISO 639-3 –
Glottolog None

Background

Philippine Spanish is a Spanish dialect of the Spanish language in the Philippines. The variant is very similar to Mexican Spanish, because of Mexican and Latin American emigration to the Spanish East Indies over the years.

Philippine Spanish is spoken mostly among Spanish Filipinos.

It is the language used by the likes of Jose Rizal, Andres Bonifacio, Antonio Luna, Pilita Corrales, Ian Veneracion, Marian Rivera, to name but a few famous Spanish Filipinos.

History

From 1565 to 1821, the Philippines which were a part of the Spanish East Indies, were governed by the Captaincy General of the Philippines as a territory of the Viceroyalty of New Spain centered in Mexico. It was only administered directly from Spain in 1821 after Mexico gained its independence that same year. Since the Philippines was a former territory of the Viceroyalty of New Spain for most of the Spanish colonial period, Spanish as was spoken in the Philippines had a greater affinity to American Spanish rather than to Peninsular Spanish.

Phonology

Sound of ⟨ll⟩

For Filipinos who studied Spanish in formal institutions, the tendency is to follow the Iberian dialect of the Spanish language called Castilian Spanish. Thus, speakers will tend to employ the distinction between the sounds written "ll" /ʎ/[3][4] (or more accurately, /lj/) and "y" /j/.

With regard to the consonants, placenames and other proper names tend to preserve the sound of /ll/. Examples are Cordillera (Filipino: Kordilyera), ballena (Filipino: balyena; whale), Padilla, Relleve, Villanueva and Arellano. However, there still exist some few words where the sound of [j] is utilised. The most common examples are kabayo (Spanish: caballo; horse) and sibuyas (Spanish: cebollas; onions). Known as yeísmo, it is happening only in loanwords, not in Spanish names with /ll/.

Sound of ⟨z⟩, ⟨ce⟩, ⟨ci⟩

Speakers often also distinguish between the sounds written "z, c" /θ/ and "s" /s/. However, for the less educated population, the sound written "z, c" /θ/ is generally merged with the sound written "s" /s/. Examples are the names Ciriaco [siˈrjako], sédula [ˈsedula] (Spanish: cédula; document; Philippine English: community tax certificate/residence certificate) and sinturón (Spanish: cinturón; belt). Known as seseo, it is common in Andalusian, Canarian, and most Latin American Spanish dialects.

Sound of ⟨j⟩, ⟨ge⟩, ⟨gi⟩

The sound called 'jota' is non-existent in any of the Philippine languages. Filipinos usually realize the sound as [h]. Therefore, names such as 'José' are pronounced [hoˈse] instead of [xoˈse]; [h] is common in Andalusian, Canarian, and some Latin American Spanish dialects.

For most of the less educated population, Spanish is acquired through Hispanic music, or for some, especially children, by watching Dora the Explorer in Nickelodeon. For the educated population, Spanish is further enriched through watching Telenovelas from the internet or watching the cable channel of Televisión Española.[5] That results in the lack of general characteristics that describe its phonological system.

Vocabulary

Old Mexican Spanish words entered into the lexicon of the indigenous languages of the Philippines. In fact, a few of the great number of Spanish loanwords that exist in the various Philippine languages are actually derived from the words of some of the Indigenous languages of the Americas that were first incorporated into American Spanish.[6] Examples:[7]

PHILIPPINE LOANWORD ORIGIN VIA MEXICAN SPANISH ENGLISH EQUIVALENT
tsokolate Nahuatl: xocolatl chocolate chocolate
sayote Nahuatl: chayotl chayote chayote
kamote Nahuatl: camotl camote sweet potato
bayabas Arawakan: guayabo guayaba guava
papaya or kapayas Cariban: papaya papaya papaya
singkamas Nahuatl: xicamatl jícama Mexican turnip

Even words of Nahuatl origin penetrated into the Philippine languages such as nanay [from (Nahuatl: nantl); (mother)] and tatay [from (Nahuatl: tatl); (father)] as a direct result of the Manila galleon. Peninsular Spanish started to influence the vocabulary of Philippine languages after the Philippines was administered directly from Spain.

Orthography

Diacritic marks are almost always left out, save for the tilde on the ñ, because of the use of American standard machines and because of the disallowance of using these marks by English-language media companies. Typewriters sometimes include the ñ, but they do not include accented vowels. Computer keyboards have always used the US standard layout, which includes neither ñ nor combining diacritics. Spanish words, however, are vocally stressed as they would be by Spanish speakers. However, the absence of these diacritic marks makes Filipinos studying Spanish liable to put the accent on the wrong syllable of words from which loanwords in Philippine languages, as the words are pronounced as in mother languages.

As of 2012, of the younger generation of Filipino Hispanophones are following the Spanish orthographic convention of typing letters with diacritic marks (acute accents and diaeresis) as well as the inverted question and exclamation marks and the rest of the special characters and symbols found in Spanish orthography on their US standard layout computer keyboards by using the AltGr key, Modifier key, Code page 437, Code page 850, Microsoft Windows Alt Key Numeric Codes for character shortcuts, or the US-International keyboard layout.

Microsoft Windows Alt Key Numeric Codes for the Spanish language:[8][9]

NUMERIC CODE CHARACTER DISPLAYED NAME NUMERIC CODE CHARACTER DISPLAYED NAME
Alt 0193
Á
 uppercase A with accute accent
Alt 160
á
 lowercase a with acute accent
Alt 144
É
 uppercase E with acute accent
Alt 130
é
 lowercase e with acute accent
Alt 0205
Í
 uppercase I with acute accent
Alt 161
í
 lowercase i with acute accent
Alt 0211
Ó
 uppercase O with acute accent
Alt 162
ó
 lowercase o with acute accent
Alt 0218
Ú
 uppercase U with acute accent
Alt 163
ú
 lowercase u with acute accent
Alt 666
Ü
 uppercase U with umlaut
Alt 129
ü
 lowercase u with umlaut
Alt 165
Ñ
 uppercase N with tilde or eñe
Alt 164
ñ
 lowercase n with tilde or eñe
Alt 167
º
 masculine ordinal indicator
Alt 166
ª
 feminine ordinal indicator
Alt 680
¿
 inverted question mark
Alt 685
¡
 inverted exclamation mark
Alt 174
«
 left angle quote or left guillemet
Alt 175
»
 right angle quote or right guillemet
Alt 0128
€
 euro sign
Alt 158
₧
 pesetas (out of circulation)

For the numero signs such as n.o and N.os, superior ordinal letters such as 1.o, 2.a and 3.er, superior letters such as F.ca, D.a, F.co, M.a and f.do, and superior numbers such as €850, you may use the superscript (hold down the Ctrl, the Shift and the =) and underline (highlight the text then hold down the Ctrl and the letter U) keyboard shortcuts.[10]

Current Status

Spanish was the language of government, education and trade throughout the three centuries (333 years) of the Philippines being part of the Spanish Empire and continued to serve as a lingua franca until the first half of the 20th century. In the last decades its use has declined.[11] New developments in the Philippines are slowly reversing this trend.

Spanish Renaissance

In December 2007, former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo signed a directive in Spain that require the teaching and learning of the Spanish language in the Philippine school system starting in 2008.[12]

The presidential decision had immediate results. The Under-Secretary of the Department of Education, Vilma L. Labrador, circulated a Memorandum (17/XII/2007), on the "Restoration of the Spanish language in Philippine Education". In it, the Department mandates secondary schools to offer basic and advanced Spanish.

Exponential Growth

There has been a resurgence of learning Spanish among Filipinos.

The main reason is not even cultural, its economic.

Due to the huge demand for Spanish speakers among Business Process Outsourcing companies in the Philippines, Filipinos are flocking to Instituto Cervantes and other language centers in order to learn Spanish.[13]

References

  1. ↑ realinstitutoelcano.org, 2007
  2. ↑ Spanish at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  3. ↑ Mi querida elle: por Rosario González Galicia (Spanish), babab.com
  4. ↑ Spanish in the Philippines, by Ian Mackenzie
  5. ↑ Ocampo, Ambeth. "Spanish on comeback trail in Philippines". Archived from the original on July 14, 2010. Retrieved July 19, 2010.
  6. ↑ Lipski, John (c. 2002). "Spanish world-wide: the last century of language contacts". Archived from the original (pdf) on July 14, 2010. Retrieved July 19, 2010.
  7. ↑ Ocampo, Ambeth (September 23, 2009). "Mexico under our skin". Makati City, Philippines: Philippine Daily Inquirer (INQUIRER.net). Opinion. Archived from the original on July 28, 2010. Retrieved July 28, 2010.
  8. ↑ Woolfson, Tim. "Alt Codes Reference Sheet". Archived from the original (PDF) on July 14, 2010. Retrieved July 19, 2010.
  9. ↑ "Windows – Alt Key Numeric Codes". Archived from the original on July 14, 2010. Retrieved July 19, 2010.
  10. ↑ "List of keyboard shortcuts for Word 2002, Word 2003, and Word 2007". Archived from the original on July 14, 2010. Retrieved July 19, 2010.
  11. ↑ "Nuevas perspectivas para la lengua española en Filipinas (ARI)".
  12. ↑ "Spanish in Philippine Public High School".
  13. ↑ "Hola! Asian Call Centers Lure Back Spanish". YaleGlobal - Yale University.

External links

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