Austronesian Archipelagic LinguisticDiversity Amid Globalizationin the Philippines

Meriam A. Bravante and William N. Holden

ContentsIntroduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2Philippine Languages as Austronesian Languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2The Languages of the Philippines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4Spanish in the Philippines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8English in the Philippines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10How Languages Demonstrate Power Relations in Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13The Impact of Globalization upon languages of the Philippines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

AbstractThe Philippines, an archipelago of 7,100 islands located in Southeast Asia,are marked by substantial linguistic diversity with 181 living languages beingused. The languages of the Philippines belong to the Western Malayo-Polynesiangroup of the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian language family.Although the Philippines were a Spanish colony from 1568 to 1898, the Spanishwere reluctant to allow the masses to learn Spanish. Nevertheless, numerousSpanish loan words made their way into the Filipino languages and into thetoponymy of the archipelago; indeed, in one part of the Philippines a SpanishCreole language emerged that persists to this day. From 1898 to 1946, thePhilippines were a colony of the United States, and the Americans aggressivelypromoted the teaching of English. Today, English as an official language in the

M. A. BravanteFaculty of Law, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canadae-mail: mabravan@ucalgary.ca

W. N. Holden (*)Department of Geography, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canadae-mail: wnholden@ucalgary.ca

# Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018S. D. Brunn et al. (eds.), Handbook of the Changing World Language Map,https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73400-2_12-1

1

Philippines is the language used in government and law and is widely spoken asa second language by many Filipinos. English proficiency has contributed greatlyto the employment of overseas Filipino workers around the world and to thedevelopment of call centers in the Philippines. Studying the languages of thePhilippines illustrates many concepts in linguistic geography. The effect ofphysical geography upon linguistic diversity is demonstrated by much of thearchipelago’s linguistic diversity being attributed to its fragmented territorialmorphology. The role of power relations upon languages is demonstrated bythe incorporation of Spanish and English words into the Filipino languages. Theuse of English by overseas Filipino workers and in call centers demonstrates therole of English as the language of globalization.

KeywordsPhilippines · Linguistic diversity · Austronesian language family · Call centers ·Globalization · English · Island

Introduction

The Philippines, an archipelago of 7,100 islands located in Southeast Asia (Fig. 1),is renowned for its biodiversity, having been described by Heaney and Regalado(1998: 9) as “the Galapagos Islands multiplied tenfold.” The Philippines, consistingof a territorial morphology fragmented by water and mountainous terrain, contains510 species of mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians found nowhere else onEarth (Heaney and Regalado 1998). While the Philippines are renowned for biodi-versity, the archipelago is also a place of substantial linguistic diversity containing181 individual living languages (Lewis et al. 2014). This chapter examines thediversity of the Austronesian languages of the Philippines and places Philippinelanguage use into the context of twenty-first century globalization.

Philippine Languages as Austronesian Languages

A Language family is a broad collection of languages related through commonlinguistic ancestry existing long before recorded history (Rubenstein 2003).Languages within a language family share sets of common vocabulary and grammarstemming from initial protolanguages, which linguists are able to reconstruct(Bellwood 2010). One of the world’s largest language families, in terms of numberof member languages, is the Austronesian language family, which consists of 1,250languages spoken by approximately 250 million people (Pereltsvaig 2012). Thename “Austronesian” was developed by the linguist Wilhelm Schmidt and itmeans southern (“Austro”) islands (“nesians”) (Blust 1995). The hearth of the

2 M. A. Bravante and W. N. Holden

Austronesian language family is believed by many to be the island of Taiwan andover thousands of years Austronesian languages have diffused away from this hearth(Blust 1985, 1995; Bellwood 1991, 2013; Pereltsvaig 2012; Reid 1994). It is one ofthe most widespread language families in the world and was the most widespreadlanguage family until being superseded by the Indo European language familyafter 1500 (Bellwood 1991). The Austronesian language family stretches fromMadagascar, in the west, to Hawaii and Easter Island, in the east (Fig. 2), and it

Fig. 1 Major islands of the Philippines

Austronesian Archipelagic Linguistic Diversity Amid Globalization in the. . . 3

dominates language use in this part of the world with the exception of the Papuanlanguages spoken in most of New Guinea, parts of the Bismarck and Solomonislands, and a few islands in Eastern Indonesia.

The Austronesian language family consists of two main branches: Formosan,consisting of 20 languages on the island of Taiwan, and Malayo-Polynesian,consisting of all of the other Austronesian languages (Pereltsvaig 2012).The Malayo-Polynesian branch can be further subdivided into three main groups:Western, Central, and Eastern Malayo-Polynesian (Pereltsvaig 2012). EasternMalayo-Polynesian comprises the languages of Micronesia and Polynesia, CentralMalayo-Polynesian languages are spoken in the islands of Eastern Indonesia, andWestern Malayo-Polynesian languages include Malagasy, spoken on Madagascar,Malay, spoken in Malaysia, Bahasa, spoken in Indonesian, and the languages of thePhilippines (Pereltsvaig 2012). Almost all of the Philippine languages belong to theWestern Malayo-Polynesian group of the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austro-nesian language family (Blust 1985). Indeed, the inclusion of the Philippine lan-guages in the Western Malayo-Polynesian group can be shown by the numeroussimilar words found in Tagalog and Malay (Table 1).

The Languages of the Philippines

The Ethnologue project is the world’s most comprehensive catalogue of languages(Pereltsvaig 2012) and it lists 185 languages for the Philippines with 181 of thesebeing living languages that are still in use (Lewis et al. 2014). There are six majorlanguages spoken in the archipelago and, according to Lewis et al. (2014), these sixlanguages of the Philippines (and the percentages of the population speaking them asfirst languages) are: Tagalog (23), Cebuano (17), Ilocano (8); Ilonggo (6); Waray (3);

Fig. 2 Extent of the Austronesian language family – from Madagascar to Easter Island

4 M. A. Bravante and W. N. Holden

and Bicol (3). The spatial distribution of the languages of the Philippines is depictedin Fig. 3.

Tagalog (which constitutes the basis for Pilipino, one of the archipelago’s twoofficial languages along with English) is the country’s most dominant languageby virtue of its position as the language of that portion of Luzon where Manila,the capital city, is located (Cordell and Milner 1989). Approximately 72% of thepopulation can speak Tagalog either as a first or second language (Lewis et al. 2014).While Tagalog is spoken by the largest number of people, Cebuano is the mostgeographically widespread language being spoken in the Central Visayas (theeastern half of the island of Negros, the island of Cebu, and the island of Bohol),parts of Leyte, and most of Mindanao. Cebuano is widely spoken on Mindanao dueto long historical contacts between the Central Visayas andMindanao and because ofthe migration of landless Christians from the Central Visayas to Mindanao, the “landof promise,” during the 1948–1960 time period (Holden 2009, 2014; Wernstedt andSimkins 1965). The Central Visayas is a region of the Philippines where much of theland is owned by a very small number of people (Borras 2007). To prevent agrarianunrest, the government used the largely unpopulated land area of Mindanao asa “safety valve” and encouraged the migration of landless tenant farmers from theCentral Visayas to Mindanao. When these people were combined with Cebuanospeaking migrants from Leyte, 70% of all migrants to Mindanao during the 1948 to1960 time period were Cebuano speakers (Wernstedt and Simkins 1965). There isalso an appreciable Ilonggo speaking population in Central Mindanao due toa similar “safety valve” migration of landless Christians from the Western Visayas

Table 1 Similar words in Tagalog and Malay (Agoncillo 1990)

Word Tagalog Malay

Ash abó abu

I akó aku

Across haláng alang

Half-hearted alangán alangan

Waves alon alun

Six anim anam

Struggle hamók amok

Pig baboy babi

Read basa bacha

Mangrove swamp bakawan bakau

Basket bakol bakul

Flute bansi bangsi

Rise up bangon bangun

New bago bahru

Stone bató batu

Rice cake bibingka bingka

Youngest born bunsô bongsu

Grudge damdam damdam

Embrace yakap dakap

Austronesian Archipelagic Linguistic Diversity Amid Globalization in the. . . 5

(the island of Panay and the western half of the island of Negros) to CentralMindanao (Holden 2009, 2014; Wernstedt and Simkins 1965). Between 1948 and1960, 28% of all migrants to Mindanao were Ilonggo speakers (Wernstedt andSimkins 1965).

It bears stressing that the different languages spoken in the Philippines are indeedlanguages and not just dialects (Box 1) and that speakers of one language will not

Fig. 3 Major languages of the Philippines

6 M. A. Bravante and W. N. Holden

find the other languages mutually intelligible (McFarland 2004). Table 2 displays theBible verse John 3:16 in the six major languages (as well as in English and Spanish)and this demonstrates the substantial differences in the languages. There are majordifferences in vocabulary among the languages as well as in pronunciations and ingrammar; translating from one language to another is not a simple matter ofsubstituting a word in one language for the corresponding word in the otherlanguage. As McFarland (2004: 63) wrote, “the Philippine languages are indeedvery different, more different than simple ‘dialects,’ and that communicationbetween the groups of speakers of various languages, in the absence of anotherknown language, would be impossible.”

Box 1 The Difference between Accents, Dialects, and Languages

When two people speak the same language, but pronouncewords differently, they arespeaking with different accents. When two people speak the same language, pro-nounce words differently, spell words differently, use different words to describe thesame objects or actions, but can still find each other mutually intelligible they are

(continued)

Table 2 John 3:16 in different Philippine languages (Weber 1989)

Language John 3:16

English For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone whobelieves in him might not perish but might have eternal life.

Spanish Tanto amó Dios al mundo, que entregó a su Hijo ũnico, para que quien crea en ēl nomuera sino tenga vida eterna.

Chabacano Cay ansina gayot de grande el amor del Dios para con el mundo, que ya dale le suunico anak para todo quien ta cree con ele gendeh ay muri, sino ay tene vida hastapara cuando.

Tagalog Sapagka’t gayon na lamang ang pagsinta ng Dios sa sanglibutan, na ibinigay niyaang kaniyang bugtone na Anak, upang ang sinomang sa kaniya’y sumampalatayaay huwang mapahamak, kungdi magkaroon ng buhay na walang hanggan.

Cebuano Kay gihigugma gayud sa Dios ang Kalibutan nga tungod niana gihatag niya angyang bugtong Anak, aron ang tanan nga mosalig kaniya dili malaglag, kondili maykinabuhing dayon.

Ilocano Ta casta la unay ti panagayat ti Dios iti lubong, nga ginhatag niya ang iya bugtong,tapno amin á mamati kencuana, saan á mapucaw, no di ket adda biagna ngaagnanayon.

Ilonggo Kay ginhigugma sang Dios ang kalibutan, sa bagay nga ginhatag niya ang iyabugtong nga Anak, agud nga ang bisan sin-o nga magtoo sa iya indi hawala, kondimay kabuhi nga dayon.

Waray Kay an Dios naghigugma gud han kalibutan, nga iya iginhatag an iya Bugtong ngaAnak, basi nga an ngatanan nga natoo ha iya, diri mawara, kondi ma may kinabuhinga waray katapusan.

Bicol Huli ta namotan na gayo nin dios an quinaban, na itinaó an saiyang Aquingbogtong, ta gñaning an gabos na minatubod sa saiya, day malagalag, cundimagcaigua nin buhay na day nin catapusan.

Austronesian Archipelagic Linguistic Diversity Amid Globalization in the. . . 7

Box 1 The Difference between Accents, Dialects, and Languages (continued)speaking different dialects. If, however, two people cannot understand each otherwhile speaking their own languages they are speaking different languages.(Pereltsvaig 2012)

The linguistic diversity of the Philippines is caused by its physical geography(McFarland 2004). The islands of the archipelago are mountainous and this causespeople to be separated from each other and, over time, develop different languages.According to De Carvalho (1962: 82) islands and peninsulas, especially if they aremountainous, have a “profound influence on languages.” Consider, for example,the island of Negros, bifurcated by the 2,435 m (8,000 ft) high Mount Kanlaon; onthe west side of this island people speak Ilonggo and on the east side they speakCebuano. Consider also the Bicol language, spoken only in the Bicol Peninsula ofsoutheastern Luzon. Bicolandia is a narrow peninsula, barely joined to the rest ofLuzon, and overtime the Bicol language has developed as a distinct languagedifferent from the Tagalog spoken in the adjacent Southern Tagalog Region ofLuzon.

Spanish in the Philippines

From 1565 to 1898, the Philippines were a colony of Spain and this profoundlyinfluenced the archipelago’s languages. Spanish colonial rule was the centripetalforce that bonded the disparate islands together; were it not for this, some or all of theislands may have become part of Malaysia or Indonesia (Francia 2010). The firstmajor influence of Spanish on the Philippine languages was the replacement of thesyllabic scripts of Indic origin with the Roman alphabet that is used in all Philippinelanguages and the first book published in the archipelago was the DoctrinaChristiana published in 1593 (Cordell and Milner 1989). Spanish, however, neverbecame established as a widespread spoken language in the Philippines and, by theend of Spanish colonial rule in 1898, was only spoken by about 3% of the population(Gonzalez 1996). There are three reasons why Spanish never became firmlyimplanted among members of the population as it did in Latin America. First,since the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas divided the world along longitude 50� West,giving everything west of that line to Spain and everything east of that line toPortugal, the Spanish were unable to travel from Spain, around the Cape of GoodHope, to the Philippines and, instead, were forced to operate their colony in thePhilippines as an adjunct of their Mexican colony (Francia 2010). Since all travelbetween Spain and the Philippines was done though Mexico, very few Spaniards,even with an augmentation by Mexican Spaniards, travelled to the Philippines. Witha small number of Spanish speaking people travelling to the archipelago, Spanishcould not become established as a language. Introduced languages will normallyonly take hold on a permanent basis if they are, as Bellwood (2010: 82) wrote,“imported into the mouths of substantial numbers of their native speakers.” Second,

8 M. A. Bravante and W. N. Holden

during the Spanish colonial period there was a lack of significant demographic shiftsamong the Filipino people with very few speakers of one language moving into areasinhabited by speakers of other languages. This obviated the need for anotherlanguage, such as Spanish, to act as a lingua franca among the population. “Span-ish,” wrote Lipski (1987a: 45), “never became a true national language in thePhilippines, but was restricted to a limited socio-cultural domain.” Spanish wasmostly spoken by the friars, those associated with the colonial government, andmembers of the upper classes (Lipski 1987a). Third, the Spanish were reluctant to letFilipinos learn how to speak Spanish due to a concern that fluency in Spanish wouldexpose them to subversive thoughts and make the already tenuous control Spain hadover such a far flung outpost of its vast empire even more difficult to govern. TheSpanish colonial era was by no means tranquil and it was marked by numerouspeasant uprisings. On the island of Bohol, for example, the Spanish lost completecontrol from 1744 until 1829 when peasants established mountainous communitiesand openly defied them (Constantino 1975). As Bernardo (2004: 17) stated, “Indeed,the generally accepted policy was not to educate the Filipinos because the Filipinoswould revolt against Spain if they knew too much.” Although the late nineteenthcentury saw an increase in Spanish language education in the islands as its once greatcolonial empire slipped away, Filipinos had minimal contact with schools past theprimary level during the Spanish colonial period (Stolz 2002; Wolf 1973).

While Spanish never became established as a widely spoken language in thePhilippines, the Austronesian languages of the archipelago became studded withnumerous Spanish loan words and Spanish loan words can be found in largeamounts in the languages of the Philippines (Stolz 2002). “Despite the failure ofthe Spanish language to situate itself among the native Philippine languages,” wroteLipski (1987a: 37), “the number of Spanish borrowings in the Philippine languagesfar exceeds that of any Native American language.”Approximately 25% of all wordsin Cebuano, for example, are of Spanish origin (Wolff 1973).

The influence of Spanish can be found in the archipelago’s toponymy with placenames such as Agusan del Norte, Agusan del Sur, Cagayan del Oro, CamarinesNorte, Camarines Sur, Davao del Norte, Davao Oriental, Davao del Sur, IlocosNorte, Ilocos Sur, Negros Occidental, Negros, Oriental, Nueva Ecija, OccidentalMindoro, Oriental Mindoro, Puerto Princesa, Zamboanga del Norte, and Zamboangadel Sur. Many Filipino surnames, such as Aquino, Arroyo, De La Cruz, Marcos, andRamos, are of Spanish origin. The use of Spanish on baptismal certificates, for dates,measurements, toponymy, and time, can be attributed to the fact that these were allthings that were typically discussed with church or government officials (Wolff1973); the months of the year (Table 3), for example, show striking similarity similarbetween Spanish and Tagalog.

One of the most interesting aspects of Spanish in the Philippines was thedevelopment of Chabacano (often called Chavacano or Zamboangueño), a SpanishCreole language that emerged in Zamboanga City in Zamboanga del Sur on theisland of Mindanao where it is still widely spoken (see Fig. 3). A Creole language isa language that results from the blending of a colonizer’s language with the indig-enous language of a colonized people (Rubenstein 2003: 150). Chabacano originallydeveloped in Cavite, near Manila, where the Spanish had a large garrison (Lipski

Austronesian Archipelagic Linguistic Diversity Amid Globalization in the. . . 9

1987b). In 1791, a large contingent of Spanish soldiers were sent to (what is now)Zamboanga City to reinforce the garrison and these soldiers spoke a form ofPhilippine Creole Spanish and, from this, Chabacano emerged. As Lipski (1987b:91) wrote:

While Zamboangueño has absorbed enormous quantities of Visayan lexical and grammaticalitems, its essence as a variant of Philippine Creole Spanish remains unchanged, and it is theprimary language of a major cultural, commercial, and political center of one geographicalextreme of the Philippines.

English in the Philippines

On 25 April 1898, in a conflict of very ambiguous origins, the United States andSpain went to war and on 1 May 1898 the United States Navy destroyed the Spanishfleet at the Battle of Manila Bay (Silbey 2007). On 26 June 1898, a contingent ofUnited States Army soldiers arrived in the Philippines and it soon became apparentthat the Americans intended to retain the archipelago as a colony of their own (Miller1982). There were many reasons behind the American retention of the Philippinesand a partial list includes: access to Asian markets, particularly in nearby China;concerns that another European power might acquire the islands if the Americansdeparted, concerns accentuated by the presence of German warships near the islands;and simply the prestige associated with having an overseas colony (Boot 2002). On4 February 1899, conflict broke out between the Americans and Filipino nationalistsand this conflict, the Philippine American War, continued until July of 1902.However, even while fighting (at times ferocious) was still going on the Americansbegan engaging in a widespread introduction of the English language to the Philip-pines. In 1901, the Philippine Commission (set up by the United States after it

Table 3 The months of the year in Spanish and Tagalog

Month Spanish Tagalog

January Enero Enero

February Febrero Pebrero

March Marzo Marso

April Abril Abril

May Mayo Mayo

June Junio Hunyo

July Julio Hulyo

August Agosto Agosto

September Septiembre Setyembre

October Octubre Oktubre

November Noviembre Nubyembre

December Diciembre Disyembre

Sources: Lorenzana (1998); Zayas-Bazan et al. (2005)

10 M. A. Bravante and W. N. Holden

purchased the archipelago from Spain for 20 million dollars) began, what Gonzalez(2004: 8) described as “the system of public education under the Bureau of Educa-tion with English as the sole medium of instruction.” Teachers from all over theUnited States began arriving on the USS Thomas on 21 August 1901 and theseteachers, collectively referred to as Thomasites, reached a total of 2,000 from 1901 to1921 (Gonzalez 2004).

The United States decided to engage in a program of widespread English instruc-tion for three reasons (Bernardo 2004). First, since American teachers could teachmore effectively in English, all instruction in all subjects was given in English.Second, English was believed to be a language capable of unifying the heteroge-neous Filipinos speaking different languages and dialects. “The American colonialgovernment,” wrote Bernardo (2004: 23), “explicitly stated that English was pre-ferred over the other local languages as it could serve as a means of unifying theethnolinguistically diverse Filipino people.” Third, the Americans, fighting thePhilippine nationalists during the Philippine-American War (and mindful of Filipinorebellions against Spain), viewed English as the language that would provide theFilipinos access to “civilization” and a civilized citizenry would be less prone torebellion.

Unlike the Spanish, who barely introduced their language to the archipelago, theAmericans were very successful in introducing English to the islands and todayapproximately 43% of the archipelago’s 107 million inhabitants can speak Englishas a second language (Lewis et al. 2014). English is the official language ofgovernment and all government websites, documents, laws, and legal proceedingsare in English (Friginal 2007). English is used for deliberations in the PhilippineCongress, by the judiciary, and by the executive branch of government (Gonzalez2004). Although Philippine languages began to be used in primary education duringthe 1970s, English is still the principal language of instruction in higher education,particularly in the sciences and in technical subjects (Bernardo 2004).

There is a substantial variation in the quality of English spoken in the Philippinesand, according to Tupas (2004), there are five types of English spoken in the islands(Fig. 4). First, those speaking English with the greatest proficiency are the intellec-tuals, academics, and members of professions, such as law and medicine, requiringboard certification. This is followed by the middle classes, a somewhat larger group

Fig. 4 Five types of Englishspoken in the Philippines

Austronesian Archipelagic Linguistic Diversity Amid Globalization in the. . . 11

of people who speak English quite well, albeit not quite as good as the intellectuals.This group is followed by white collar workers, an even larger group who speakreasonably good English performing administrative and clerical tasks. There isa larger component of Filipino society speaking conversational English well enoughto work abroad as overseas Filipino workers (OFWs). Lastly, the largest componentof Philippine society consists of minimally functionally literate Filipinos; these arepeople who spend the vast bulk of their lives speaking Philippine languages witha minimal ability to operate in English.

In the Philippines today language use demonstrates one’s social status with upperand middle class people speaking English (much as the Russian nobility spokeFrench during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries) and the lower classes speak-ing Philippine languages (Wolf 1973). English is the language of business, thehotels, and the shopping malls; Tagalog is the language of gossip (or tsismis as itis referred to in Tagalog), the wet market, and small businesses. English speakingpeople ride in airplanes and cars while Tagalog speaking people ride in boats andjeepneys (McFarland 2004). Television news shows designed to cater to the upperand middle classes are broadcast in English and differ little in format from the BBCor CNN; news shows designed to cater to the lower classes are broadcast in Tagalogand tend to focus on sensational news such as murders and scandals (McFarland2004). There are similar divides between English and Tagalog language newspapers;as McFarland (2004: 74) wrote:

Mainstream newspapers are English, again much like English newspapers in other countries.Tagalog newspapers are tabloids, also with emphasis on the sensational. An item buried inthe middle of an article on page 10 of an English paper may be presented as the page1 headline in the Tagalog tabloid.

One of the most important aspects of the use of English in the Philippines isthe phenomena of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs). From across the archipelago atany point in time almost 10% of the population work abroad temporarily at a varietyof occupations such as bartenders, construction workers, maids, nannies, performers,seamen, waiters and waitresses (Rodriguez 2010; Tyner 2009). In 2013, it wasestimated that OFWs remitted approximately 28 billion dollars, or 10% of thearchipelago’s Gross Domestic Product, back, to the Philippines (World Bank2014). A tremendous impetus to reliance upon OFWs has been the ability ofFilipinos to speak English (Rodriguez 2010; Tyner 2009). In Malaysia, Filipinamaids are paid about 60% more than Indonesian maids because of their ability tospeak English and it is estimated that there are approximately 200,000 foreign maidsworking in Hong Kong and most of these are Filipinas (Stalker 2008). In the wordsof Gonzalez (2004: 13):

One of the most valuable assets of [OFWs] is the ease with which one can carry oncommunication and further training with them through mutual competence of trainer andtrainee and supervisor and field person in a common language such as English.

12 M. A. Bravante and W. N. Holden

The government of Ferdinand Marcos (1965 to 1986) placed a heavy emphasis uponlearning English in both its educational and economic policies, and it was also at thistime that OFWs began to be heavily relied upon (Rodriguez 2010; Tyner 2009). Theprospects of work abroad continue to be attractive and this acts as a powerfulmotivator for the learning of English (Gonzalez 2004). Filipinos place a heavyemphasis on English because of the economic advantages offered by it and becauseof their need for foreign exchange from English competent OFWs (Gonzalez 2004).To Tupas (2004: 51), the agenda of Philippine education is one of “supplying theworld market economy with a docile and cheap labor force trained in English.”

In recent years, the ability of many Filipinos to speak English has led toa proliferation of call centers in the Philippines. Since the 1990s, companies basedin North America have outsourced their customer support centers to the Philippineswhere labor costs are lower and where workers can provide service in English(Bolton 2013; Friginal 2007). Employment in call centers has grown from 1,000workers in 2000 to 636,000 in 2011 – an average annual increase of 59% (Bolton2013). The call centers are located in the archipelago’s major cities such as Manila,Cebu City, and Davao City as well as at the Clark Special Economic Zone whereClark Air Force base used to be located (Friginal 2007). The range of servicesprovided at these call centers includes call in queries, technical support, travel andconsumer services, as well as legal and medical transcription (Bolton 2013). Mostcall center workers are young women from middle class families with a collegeeducation, many of whom started learning English at a relatively young age. Whilecall center workers receive substantially lower wages that their North Americanequivalents, a starting salary of 15,000 Pesos (338 United States Dollars) permonth is comparable to what a bank clerk or management trainee would receive.Unfortunately, because of the time zone difference between North America and thePhilippines (1:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time in North America is 1:00 AM in thePhilippines) call center work is mostly done at night and this can create problemswith sleep, health issues, and family life for many call center workers and attritionrates are high.

How Languages Demonstrate Power Relations in Society

In many ways, a study of the languages of the Philippines reveals how languagesdemonstrate power relations in society. The numerous Spanish loan words in thePhilippine languages demonstrate the power relations existing during the Spanishcolonial period because, as McFarland (2004: 72) wrote, “words are usuallyborrowed from a dominant language into a subordinate one.” The massive borrow-ing of Spanish words “was motivated,”wrote Stolz (2002: 152), “by the desire of thespeakers of the indigenous languages to talk like the representatives of the dominantsocial groups.” Similarly today, numerous English loan words are making their wayinto the archipelago’s languages. When one language is spoken by the members ofa dominant group in society, its speakers will have power; speakers of subordinatelanguages will, therefore, have a strong incentive to learn the dominant language

Austronesian Archipelagic Linguistic Diversity Amid Globalization in the. . . 13

(McFarland 2004). Consequently, loan words move from the language spoken by thedominant group into the language spoken by the subordinate group; very rarely dowords move from the language spoken by the subordinate group into the languagespoken by the dominant group. One rare example of such a socially upward diffusionwould be the word “boondocks” used in American English; this word is derivedfrom the Tagalog word bundok (mountain) and it refers to refer to a rough, orbackward, countryside (Weber 1989).

The Philippines are notorious for vast levels of social inequality. “Philippinesociety,” wrote McCoy (2009: 533), “has slowly been polarized between a wealthyoligarchy and an impoverished mass.” Language contributes very much to thisinequality because to advance in Filipino society one must be able to speak English(Martin 2014). However, as Bernardo (2004: 26) stated, “the supposed intellectual,social and economic advantages gained with English proficiency are actuallyrestricted to the sectors of Philippine society who are already privileged.” Thearchipelago’s poor often receive low quality education and, in particular, a lowquality of English language education. This makes it more difficult for them (unlikemembers of the upper and middle classes who acquire a high quality of Englishlanguage education) to achieve English proficiency and this limits their prospects forupward social mobility. As Bernardo (2004: 26) wrote:

The poor are severely limited in their access to education, much less to quality education inthe English language. If they do manage to finish secondary schooling, they enter the poorestquality colleges, end up speaking imperfect English, risk failing the professional licensureexaminations (which are always given in English), and end up with low paying, low leveljobs if they manage to gain employment at all.

Using English as the medium of instruction in Filipino higher education reservesopportunities for advancement to those who already enjoy social and economicadvantages in Philippine society; while this occurs, the vast majority of the popula-tion struggles with English as a foreign language and finds their limited proficiencyin English a major obstacle to receiving a higher education. Indeed, Bernardo (2004:27) regards the use of English in higher education as a major source of attritionamong members of the lower classes because these people “are those most likely tofail in examinations and writing requirements in English, to perceive much of formaleducation as irrelevant, and to drop out of school altogether.”

The Impact of Globalization upon languages of the Philippines

The emphasis upon English language education in the Philippines is very mucha function of globalization (Bernardo 2004). Wallerstein (1974) developedthe concept of World Systems Theory, which depicts the world as divided intocore nations (the developed world) and periphery nations (the developing world);the former have capital and wealth while the latter supply raw materials and labor.The archipelago is part of the global periphery and through its provision of OFWsand call center workers it provides labor to the core nations of the world. What has

14 M. A. Bravante and W. N. Holden

been instrumental in the Philippines supplying labor to the core is the ability of itscitizens to speak English to at least some degree. This allows them to go abroad asOFWs and this facilitates the location of call centers in the archipelago. As improvedcommunications increases global interconnectedness, the Philippines will continueas a supplier of labor and an essential driver of this is English language education.

Conclusion

The languages of the Philippines are members of the Austronesian language family,a vast sprawling language family stretching from Madagascar to Hawaii and EasterIsland. Although many perceive the archipelago’s languages to merely be a collec-tion of dialects, they are, in fact, profoundly different languages and these cameabout over time as the fragmented territorial morphology of the islands separatedpeople and allowed their languages to differentiate over time. For over 300 years, thePhilippines were a colony of Spain, and although the languages of the Philippinesfeature numerous Spanish loan words (and even include Chabacano, a SpanishCreole language), Spanish never became well established in the archipelago. TheUnited States of America replaced the Spanish as colonizers in 1898 and, unlikethem, aggressively introduced English into the islands. Today, the ability of manyFilipinos to speak English has contributed greatly to the role of the Philippines asa supplier of labor, in terms of OFWs and call center employees, to the core nationsof the world.

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