An Essay On Languages In The Philippines
Via Dogberry, here is an essay entitled Myths About Languages In The Philippines, by Isabel Pefianco Martin, as copied and pasted to Dogberry's post, The Philippines Is A Multilingual Paradise. This essay was published in the March 1, 2008 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer. It's a very informative essay, and makes a case for "Philippine English" as well as local Philippine languages. Some quotes:
"The link between intelligence and English language proficiency is very flimsy. In this world, you will find intelligent people who cannot speak a word of English, as well as not-so-smart ones who are native speakers of the language."
"This aspiration points to the myth that there is only one kind of English language in this world, and that is, Standard American English. What many do not know is that World Englishes exist, and Philippine English is just one among these many Englishes."
"Finally, the most dangerous of all myths is the belief that there is no place for the local languages in basic education."
"The link between intelligence and English language proficiency is very flimsy. In this world, you will find intelligent people who cannot speak a word of English, as well as not-so-smart ones who are native speakers of the language."
"This aspiration points to the myth that there is only one kind of English language in this world, and that is, Standard American English. What many do not know is that World Englishes exist, and Philippine English is just one among these many Englishes."
"Finally, the most dangerous of all myths is the belief that there is no place for the local languages in basic education."
posted by pgenrestories at 4:22 AM
2 Comments:
about languages in the philippines - read or die also published these statistics on reading preferences, and it states that more pinoys actually prefer to read tagalog/filipino works more than english.
writing and publishing in local languages is something i've always wanted to write about, but uh... i haven't had the concentration.
Thanks, Bhex. I've been thinking about putting 1 or 2 spec. fic. stories in Tagalog in PGS myself, but I still need to give it some thought, to see if it's a good thing to mix languages in an issue. Thanks for the link to those statistics!
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