infundibulum

August is Philippine Languages Month in the Philippines.

Speaking in tongues–Pilipino-style

This overview has some interesting Tagalog Pilipino Filipino words thrown in. (I think that’s the current term for the national language… you know what? It’s complicated. )

For instance:

IT is not Linggo ng Wika; it’s Buwan ng Wika. It’s not Abakada and Tagalog; it’s ABCD and Pilipino. It’s no longer Taglish as a language borrowed and corrupted; it’s now translation and code switching as proof of comprehension and multilingual mastery. It’s more than just stodgy textbooks and formal oratorical balagtasan; it’s also a celebration of comic-book lore and street corner kwentuhan. It’s no longer Isang Bansa, Isang Diwa; it’s now Buwan ng Wikang Pambansa ay Buwan ng mga Wika sa Pilipinas.

Ricardo Nolasco of the Philippine Languages Commission (whaddya know, they have a wiki) has some more background on that last pair of phrases:

Nolasco explains, “Buwan ng Wikang Pambansa ay Buwan ng mga Wika sa Pilipinas is a pitch for linguistic diversity. Isang Bansa, Isang Diwa was the slogan during the martial-law regime and that promoted dangerous ideas such as that having many languages was disadvantageous to the country—and that’s not correct.”

With a bit of digging I discovered that Isang Bansa, Isang Diwa means “One nation, One spirit.” It was the motto from the bad old days of the Marcos government. (And more amusingly, perhaps, it recently resurfaced in the name of the wacky Eddie Gil’s Partido Isang Bansa Isang Diwa. He promised to “make every Filipino a millionaire within one hundred days” of being elected. That didn’t work out! (Unfortunately!).)

Haven’t managed to decipher the first, more agreeable phrase that Nolasco mentions, but buwan is “month,” wikang pambansa is “national language,” and wika sa Pilipinas is (I think) “languages of the Philippines.” So I’m guessing the whole thing means something like “The Month of the National Language and (All?) the Languages of the Philippines”?

It would also be fun to know what the languages on that poster are, specifically.