How Tagalog Took Over the Philippines (And Why Some Didn’t Want It)

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Hey guys, I'm Alex. If you're new on the channel,  welcome. If not, welcome back. How the Tagalog took over the Philippines. This is something  that I want to see because I want to learn it.

[00:00:10]You know, I want to visit the Philippines  and maybe live. Who the hell knows? But um it's difficult. It's a difficult language in  my opinion. In the Philippines, there are more than 175 different languages. But Tagalog, it's  something different if I understand correctly.

[00:00:28]And there is the Filipino there. It's it's a mix.  I don't know. I want to understand. This is what we're going to see in the video of today. A  lot of other videos about the Philippines.

[00:00:37]Feel free to check out. I'm going to leave some  cards at the end. But let's go and watch this.

[00:00:44]Take a look at this. This is the map of the  Philippines. A country in Southeast Asia with over 120 languages with eight major regional languages  spread throughout the archipelago. I thought there were 175. Maybe I'm mistaken. I grew up here in  this part of Mindanao where Sabuano is spoken.

[00:01:02]And even though I've been technically learning  Filipino from elementary through high school, I've picked up Sabuano way faster and better because  that was the language that was spoken around me at school, in stores, in the public, everywhere.  And unless I was watching television or any local Filipino movies, learning Filipino felt a bit  inconvenient. At least that's how it was when I was a kid. Nowadays, I do spend more time on the  internet in Filipino spaces where being exposed to the language more and more also gets me to value  it more and more. But still got me thinking, how does a nation with over 120 languages choose  one to represent them all? And why Filipino? So, Filipino or Tagalog? Ah, Aldo Indogos.  I am Kai from Tobico region and I speak.

[00:02:02]Those are just a few of the many languages  you'd hear in the country today. Yet, there are only two official languages, English  and Filipino. The former is basically just a remnant of colonization that is still valued  due to its international importance. I'll get more into that a little bit later,  but for now, I'd mainly like to take a closer look at this one because this language  was never really foreign to the archipelago, yet its existence is still somewhat recent in  Philippine history. Kind of. Let me explain.

[00:02:39]In contrast to many nations with long-standing  dominant languages, the Philippines historically didn't have one. In fact, before the Spanish  colonization in 1521, there was no Philippines to even begin with. Sure, the islands, people, and  cultures all existed, but they were never unified.

[00:03:03]The way the archipelago is separated into  different regions by water and mountains gave us this tapestry of languages  and cultures shaped by geography.

[00:03:18]Q. The United States.

[00:03:27]At this point, the Philippines was overflowing  with languages. They had all the existing regional languages. They had Spanish as their  previous official language and were now being introduced to English by the Americans. Within  the next few decades, a lot of changes were happening. And unlike during the Spanish era  where Spanish was mostly used among the nobles, clergy, and the Spanish themselves, the American  approach had a much more widespread effect.

[00:03:55]These were the Thomasesites. Some 600 American  teachers who arrived in the Philippines in the beginning of the 20th century aboard the US Army  transport Thomas. Schools throughout the country suddenly all had American teachers who would  introduce English to the younger generation. This language which never had a place in the country  before was now completely overtaking the lingering use of Spanish within just a few decades. Pause.  I forgot to add some extra context just before moving on to the next section. To be fair, only  about 10% of the country actually spoke Spanish as a first language at the time, and they were  primarily concentrated in the more urban areas that were also affected the most by war. So, I'm  not really sure how impressive that still sounds.

[00:04:40]But what I still do find interesting is how  Mexico, which was also colonized by Spain, only 33 years less than the Philippines, in fact, is a  completely Spanish-sp speakaking country, whereas the Philippines is not. Yeah. Anyways, I think  I've been you guys been not talking about what you actually came here for. So, let's get right  into it. By the mid1930s, this guy came around.

[00:05:09]President Manuel Gzison was in charge  of the Commonwealth of the Philippines, which was basically this transition period for  the country before it would eventually become fully independent. And in 1937 he took the  first big step of bringing a local language into the spotlight by choosing Tagalog to be  the basis of the Wikang Panama. So he chose the national language when the national language  law was enacted during the time of Kerzison. The Sabuos were um fairly independent historically.  Sabanos have always been proud uh about being the first seat of of Spanish colonial power in  the Philippines, the first seat of Catholicism in the Philippines. Sabanos already had an  established grammar then. During that time, Sabuanos already established as a literary  language. Uh the Sabanos um led by the brothers Vicenteoto and and Filimmonsoto, they were the  senators from Cebu. Then they very much expressed that the Bisayiah should be the the basis for the  national language primarily because um it had the most number of speakers. So why not make it as the  national language. This opposition went to go on even decades after Filipino was established to a  point where the government in Sibu itself banned the use of the galog as a medium of instruction  in schools. Wow. Despite all this, the popular advantage Sabuano once had ended up diminishing  as more and more people started learning Tagalog throughout the century. Do I feel bothered  about Filipino being a national language? No, not really. As I said, I think that's positive  effect towards our country. I still think it has become effective because it has been so much  ingrained into our educational system that uh it's pretty much all right now. Like uh people don't  really care that much. We learn it at school and we end up using it when we move to different parts  of the country which is very effective. Growing up in Bol or southern Luzison, um I had no problem  with it being the national language since a lot of us could speak Filipino if we weren't speaking in  Bolano. A lot of my relatives in my mother's side live in Cebu and some are living in Iligan and  Kagayan Deoro. They all speak Bisaya. And when I started learning the language and being surrounded  by people who speak Bisaya, I also later on learned that they don't normally converse in  Tagalog, they would rather talk to me in English when translating words or conversing. Being like  a native Tagalog speaker, I think it's um normal.

[00:07:38]For me at least, it's it's nice. It's an advantage  to have because where I'm from the capital at least, I could easily communicate with other  people from the capital. But at the same time, it's a bit different, especially like uh other in  other parts of the Philippines where Bisaya is the main language and not necessarily like Tagalog.  I mean, for me, it's very comfortable that I speak Tagalog. In terms of me like learning  another language or like other languages, I'm very neutral about it, but I also understand  culturally um wanting to learn uh other cultures and other languages as part of the Philippines  like big culture. I'm neutral about it, but at the same time, um, it's not something I would be  envious about, but it would be something I would be interested in. So, this is what the guys just a  second over here. It's so insane, at least for me, to think about that. We're talking same country  and more than I I don't know why. Maybe I you can help me down below. I knew there were more than  175. In this video, we're talking about more than 120. So, I don't know where is the truth over  there. You can help me with that. But as I was saying, it's so insane that you are in a place  and I don't know 200 km or 100 or whatever it is, they speak another language, but you are in the  same country. So, for me that is mind-blowing. So, I don't know. I wanted I wanted to learn one. I  mean only tagalog will be like or Filipino or how you want to call it uh even if it's difficult  but I'm I'm I'm getting there. So you know be patient. It will be easier of course being in the  Philippines and just hearing you know people talk to you. It's you you can understand it and you  know have it earlier than studying it uh outside the Philippines. But you know it's it's hard.  It's and I I'm curious one thing which is the most difficult from all those 120 or 175 uh or how  many you know how to speak because I I don't think there is a person who knows them all or maybe it  is wow Philippines did but I'm also a bit curious about what other multilingual countries did to  resolve this type of issue. There's four official languages. There's like the four main main ones  and then like a Italian Latin language. Yeah, Switzerland is here canton. In some cantons it's  like both languages are represented. For example, in burn it's both French and German. Other cities  is for example like in Zurich I think it's just mostly in German and in like the Italian canton  it's like Italian speaking. I mean in school everyone is supposed to learn at least French at  least like where I came from. For me personally I don't think it's too big of a problem but also  also because like where I live is only in German.

[00:10:21]Well, we do have our main languages which is  Hindi and English. Most people do speak it, but there's a huge distinction between the north  and south. In south, they don't speak Hindi, which is the most important like the use language  in the in India, but they do speak English. But and north, not a lot of people speak English.  There's a lot of religious beliefs to it and like a lot of cultural aspects to it like people  stick to their own languages like oh my language is better than yours and I want to stick with  it. So my first language was Bengali and then I had to speak obviously English and Hindi as like  second and third languages but usually you have to do like two languages. One your state language,  one is the Hindi and one is English. You know Hindi came from a lot of like distinct languages  and they all kind of summed up between like like Sanskrit, Bengali they all kind of similar to  Hindi a little bit by little. So they all kind of just merge into one and Hindi is like the the  ultimate. The Singapore model uh fits the context of the Philippines. The students are required  to learn three languages. First, of course, English. Second, their mother tongue. So, if  you're Chinese, you're going to learn Mandarin.

[00:11:28]If you're Malay, you're going to learn Malay.  If you're Tamil, then you're going to learn Tamil and so on. They are also required to learn a  different language. So, if if you're Chinese, you have the choice to learn Malay or Tamil. That's  a dream probably that I have. I still feel more comfortable with Sabwano than with Filipino, but I  don't think that there would have been a solution that would have appealed to everyone either  way. The Philippines is diverse, which is both a feature and a challenge. A language simply had  to be chosen because governing a country otherwise would be difficult and expensive. If Sabuana were  to hypothetically have been chosen as the main language, there still would have been complaints  just by different people. And this time, Sabana wouldn't really have the capital city advantage  that Tagalog does. So, I'm fine with the way things are. And hey, the way everybody is becoming  more and more connected through the internet is opening up an interesting opportunity for the  different languages to find a middle ground naturally without it having to be artificially  done through law. So, I'm pretty excited for what the future holds in that regard. Wow, cool  documentary, guys. Full video. down below you can find the original lingo to this channel and  give it a thanks. Uh, wow. It's mind-blowing. It's so I mean I didn't know that it's so it was so  different and then the Suano I don't know how it's I mean I not knowing the language I cannot say how  different it is from Taglo but outstanding guys.

[00:12:58]You see, Philippines is not just only amazing for  the people, for the country, for the landscape, for the history. It's it's amazing in every single  thing that comes from the Philippines. So, that's why I'm so I'm so happy. And then I have another  video that is going to come next on the channel, uh, which the wonders of the Philippines,  which are really hidden. I don't know if you know about that, but we are going to see it.  And I can't wait. Let me know your thoughts. How many languages from your own country do you speak?  Um what are the difference? And I don't know let us having in the comment section the help one  another to understand more. Okay. Thank I thank you very much and I hope you enjoy what you're  seeing over here on the channel. A lot to come uh more and I hope you're going to enjoy it. Like  subscribe and like I always say stay safe and if I have to say something in Philippine I mean just  thank you. Salamat po. Hope I pronounce rate.