Philippine English

Nearly all Filipino people are at least bilingual, knowing their native, regional language (such as Tagalog, Cebuano, or Ilokano), and/or English as their second or third language. A recent trend, especially in the Metro Manila area, is that more and more Filipino children in fact speak English as their first language. English is widely used in education, print and broadcast media, and business, and is used as a lingua franca throughout the archipelago.

1 Orthography
2 Pronunciation
3 Vocabulary and usage
4 History
5 Industries based on English
6 See also

Orthography

There is no universally accepted standard of Philippine English, though most Filipinos tend to follow after American English spelling. British spelling is widely understood as well but not used in formal correspondence.

Pronunciation

Main article: phonemic differentiation.

Educated Philippine English tends to follow American rather than British pronunciation.

English is often the language of choice for reading and writing among educated Filipinos, but it is less commonly used in everyday speech. As such, mispronunciation can sometimes occur for English words whose spellings differ significantly from their American or British pronunciations. Examples of common mispronunciations are margarine (mispronounced with hard g as in get instead of the j sound or soft g as in gem), lead (as in lead pipe, mispronounced to sound like "lead", meaning leadership, instead of sounding like "led"), lettuce (mostly pronounced as spelled instead of sounding like "letis"), salmon (silent L often pronounced), climber (silent b sometimes pronounced), martyr (rhymes with "clear" instead of sounding like "garter"), bowl (rhymes with "owl" instead of sounding like "hole"), etc. All vowels in unaccented last syllables are pronounced in vowels themselves except letter e before r, which is still pronounced schwa. Examples are capital as |KA-pi-tahl|, popular as |PO-pyoo-lar|, business as |BIS-ness|, channel as |CHA-nell|, actor as |AK-tor|, and culture as |KUL-choor|.

The short 'u' also turns into a long 'u', such as: frustration |froos-tra-shen|, suspend |soos-pend|, etc.

Filipinos, in informal situations, sometimes infuse native words into their English . For example, "Let's go home na" (Let's go home now). More on this can be found at Englog, although many Filipinos still refer to this as Taglish.

Most of the peculiarities of Philippine English pronunciation have to do with the lack of certain sounds in the indigenous Philippine languages. For example, the sounds for the short a (as in cap, IPA: æ), short o (as in cop, IPA: ɒ), and short u (as in cup, IPA: ʌ) are often merged into the same sound like the a as in father (IPA: ɑ). The closest sound when Filipinos pronounce the three words will be like cop (using the American pronunciation [kɑp] as the sounds for IPA symbols ɒ and ɑ have merged in most American dialects). Diphthongs are also sometimes pronounced as individual vowels. The sounds for k, p, and t are oftentimes without aspiration.

Vocabulary and usage

Where Philippine English shares vocabulary with other English dialects, it shares more similarities with American English.

Some words in Philippine English have a different meaning from their counterparts in standard American or British English. In addition, there are some words and phrases which are peculiar to Philippine English and do not appear in other English dialects at all. Some examples are:

Aggrupation - group or cluster
for a while - used on the telephone to mean please hold
Gimmick - A slang meaning to have a good time, party, watch a movie.
get/go down (a vehicle) - "Get off". Derived from Tagalog context ("Bumaba ka", meaning "get down").
C.R. - toilet, bathroom. C.R. are initials for Comfort Room.
open/close the light. - Switch on/off the light.
take home - take-out (or "to go" in AE)
Every now and then - Often
Rotonda - Roundabout (British) or circle (American)
Salvage - A slang for summary execution (A typical scenario involves finding a dead body in a river ridden with bullets or stab wounds.
Stow away - Run away from home
Tomboy - Lesbian
Yaya - Adopted Hindi word (aya) for nanny
The other day - Literally "nuong isang araw", in Tagalog context meaning "The day before yesterday".
Aircon - used when referring to the Airconditioning system. Although this term is also used in Australia and Singapore.
Ref / Frigidaire - refrigerator.
"Ber" months - September, October, November, December (months ending with -ber).
Commuter - same meaning as in other Englishes, but implies one who takes public transport (motorists are generally not considered commuters).

History

Although the first exposure to English was in 1762-1764, when the British invaded Manila, English from that time never had any lasting influence. English was assimilated when the United States took over the Philippines. In 1898, Spain ceded control of the Philippines to the United States under the Treaty of Paris, and thereafter the Americans controlled the Philippines until it gained its independence in 1945. The Americans established a system of public education wherein English was used as the main language of instruction. After independence, the Philippine government continued public education in English, while at the same time establishing Filipino as its national language. A parallel system of private schools, many of which were established by the Catholic and the Protestant churches, follows with the dual-language system, although private schools tend to use English more than Filipino in their instruction.

Industries based on English

The abundant supply of speakers of English and competitive labor costs has enabled the Philippines to become the choice of foreign companies to establish call centers and outsourcing industry. English proficiency sustains a major call center industry. As of 2005, America Online (AOL) has 1,000 people in Clark answering ninety percent of AOL's global e-mail inquiries. Citibank does its global ATM programming locally. By the end of 2005, it is expected that a majority of the major ten US call center firms will have operations in the Philippines. Procter & Gamble has over 400 people, mostly young, in Makati doing back-up office work for their Asian operations including finance, accounting, Human Resources and payments processing. See Call center industry in the Philippines

Another industry based on English proficiency in the Philippines is the operation of English as a Second Language schools. English language centers, especially in Metro Manila and Cebu, attract foreigners, especially Korean and Japanese students, for training in English.