The Philippine alphabet has gone through a peculiar transformation
of writing system during the evolution of the country’s national language. Undeniably attached to its long history of foreign influences, having been colonized by Spain for centuries and the United States of America prior to the Second World War, the shifting consensus on national language reflects a history of dawdling around what had later been adopted as the Tagalog-based alphabet known as ABaKaDa.
Old Tagalog was written using the Baybayin script during the pre-Hispanic era. Under Spanish colonial administration, Tagalog was written following the Spanish phonetic and orthographic rules. One of several proponents of reforming the orthographies of the various languages spoken in the archipelago in the late 19th century was Dr. Jose Rizal. Indigenizing the alphabet, Rizal proposed the letter K or Ka to replace the letters C and Q.
During the establishment of the Philippine Commonwealth in 1935, when nationalist fervour was at its peak, the clamour for a national language led to the selection of Tagalog, the core vernacular spoken in Luzon as the basis for Pilipino.
Born in Pasig in 1879 and raised in Pandacan, Lope K. Santos developed the Balarila Ng Wikang Pambansa ( The Grammar of the National Language ) which comprised grammar rules with 20 letters designated as the ABaKaDa. Santos was a staunch nationalist and Tagalog writer who penned and published his own newspaper and labor magazine, serializing portions of his socialist novel ‘Banaag at Sikat’ ( Radiance and Sunrise ). He also became an expert in a poetic debate style called ‘dupluhan’.
It was around 1910 when the country’s sovereignty was well under the governing authority of the United States, that Santos started a campaign to promote a national language for the Philippines through universities by holding lectures and symposia. He gravitated towards politics, became a governor in the province of Rizal, and later a senator during the 5th Philippine legislature, until he resigned in 1921.
The simple yet already sufficient alphabet of 20 letters has since been superseded twice. In 1976, there was an an expanded version containing 11 additional letters: C, CH, F, D, LL, Ñ, Q, RR, V, X and Z. In 1987, a new set was supplanted to modernize the alphabet, settling with the current 28 letters. Filipino was designated in the 1987 constitution as the national language and an official language along with English.
The hispanicized F in Filipino, together with the reabsorption of other commonly anglicized letters makes the modern alphabet an amalgamation of ABCs of colonial tongues. Despite leaving the ethnic Ng or Nga in the mix, it diminishes the ethnicity of the mother tongue rooted in Tagalog by reinforcing Taglish and different kinds of vernacular used in the streets and popular culture. The colonial mindset remains fertile by adhering to the academically predominant second language which is English and suppressing the first language or what was deemed the national language Pilipino.
Filipino with the capital F as what is regulated by the Commission on Filipino Language, while serving as lingua franca used by Filipinos of various ethnolinguistic backgrounds, paves an easy transition to globalized American English. It has relegated Tagalog beneath the linguistic hierarchy dominated by English as a medium of instruction in schools and definitely as a tool for governmental, business, and media operations.
The following poem written in Tagalog is the author’s reaction to the modified alphabet, that though it includes all the original ABaKaDa, symbolically alluded as a load on a vessel, the seemingly supplemental letters inherited from cultural imperialists from recent history put an added weight to suppress the Tagalog innate expression of thoughts and ideas. Proficiency in the modern takes precedence over the form of language that one is born with. The ‘brown man’s burden’ is to navigate the murky waters of finding his true identity amidst all the suffocating influx of cultural factors.
Ang Mayabong Na Wika
Ni Eusebro
Saang baybay ba patutungo nagliliwaliw na tagapagturo
Alpabetang gamit ni Balagtas pinakialaman pati pagbigkas
Baybaying kinubkob ng banyaga’y naghitsurang moderno
Sunod-sunurang paaliping dila sa kapuluan di matalastas
Bawat pangungusap dating gamit ang katagalugang biyaya
Na siyang pinagbatayan ng nasyonalismong wikang Pilipino
A Ba Ka Da E Ga Ha I La Ma Na Nga O Pa Ra Sa Ta U Wa Ya
Masahol pa sa hayop ika nga’ng hindi magmahal sa mga ito
Heto ngayon dagdag pang katinig na C, F, J ,Ñ, Q, V, X at Z
Panawagan ng insulares na nahumaling sa F na uring Filipino
Binulabog nang walang pasubali ang katutubong panitikan
Adulteradong kinutaw sa pagsakop ng lengguwaheng dalisay
Baluktot na ngang magsalita humiram pa sa mga banyaga
Hindi sanay sa Tagalog nangamoteng lalo ang mamamayan
Nangungulelat na kabataa’y hirap ngang magsulat at magbasa
Kaalaman nakompromiso kolonisadong kamalayan kinatigan
Nakalantad sa kanluraning unos ang taga-ilog na namamangka
Sa dami ng lulang kargada tunay na nanganganib ang lunday
Hindi dapat lumabis kung husto at tama’ng kulturang pamana
Sa kakatwang baybayin babalang ingatan ang yamang taglay
Sinasaulo’t dinidibdib ang paggamit tulad ng ibang diyalekto
Kahatulan sa kasaysayan ang hinirang na wikang pambansa
Isang bayan isang diwa isang salitang pinagyaman ng ninuno
Hindi dinudungisan sa paglagom ng titik at malalansang isda
The poem is written by Eusebro, a mononym first used publicly at a solo art exhibition and Tagalog poetry reading in Ottawa in 2024.
It’s a mystery as to how cells make up a certain faculty of the brain which organically elicit languages. The environment that becomes home to an exile makes one speak the lingua franca of English Canada, akin to what was ushered by Americanized education in Manila, but it is the natal voice that awakens the Tagalog in thinking and in speech, a mother tongue that refuses to be silenced in the bustling stream of consciousness. ####