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1.Major Languages of the Philippines. (2019). Csun.edu. https://www.csun.edu/~lan56728/majorlanguages.htm

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2.Distinct Major Languages of the Philippines | BLEND. (2020, February 8). Localization Services by BLEND. https://www.getblend.com/blog/major-languages-philippines/

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In The Philippines there is an increasing movement towards trilingualism, with many younger Filipinos speaking English, Tagalog, and a native language from their region. The older generations still speak primarily Tagalog or another regional language, so this is a real generation gap in the country as the population moves forward into the future. For anyone interested in languages and their development, The Philippines is a fascinating place!

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In my opinion, Philippines is one of the most linguistically diverse countries in the world. With 175 native languages (wrongly called “dialects”), it has about 3% of the world’s languages, yet only 0.2% of Earth’s land area. In other words, the Philippines is about 15 times more diverse than average.

When we take a look at the evidence from news reports, online forums, language studies, and personal observations, it is clear that even large Philippine languages – like Kapampangan, Pangasinan, Bikol, and Ilokano – are dying, some faster than others. The same is happening with medium-sized languages, like Ibanag, Itawis, and Sambal. These languages are decreasing in terms of number of speakers and in terms of the frequency and contexts in which they are use.

For example, while local languages are still used in family gatherings, sari-sari stores, and barangay halls, they are not widely used in certain public places, like parks, banks, food chains, and schools.  There are anecdotes that passengers would speak in their local languages, but once the bus enters the big city, they would shift to Tagalog.

Why is this happening? There are a number of factors, such as migration and media. It can also be a residual effect of our colonial experience when Americans branded English as the language of civilization, while they dismissed native tongues as mere dialects. This hierarchical view of languages has stayed on. For example, Filipinos would describe people speaking their mother tongue as “parang ibon magsalita” (speak like bird) and having “matigas ang dila” (stiff tongue).

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The Philippines has two official languages, Filipino and English. Before anything else, it should be known that the  Filipino language is the national language of the Philippines. A citizen of the Philippines is also called Filipino, although some use the term Pilipino from Pilipinas, the name of the country in the local language. Ethnologue on the other hand lists Tagalog as one of the principal languages of the Philippines together with Filipino and English.

What’s interesting about the languages in The Philippines is that there is a large amount of sharing between them all. Words and even phrases appear in different languages that have ‘leaked’ over to each other. Many of these have their origins in Spanish or English, borrowed country-wide and incorporated into the different languages in a fascinating display of lingual evolution. A good example is the common phrase kumusta ka, a greeting, that you find commonly in conversations conducted in Tagalog, Cebuano, and Ilokano.

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The Philippines has 8 major dialects.Listed in the figure from top to bottom: Bikol,Cebuano,Hiligaynon (Ilonggo),Ilocano,Kapampangan,Pangasinan,Tagalog,and Waray.The language being taught all over the Philippines is Tagalog and English.The Cebuano dialect originated in Cebu,which is in the Visayas.However,it spread to neighboring islands and in the northern and eastern parts of Mindanao.This was probably facilitated by the American and Spanish policies to christianize Mindanao.Meanwhile the Tagalog and Bikol dialect (Bikolandia) boundaries seem to remain predominantly they were centuries ago.This map only shows the dialect majority in each region.Actually,southeastern Mindanao is populated with Ilocano,Tagalog and other dialects, but Cebuano has become the dominant dialect in that area.The Ilocano dialect has spread out from its origin in the western cost (Ilocandia),which was also probably facilitated by Spanish and American policies.

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The way language changes and gives rise to new varieties is not something new.Language variation is an occurrence in all lamguages of the earth.There are different kinds of varieties such as regional  varieties or "dialects", educational and social varieties or "socialects", subject matter or "registers", medium or "mode of discourses", altitude or "style" and interference or "second-language varieties".Filipino, the national language of the Philippines,which is Tagalog-based could not escape the influence of various regional languages of the country and the of the foreign languages most especially Spanish,Chinese and English.All of these languages play dominant roles in the development and evolution of Filipino as the national lingua franca.Hence the evolvement of several varieties of Filipino.

There are more than a hundred languages separately spoken all over the different regions.They all belong to the Malayo-Polynesian family of languages and so there is a great deal of similarity in grammar and lexicon, some variations can be observed on their way of pronunciation and accent.An Ilokano,for example,will speak Filipino with the Ilokano accent,while mixing naturally and effortlessly Ilokano lexicon.The same will be true to all regional language users.Hence,the emergence of different regional varieties of Filipino.Besides the accompanying regional accent noticeable also is the infusion or integration of the lexicon of the regional languages especially so with terms and lexicon not found in the Tagalog-based national language but are in the regional languages.

Languages continuously change because it is a living organism.New words and new uses are being coined at a furious rate to describe new inventions and new experiences.As always,new words are being created at the frontiers of science,industry,culture and society.So,aside from the geographical regional varieties,there are other varieties such as the academe/professional variety or speech registers.

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In conclusion, second language acquisition is a normal phase that probably most people nowadays decide to take. However, it still depends on the culture, society and community. There are some community in this world that don't take second language acquisition as something that necessary.
Second language acquisition and learning need both cooperation between the teacher and the learner. Researches are still doing research and various approaches are still in progress by the teacher to enhance second language education. All these effort are to make the L2 learner reach communicative competence.

For Granny Ok-Bun's story, her story prove that a good teaching and a passionate learner can lead to a success in second language acquisition and learning despite your age. It can be approve when Na Ok-Bun was at the United States Congress, she can talk in English in her speech. Even though, she not fully speaking English because there are translator at that Congress. But, a part where she speak in English, most of people in that hall can understand her. This shows that she almost perfectly reach communicative competence.

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In my opinion, Na Ok Bun's story should become an inspiration for those who are struggling in learning second language. Yes, maybe all of us have different challenges in our life. For example, as a student, we need to catch up a lot of subjects in one semester. Plus, we need to learn other language because of our education institution's requirement. However, keep going and study smart because we don't know maybe because of the languages that we learned, can save us or someone life.

Find our own motivation, like Granny Ok-Bun. Learning language is quite hard, but it does not mean impossible for us to ace it.

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One interesting aspect that I found about Na Ok-Bun is her passion despite her age to learn English. Based on critical period theory, the perfect time for someone to learn second language is between 10 to 16 years old. After the critical period, it would be hard or less effective to learn language.

However, there is one aspect that make L2 learner has a strong passion like Na Ok-Bun, that is motivation. Based on George Yule, there are 2 types of motivation; instrumental and integrative. Instrumental motivation is when you want to reach certain goal. For instance, you learn a language to graduate. However, integrative is when you have social purposes. For Granny Ok-Bun case, maybe she had both of these motivation. She want to socialize with her brother and speak up for the resolution on issue 'comfort women'.

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Topic: Regional Variation in Language

Real World Example: Distinct Major Languages of the Philippines

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1. Second Language Acquisition: A Framework and Historical
Background on Its Research; https://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/elt/article/view/0/43382

2. I Can Speak; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Can_Speak

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'I can speak' is a movie that based on a real story about Na Ok-Bun who is eagerly to learn English. Na Ok-Bun is actually one of 'comfort women' before and during World War II (WW2). 'Comfort women' is a group of women and girls that become sexual slaves to satisfy the Japanese Army lust. Just some of them are survived after WW2.

Initially, Granny Ok-Bun want to learn English because he want to meet his younger brother at Los Angeles. They were separated since they were a kid. However, her motivation to learn English become stronger after she met her bestfriend, Jung Shim. Jung Shim's English is way much better than Ok-Bun. Jung Shim also learn English so hard because she wants to make a resolution towards 'comfort women' issue to United State Congress. Unexpectedly, about 3 month before before the resolution at USA, Jung Shim's illness getting worse that she forgot almost everything. Hence, she need Ok-Bun to replace her to go the USA.

After that, Ok-Bun felt scare because of her English. However, she knows that it is her responsibility to fight about this issue and redeem not only her dignity but all women and girls that become comfort women. Hence, Min Jae and Granny Ok-Bun work harder than ever for the preparation and she improve her English a lot.

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This story is about an old woman name Na Ok-Bun that have a strong passion in learning English despite her age that around 60 to 70's years old. So, Na Ok-Bun is learning her second language even though she had passed the critical period. Other than hangul, she also know how to speak Japanese because of her past life. Hence, English is consider as her third language. However, based on Gass and Selinker, it doesn't matter how many language you learn, if the language is after the mother-tongue language, then it consider as second language.

She faced many challenges in order to understand English well. Due to her age, learning approaches that being used to the teenagers or children are not suitable for her. She need a private tutor. Until one day she meet Park Min Jae. He teach her using almost all the learning methods based on second language learning concept. Such as, the Grammar-Translation method, Task-based learning, The Communicative approaches and others. Once, Park Min Jae brought Granny Ok-Bun to one restaurant where most of the customers are foreigner from US and UK. So, Min Jae ask Granny Ok-Bun to speak with them at least 5 minutes. Surprisingly, despite her fear, when she started to talk, she found it is easier than her expectation. From that, she also gain self-confidence in learning English.

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Topic: Second Language Acquisition
Real world example: The story of Na Ok-Bun

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Topic : Social Variation in Language Real World Example: Text Language