Anybody here from a non-Tagalog province? It kinda bugs me that Tagalog ended up as the national language... there are reasons for it, but I still think it undermines the other regional languages, especially since we call them "dialects" when they're linguistically full languages.

Hey, sali ako! Ayos, may in-training pang nalalaman. XD

Yeah, I'm one of those who don't know how to speak in other dialects, its a relief Tagalog is the national dialect, or else, I have to force myself to learn how to speak other dialects. Although, its nice to learn some words from other dialects once in a while.

heya di na ako nakapost dito last days ah. I'm tagalog din and don't speak any dialiect pero tagalog is fine with me.

I dunno. Even as an official language, Tagalog still has less native speakers than Cebuano, and had it not been decided that it would be the national language, I doubt many people would have decided to learn it.

I just get a little irked that Tagalog is recognized as the Filipino language, whereas the other linguistic cultures, which are just as significant, turn invisible. It's also annoying that we call all our languages "dialects" when they're all languages. Boo.

I don't have a problem with Tagalog, I like the language... I'm just a little peeved that other languages get so overshadowed by it.

is it that wrong?

Well the use of the word "dialect" with the regional languages, and only using the word "language" in reference to Tagalog, implies that all the other languages are forms of Tagalog. It boosts the importance of Tagalog artificially.

The downplay was completely intentional and politically motivated. The gov't had a reasonable goal that they wanted the Philippines to be linguistically united, because everyone speaking their regional languages made it hard for communication within the country, let alone international relations.

So the gov't decided to make Tagalog the national language and downplay the others.

I support the move partly because we can't exactly be fair to every single language - imagine having to print out official documents in 100-ish languages. I wouldn't mind that every Filipino learn Tagalog - that's good and it helps communication. The problem is that the other languages start to look less important, and their respective cultures get damaged.

nah not really. it's only a matter of them helping preserve their own culture. actually more and more commercials about them these days are noticed on media than before. if you watch local TV commercials and also celebrities from, particularly Cebu are entering showbusiness. and what's good is they do have talents.