Endangerment of the Indigenous Languages of Palawan, Philippines

Codes in Trouble: Language Shift and Endangerment of the Indigenous Languages of Palawan, Philippines

Aldrin P. Lee, PhD

 aldrin.lee@yahoo.com; aldrinplee@gmail.com

Department of Linguistics, University of the Philippines Diliman

Abstract

Lewis, Paul & Simons (2015) listed eleven (11) languages indigenous to the province of Palawan, Philippines. Seven (7) out of the 11 languages belong to the three autochthonous ethnic groups in mainland Palawan, namely Batak, Palawán, and Tagbanwa. The other four languages native to Palawan are mainly spoken in the island municipalities that are part of Palawan’s provincial territory. These islands include Agutaya for Agutaynen, Cuyo for Cuyonon, Cagayancillo for Kagayanen and Balabac for the Molbog language. Historical accounts of the province show that mainland Palawan remained sparsely populated until the early 20th century (Eder 1990). Palawan’s rich ecological habitat started to attract attention from migrants during the American colonization period after the latter established civil rule in Palawan and subsequently initiated numerous projects in the province. After World War II, the government initiated resettlement programs to Palawan that further contributed to the rapid increase of migrant settlers in the province.

The rapid influx of migrants not only compromised Palawan’s pristine environment but has also dramatically reshaped Palawan’s ethnolinguistic profile. Tagalog speakers now comprise more than half of the province’ 1.1 million population (per 2015 National Census) and has now replaced Cuyonon as the province’ lingua franca. A growing number of Palawán speakers (as noted by Macdonald 2007) as well speakers of other languages indigenous to the province are now fluent in Tagalog, primarily due to the use of the latter as the medium of instruction in schools and the primary language of media.

My recent fieldwork in the communities of Tagbanua and Palawán in Puerto Princesa City, the provincial capital, and in the very remote community of the critically endangered Batak language in the municipality of Roxas, reveal faster-than-expected language shift among the younger generation which exacerbates the already alarming decline in the vitality of the aforementioned languages. Through interviews conducted in the communities of the native speakers of these languages, this study attempts to lay bare the multifarious factors that affect the attitude of the indigenous peoples of Palawan towards their language and the various struggles that they face while trying to negotiate their right to preserve their languages and their cultural identities amidst the narrative of nation-building and the pressure to take part in broader relations and state-initiated institutional arrangements.

Assoc. Prof. ALDRIN P. LEE, PhD 
The speaker obtained his PhD in Korean Linguistics from the Academy of Korean Studies, South Korea, where he also completed an interim MA in International Studies. He also obtained MA in Linguistics from the University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman in 2007. He received his BA in Linguistics also from UP Diliman with Magna Cum Laude honors in 2003. He is currently an Associate Professor and has served the Department of Linguistics, UP Diliman as Chairperson from 2012-2015. During his three and a half-year term, he steered the Department of Linguistics towards becoming the CHED Center of Excellence in Foreign Languages in 2013 and in 2015. His research interests include Formal Syntax, Korean Linguistics and Cultural Studies, Lexicography, Ethnolinguistics and Linguistic Fieldwork/Language Documentation. His most recent publication is about “how elicited gestures reflect word-order bias in world languages” - a product of collaborative research he did with linguists from UCLA San Diego, Brown University, University College Dublin and MIT. On top of his first language (mother tongue) which is Cuyonon (spoken mainly in Palawan), Dr. Lee is fluent in four other languages (Hiligaynon, Tagalog, English & Korean). While taking up Linguistics in UP, he studied varying levels of Spanish, Bahasa Indonesia-Malaysia, Japanese and Mandarin. He has recently been appointed as Editor-in-Chief of Diliman Review, a peer- reviewed publication managed by the Colleges of Science, Social Sciences and Philosophy, and Arts & Letters of UP Diliman. He has just come back from a successful visiting scholarship stint at Chuo University in Tokyo wherein he delivered lectures on Philippine languages and linguistics.

Momogunsia's visit to University of the Philippines in 2015

References used in the abstract 

Eder, James F. (1990). Deforestation and Detribalization in the Philippines: the Palawan Case. Population and Environment, Vol. 12, No. 2, pp. 99-115.

Lewis, M. Paul, Gary F. Simons, and Charles D. Fennig (eds.). (2015). Ethnologue: Languages of the World, 18th edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Online: http://www.ethnologue.com.

Macdonald, Charles J-H. (2007). Uncultural Behavior: An Anthropological Investigation of Suicide in Southern Philippines (Monographs of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University, English Language Series, No.21). Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. 

Philippine Statistics Authority. (2016, August 30). Province: Palawan. Retrieved from http://www.census.gov.ph/content/2010-census-population-and-housing-reveals-philippine-population-9234-million.