The Filipino/Tagalog language is totally a social language. What I mean is when it comes to non-English languages it does not necessarily have the kind of prominence that something like Mandarin, Japanese, or Spanish have. The number of classes for those languages in secondary education or in a university far outnumber the number of classes for Tagalog.
Languages like Mandarin, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and Arabic have a long and deep history. Each of these languages have their classical works that people pay lots of money to get a degree in order to be proficient at understanding and interpreting these classical works. As far as I know, Tagalog does not have the same extent of historical depth.
This is not to say that people don't want to learn Tagalog. In the United States, a number of very reputable universities offer Tagalog classes. The University of Hawaii; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Madison-Wisconsin; the University of Washington – just to name a few – all offer instruction in Tagalog.
I have also seen scholarly(-level) works in Tagalog. A couple of my books are way beyond my league at the moment because the Tagalog used there is quite complex. I once ran across a journal article in Tagalog where I couldn't follow the Tagalog after the first few sentences (I probably can do a bit better now!). But I'm not aware of scholarly Tagalog being required for graduate-level education in the same way that academic German is required for some philological fields.
Forget all that. Tagalog is totally social. And that's why it's totally awesome.
Yesterday I was out with the elders of my family. A young gal was sitting near my dad and I think she initiated a conversation with him. When I came closer I could hear her speaking Tagalog with him. It seemed to me that she wasn't super proficient in speaking (it seemed like she understood everything they said) as she was using very basic forms. But that doesn't matter. What did matter was that she was speaking the best she could.
That's what makes Tagalog awesome. No matter where Filipinos are, there is that camaraderie that exists, especially when they can switch the language up to Tagalog. The kind of connection is really unexplainable but it's there. And it's awesome.
I'm not saying this is exclusive only to Filipinos. Of course, every group has that connection that especially comes out when both/all sides speak the same national language. What I'm saying is that I don't care that Tagalog isn't as prominent as some other language or that it doesn't have the kind of histories that some other languages have. I hope Tagalog gets to that point. But the social bond that Tagalog carries with it is a real gem.
Languages like Mandarin, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and Arabic have a long and deep history. Each of these languages have their classical works that people pay lots of money to get a degree in order to be proficient at understanding and interpreting these classical works. As far as I know, Tagalog does not have the same extent of historical depth.
This is not to say that people don't want to learn Tagalog. In the United States, a number of very reputable universities offer Tagalog classes. The University of Hawaii; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Madison-Wisconsin; the University of Washington – just to name a few – all offer instruction in Tagalog.
I have also seen scholarly(-level) works in Tagalog. A couple of my books are way beyond my league at the moment because the Tagalog used there is quite complex. I once ran across a journal article in Tagalog where I couldn't follow the Tagalog after the first few sentences (I probably can do a bit better now!). But I'm not aware of scholarly Tagalog being required for graduate-level education in the same way that academic German is required for some philological fields.
Forget all that. Tagalog is totally social. And that's why it's totally awesome.
Yesterday I was out with the elders of my family. A young gal was sitting near my dad and I think she initiated a conversation with him. When I came closer I could hear her speaking Tagalog with him. It seemed to me that she wasn't super proficient in speaking (it seemed like she understood everything they said) as she was using very basic forms. But that doesn't matter. What did matter was that she was speaking the best she could.
That's what makes Tagalog awesome. No matter where Filipinos are, there is that camaraderie that exists, especially when they can switch the language up to Tagalog. The kind of connection is really unexplainable but it's there. And it's awesome.
I'm not saying this is exclusive only to Filipinos. Of course, every group has that connection that especially comes out when both/all sides speak the same national language. What I'm saying is that I don't care that Tagalog isn't as prominent as some other language or that it doesn't have the kind of histories that some other languages have. I hope Tagalog gets to that point. But the social bond that Tagalog carries with it is a real gem.
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