In philosophy, the word culture refers to what is different from nature, that is to say what is on the order of the acquired and not innate.

In sociology, culture is defined as "what is common to a group of individuals and as what ties them together". In its broadest sense, culture can now be regarded as the set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features of a society or a social group. It includes not only the arts and literature, lifestyles and fundamental rights of human being, but also value systems, traditions and beliefs.

This" common pool "changes over time and by the forms of trade. It is a distinct ways of being, thinking, acting and communicate.

We often hear from tourists and expats: "Philippines? Oh, there is nothing to see, they have no culture".

Somehow we can understand. If you reduce culture to old buildings, old libraries and old paintings, then you should rather visit Rome, Paris or London to see old stones, papyrus fragments and walk all day through air-conditioned museums.

We also agree to the fact that discovering the Philippine's culture needs a lot of time. You cannot do it in one day, but it's exactly this slow approach, this looking for hints and traces that makes discovering the Philippine's culture so interesting.

Somehow the Philippines can be compared with the islands of Malta in the Mediterranean Sea. Both archipelagos have been situated on the intersection of multiple trade routes for thousands of years. In both groups of islands you can see, feel and live the remains of past invasions, the last intruder having usually left the still strongest evidence.

To start discovering the culture of the Philippines you only need to open your mind. Start by looking around you, listen to the voices and ask questions.

Be curious!

You will be astonished of what you will learn!

 

The language is the primary key to any culture. The Philippines count over 90 distinct languages! Still lots of tales and legends are transmitted from grand parents to grand children in precious moments. Sometimes, someone writes them down. But most often they vanish with the family's memory.

On July 4, 1946, Tagálog (Pilipino) was officially declared the national language of the Philippines (wikang pambansâ ng Pilipinas). Candidates for the title of official language were the eight 'major' languages of the archipelago, having at least one million speakers.

In the final round were Cebuano, with the largest number of native speakers, and Tagalog, the language of Manila, the capital. Tagalog won, and from this day non-Tagalog first graders are required to learn Tagalog.

Many people have asked us about how different Philippine languages really are. They are extremely different. A monolingual speaker of Tagalog cannot understand even the simplest of Ilocano conversations, and vice-versa,
Have a look. A popular Filipino proverb says "He who does not look back at his past will not reach his destination." Here are the translations in 6 local languages:

Palawano: Ang indi nakaelam ang anang ing alinan, indi na maelaman anang papakunan.

Ilocano: No saan nga makaammo a mangtaliaw iti naggapuanna, saan a makadanon iti papananna.

Tagalog: Ang di lumilingón sa pinanggalingan, di makaratíng sa paroroonan.

Bikol: Ang dai nalingoy sa hinalean, dai makaabot sa padudumanan.

Ibanag: Y tolay nga ari mallipay ta naggafuanna, ari makadde ta angayan na.

Ilianen Manobo: Ke etew ne kena edlilingey te inpuun din ne kena ebpekeuma diya te edtamanan din.

Tagalog, like its sister Philippine languages, is an Austronesian language distantly related to the languages of most of Indonesia, Madagascar, aboriginal Taiwan, most Pacific isles, and parts of New Guinea. Because it has borrowed many words from Spanish, people are likely to think that Tagalog and Spanish are related. Such is not the case. The syntax of Tagalog has not been affected much from over three hundred years of Spanish colonisation.

If you are interested in the Tagalog language, we strongly recommend a visit to Carl Rubino's website: iloko.tripod.com Carl Rubino is a computational linguist and typologist specializing in Western Austronesian languages. He currently works in the field of machine translation. Some of the above paragraphs are from his website. And if you want to learn Tagalog language, have a look here: kalyespeak.com. Hmm, good luck...

The written language is the next important key on accessing a culture. Remember the Rosetta Stone - the link which allowed understanding Egypt's hieroglyphs.

Unfortunately in most cultures the written word had only be accessible to the upper classes. As in Europe, literacy came very late to the farmers and workers in the Philippines. Today the literacy of the Philippine's population is 93.6%.

Lots of foreigners are happy that the Filipinos write in roman characters. This fact is the result of the Spanish colonialization. Before the Spaniards invaded the Philippines, people had their own writing.

The syllabary writing of the Philippines has not yet been associated with any other writing.

Fortunately some enlighted Spaniards invested their time to translate a few manuscripts. One of them is the Ilocano Doctrina Cristiana (on the right) by Father Belarmino from 1621.

An interesting fact is the use of the ancient "Baybayin" writing as a security mark on the new Philippines banknotes. In the lower right corner, just above the value of the note, you find some strange signs.

The first book printed in the Philippines is the "Doctrina Christiana", see also the written language. It had been published 1593 in Manila.
Tomas Pinpin wrote and printed in 1610 "Librong Pagaaralan nang mga Tagalog nang Wikang Kastila", 119 pages designed to help fellow Filipinos to learn the Spanish language in a simple way. He is also credited with the first news publication made in the Philippines: "Successos Felices".

On December 1, 1846, La Esperanza, the first daily newspaper, was available in the country. Other early newspapers were La Estrella (1847), Diario de Manila (1848) and Boletin Oficial de Filipinas (1852).
The first provincial newspaper was El Eco de Vigan (1884), which was issued in Ilocos. In Cebu City "El Boletín de Cebú" (The Bulletin of Cebu), was published in 1890.

On 1863, the Spanish government introduced a system of free public education that had an important effect on the ability of the population to read in Spanish and further in the rise of an educated class called the Ilustrado (meaning, well-informed).
Spanish became the social language of urban places and the true lingua franca of the archipelago. A good number of Spanish newspapers were published until the end of the 1940s, the most influential of them being El Renacimiento, printed in Manila by members of the Guerrero de Ermita family.

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