What does bilingual means?

A bilingual is involving or using of two different languages. Nowadays, most people are actually bilingual. The most used and common language is English which is the universal language. The majority off the world’s population can speak and understand English language. Being able to understand and speak two different languages is a talent. It is an extra factor to one’s personality, and it could also help one to build-up one’s self-esteem and confidence to speak-up. The Philippines national language is Filipino though we also called ourselves Filipino as our nationality. Philippine has different languages between 120 to 175 languages depending on method of classification. But, most of the languages originally came from its Austronesian language family. The original official language of the Philippines was Spanish. It was from early 17th century to early 20th century during the Spanish government. But, when the American defeated the Spaniards by act and they over-ruled the Philippines. English language was introduced in public education as the medium of instruction in year 1901.

During the World War II, Japan imperialised the Philippines for 3 years and Japanese language was used as communication of Japanese soldiers. According to an Ethnologist, a total of 171 native languages are spoken in the Philippines except for English, Spanish, Hokkien, Cantonese and Mandarin. The Philippine languages are often referred by Filipinos as dialects. There are 13 indigenous dialects with at least 1 million native speakers: Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilokano, Hilingayon, Waray-waray, Bisaya, Kapampangan, Bikol, Albay-bikol, Pangasinan, Maranao, Tausug and Maguindanao. Some of foreign languages thet were spoken and used as mean of communication of other Filipino were Chinese/Lan-ang; it was used of some Filipino during the Ming dynasties where the Filipinos and Chinese has a good establishment of relation in trading or Barter of goods. The Arabic language were used of some Filipino Muslims and Bahasa melayu/Bahasa Indonesia were used among those Filipino who lived in southern part of the country.

The Filipino language is less than important the English language. English is dominant in fields of business, government, the legal system, medicine, media broadcasting, the sciences and education. Most of the books that were using in schools were published in English. Filipino language was basically used for everyday communication within the family, friends or sometimes called informal language whereas the English language was used as formalities like speeches and state of the address. In addition, Filipino language was partly composed of 3,500 Malay loanwords and 5,000 Spanish loanwords like the name of the months, the days in a week, numbers and for example: the word “Para” was used by Filipinos to tell the driver to stop the vehicle, which is also mean “Stop” in Spanish. There are many advantages of being bilingual. It could help one individual to apply on a job which requires communication skills like front desk officer, receptionist and a call centre agent. It could also help to easily communicate when visiting other countries.

I don’t have any experiences in being bilingual other than I could speak, understand and write English better than other people who have stayed in Scotland longer than I have. Being bilingual or multi-linguistic is a great skill for people. In conclusion, it doesn’t matter what races you came from and language do you speak as long as you loved them. As what Dr. Jose Rizal (Philippines national hero) says “He who does not love his own mother tongue, is worse than a beast and rotten fish.” This proverb is famous among all Filipino people to remind everyone to love their own mother language and be proud of it because “He who does not know how to look back at his past will not reach his destination.” This proverb is also said by Dr. Jose Rizal to remind us not to forget what we are in our past because it will be our key to our future.