Philippine Islands – Discover the beauty of its 7,107 islands

Throughout the 7,100 island archipelagos, Filipinos speak nearly 90 languages and dialects. The three major dialects are Ilocano (northern Luzon, also the dialect spoken most commonly by Filipinos in Hawaii and on the U.S. mainland); Tagalog (central and southern Luzon); and Cebuano (southern islands) (BYU, 1986). Linguistically, these three dialects and all major indigenous languages are historically related ; they derve from “Original Indonesian” as a subfamily of the Austronesian or Malayo-Polynesian languages and share most of their basic grammatical features (Harper & Fullerton, 1994; Li, 1983). Despite their similarities in grammar and pronunciation, centuries of isolation have produced distinct and mutually unintelligible native languages (Gochenour, 1990). Regional divisions and linguistic differences and barriers have thus endured to the present; they have created major difficulties in promoting educational and cultural development (PAPEP, 1982).

For a period of time during the Marcos regime, there was a popular movement to establish and mandate