The simplest way to development (this is a nice read)

Michael Tan

I'M HERE in Cebu where, earlier this morning, I metGov. Bellaflor Angara-Castillo of Aurora province, whomentioned that they needed to produce health educationmaterials in different local languages. I wassurprised and asked, "But isn't Aurora a Tagalogprovince?" The governor had to explain that theprovince now has numerous migrants, mainly Ilocano,but now also including people from as far as theVisayas. That conversation highlighted just one of the manyproblems that come from our lack of a nationallanguage. Even worse, we seem to be moving backwards,what with the recent Department of Education findings that high school seniors' proficiency in Filipino drastically dropped over the last few years.

Last Wednesday, I looked into our long history ofneglecting the development of a national language. We seem to associate Filipino and our other languageswith poverty and backwardness. Accompanying thislinguistic inferiority complex is an over-valuation ofEnglish, which we think provides the key to nationaldevelopment, mainly to export more Filipino workers.I'd question that assumption, and argue that our neglect of Filipino and our unrealistic expectations of English decrease our competitiveness in the globalmarket.

Nationalism

Our more economically developed neighbors rightlyrecognize the need to balance nationalism with globalism, and this is reflected in their languagepolicies. In the post-colonial period after World WarII, many developing countries pushed hard to craft anational language. Some countries, like Thailand, were more fortunatebecause they already had a common language spoken bymost of its citizens. Others, like Indonesia and thePhilippines, had a more daunting task because of greatlinguistic diversity. Indonesia was, however, able todevelop Bahasa Indonesia while we lagged behind in ourdevelopment of Filipino. Some of the reasons for a national language were quitepractical: you needed a common language for education,public health, agriculture, industry. But the most important reason for developing anational language was that of developing a nationalidentity that transcended class, caste, ethnicity,religion. It was important to have a common languageto tell the story of a nation, and pass this from onegeneration to another. And, with time, our neighborsbegan as well to develop fine literature, written inthe national language, capturing the dynamism, theexuberance, as well as the anguish and angst, ofnational life.

Globalism

A nationalistic policy toward language did not meanxenophobia. Japanese, for example, is peppered withborrowed English words, from home furnishings tohigh-tech jargon. The Chinese, on the other hand, drewon existing words to describe the wonders of the newtechnologies: the train is a "fire horse," a computer an "electric brain."Gradually, our neighbors began to use their nationallanguage to open the world to their citizens. Visitbookstores in China, Indonesia or Thailand, and you'llfind hundreds of books-the world's finest literature,as well as computer manuals, self-improvement books,textbooks in the social and naturalsciences-translated into the local national language.These countries have come to accept the importance ofEnglish and other languages of the world and encouragecitizens to learn these languages, through theirnational language. In a Thai bookstore, you'll findThai-English, Thai-Japanese, Thai-Chinese, Thai-Frenchdictionaries, to name a few, both in book andelectronic forms, the latter with speech synthesizers so you hear the proper pronunciation of foreign words. Again, the reasons for doing this are very utilitarian: you learn a foreign language not because it's required but because it serves a purpose, often related to national development. So when the Chinese learn English, it's to be able to read the original technical books, or to communicate with visiting technicians. Their goal is to plug into the world to reap its benefits for the home country.

No wonder the West is running scared-the Japanese did it, the Chinese are doing it now, using just enoughEnglish (or German, or French) to learn new skills and technologies, which they then copy, often with great improvements.

Talking back, What's happening in the Philippines? We've neglected Filipino and our other languages. Only recently did we recognize that maybe the way to go in schools is tohave the local language (e.g., Cebuano) used in thefirst years of primary school to teach Filipino and other basic subjects, including, for older kids,English. And even as we laughed at our neighbors for their resistance to English, our own proficiency in that language has stagnated. I often suspect we're notactually seeing a deterioration of English in thePhilippines. What's happened is that for most Filipinos, the level of English has remained pretty much the same from the colonial period, just enough tounderstand the instructions of the boss. This is whywe had such a perfect fit for a particular segment ofthe overseas labor market. Now that new opportunities are emerging, such as in the call centers, we're realizing we don't have enoughFilipinos who can speak English in a more interactiveway, offering information and advice. And when it comes to the most lucrative high-paying jobs andconsultancies, we have only a handful of Filipinos whohave the ability to analyze problems in English, andto propose and explain solutions.To capture that market, it won't be enough to justlearn English. Filipinos have to be able to use thelanguage spoken at home and bring this to tackle the complexities of the outside world. But since we neglected both Filipino and English in our schools, we have many young Filipinos who just can't communicate.

I despair over the way students in the University ofthe Philippines grope for words: "Kasi, sir, you know,the ano of the ano is, well, you know it's all very complex." Alas, at the rate we're going, we won't need English or Tagalog. We'll need to teach mind readingin schools. Proficient neither in Filipino nor English, our worlds will remain limited. We will continue to export Filipinos, but mainly in low-pay service occupations.At home, we suffer too from not being able to develop science and technology, so we end up buying othercountries' consumer products.As we search for solutions to our national aphasia, wemight heed the advice of Mahatma Gandhi, who once saidIndians have to learn Hindi to speak with each other,and English to speak to the world. I would say weshould go for as many languages as possible so we candiscover the world, but meantime, let's develop our own languages, too, and our sense of identity, so we can indeed speak with the world, and not just bespoken to. It all boils down to a simple matter ofrespecting ourselves, so that when the world talks tous, we can talk back.