They are languages, not dialects

By Michael Caesar C. Tubal

You have probably seen those viral videos where Filipinos translate the same sentence, expression, or movie line into the different “dialects” of the Philippines. One person says it in Cebuano, another in Ilocano, another in Hiligaynon, followed perhaps by Waray, Kapampangan, or Bikol. I enjoy watching them because they remind us just how linguistically diverse the Philippines is. But one thing always catches my attention: almost inevitably, someone calls these dialects. “Ganito sa dialect namin,” they would say. It sounds harmless enough, except that Cebuano, Hiligaynon, Ilocano, Waray, and Kapampangan are not dialects of Filipino or Tagalog. They are languages.

This is not simply a matter of regional pride or political correctness. Linguists have long treated these as distinct Philippine languages. Gonzalez (Language Policy and Language-in-Education Policy in the Philippines, 1981), for example, identified Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilocano, Hiligaynon, Bikol, Waray, Kapampangan, and Pangasinan among the country’s major languages. McFarland (The Philippine Language Situation, 2004) likewise described the Philippines as a multilingual nation with numerous languages belonging to different linguistic subgroups.

Our government institutions also use the term language. The Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino (KWF), mandated to develop, propagate, and preserve Filipino and other Philippine languages, does not simply classify Cebuano, Hiligaynon, Ilocano, and the rest as dialects of Filipino. Its Atlas ng mga Wika ng Filipinas documents the country’s many languages and the linguistic diversity found across the archipelago.

The Department of Education (DepEd) has likewise used the term. DepEd Order No. 16, s. 2012, on Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education identified Tagalog, Kapampangan, Pangasinense, Iloko, Bikol, Cebuano, Hiligaynon, Waray, and others as “major languages or Lingua Franca.” So, calling Cebuano, Ilocano, or Hiligaynon languages is hardly a matter of fashionable linguistic terminology. KWF and DepEd themselves recognize them as languages.

So, what, then, is a dialect?

A dialect is a variety of a particular language. Batangas Tagalog and Manila Tagalog, for instance, are varieties of Tagalog. Hiligaynon spoken in Iloilo City may differ in pronunciation, vocabulary, expressions, and grammatical features from varieties spoken in Mindanao, Negros Occidental, northern Iloilo, Capiz, or even Masbate. These differences do not automatically make each variety a separate language. And dialects are not “incorrect” or inferior versions of a language. Everyone speaks some variety of a language, including people who believe they speak the “standard” one.

Mutual intelligibility can provide a useful clue. Imagine a Cebuano speaker with no meaningful exposure to Tagalog listening to a conversation entirely in Tagalog. We cannot expect that person to understand everything automatically. Sharing similar words does not make Cebuano a dialect of Tagalog any more than similarities between two related languages make one a dialect of the other.

The test is not perfect, of course. History, politics, identity, and standardization can also influence the distinction between a language and a dialect. Some separate languages are highly mutually intelligible, while varieties called dialects can sometimes be difficult for each other’s speakers to understand. The distinction is more complicated than a single test.

But one thing is clear in the Philippine case: Cebuano did not develop as a provincial form of Tagalog. Neither did Hiligaynon, Ilocano, Waray, or Kapampangan. They have their own histories, grammatical patterns, vocabularies, oral traditions, and bodies of literature. Calling them dialects of Filipino misrepresents their relationship to the national language.

Why, then, does the misconception persist? Part of the answer may lie in how generations of Filipinos have experienced language in school and public life. Filipino and English have historically held powerful positions in education, government, and mass media, while many Philippine languages have been associated mainly with the home or locality. Language policies can shape how speakers perceive the prestige and status of different languages (Zeng & Li, Ideologies Underlying Language Policy and Planning in the Philippines, 2023). “Language” can come to mean the prestigious languages used nationally, while “dialect” becomes a convenient label for whatever people speak in the provinces.

But linguistic diversity is not a hierarchy. Filipino being our national language does not make other Philippine languages lesser forms of it. Hiligaynon is not broken Filipino. Cebuano is not provincial Tagalog. Neither are Ilocano, Waray, Kapampangan, Pangasinan, and the many other languages spoken throughout the archipelago.

So, the next time someone says, “In our dialect, we say it this way,” perhaps we can offer one small correction: Language. You are speaking another Philippine language. Calling it by its proper name is one small way of giving our linguistic diversity the respect it deserves.

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Michael Caesar C. Tubal teaches language, literature, and pedagogy in tertiary education. During his free time, if he is not teaching, reading, or writing, he watches past episodes of RuPaul’s Drag Race or joins the book clubs in Iloilo City.