While English and Filipino are the country’s official languages, there are actually somewhere between 120 and 180 regional languages spoken in the Philippines, many of which have few speakers. This makes the Southeast Asian country, with over 100 million people on over 7,000 islands, one of the world’s most culturally diverse nations.
There are also a number of major dialects that are spoken across the Philippines, as well as unique accents. Here are the top Filipino accents to know – and more.
Linguistic History
Now spoken on a voluntary basis, Spanish came to the Philippines with the 1565 arrival of conquistador Miguel Lopez de Legazpi and was the official language for more than three centuries.
The U.S. officially acquired the Philippines in 1898 and introduced English, which most residents today speak. By 1950, just 6% of the population spoke Spanish, and as of 2021, there were fewer than 450,000 native Spanish speakers in the country.
Tagalog is now the country’s most-spoken language (Filipino is a standardized version). It’s spoken as a first language by more than 26 million residents and is related to Pangasinan, Kapampangan, Llocan, and the Bikol and Visayan languages.
What is Dialect?
A dialect is a form of language that’s spoken by a particular group of people in a certain part of a country. Dialects are based on the same language but have variations that can make a significant difference in communication.
For example, English is the most widely spoken language in the U.S. However, travelers to different parts of the U.S. will find a broad array of phrases, speech patterns, and words deriving from various English dialects.
Note that unlike languages, dialects are rarely adopted as official and are not as clearly defined.
Major dialects in the Philippines include:
Tagalog
As mentioned earlier, Tagalog and Filipino are dialects of the same language. Tagalog belongs to the Malayo-Polynesian language family and is natively spoken by those in the Tagalog region on the northern island Luzon. Often referred to as Luzon Tagalog, it’s also spoken in Calabarzon and metropolitan Manila.
In terms of vowel and consonant use, there’s a heavier and harder emphasis on pronunciation, particularly on /e/, with scarce consonant and vowel clusters. As for the sound profile, Tagalog has varied intonation patterns, depending on the province. Note that unlike English, the dialect begins normal statements with the predicate rather than the subject.
There are some regional Tagalog words with which speakers from the National Capital Region (NCR) may not be familiar. For example, the word for “delicious” in the Bisaya region is “lami,” but is “naimas” in the llocos region.
There’s also Manila Tagalog, a Tagalog variant that’s been influenced by factors including globalization and urbanization as well as by the standardization efforts of the Philippine government. Because Manila is a melting pot, Manila Tagalog, also known as Urban Tagalog, is influenced by many languages.
Compared to Tagalog, the dialect tends to be softer and less strenuously pronounced. It’s also considered a more laid back version of Tagalog and incorporates more slang.
llocano
Referred to as a dialect as well as a language, llocano is spoken mainly in the country’s northern regions, particularly ILocos and Cordillera Administrative.
Its vowel and consonant use is heavy and relativel harsh, with scarce consonant and vowel clusters. Llocano, which is not taught in schools, features a distinct rising and falling intonation as well as a rise in pitch, and also begins normal statements with the predicate.
Some find Tagalog more pleasant to the ears than Llocano, as the former has a more mellow tone. Llocano speakers roll their r’s more: “bacarra” is “bakarrra.”
Kapampangan
Kapampangan, also considered by some as a language, is primarily spoken in the central part of the island of Luzon, particularly in the Pampanga and Tarlac provinces, and in the northern part of Bataan.
Kapampangan has around 2.3 million speakers and is known for its unique vocabulary and phenology. It notably uses glides between words, resulting in clipped and dropped syllables, and features scarce consonant and vowel clusters. It also has a distinct rising and falling intonation and a more dropped jaw style and is more laid back in nature.
Further, Kapampangan has a complex system of verb inflections for mood, aspect, and tense, and uses particles to indicate varying grammatical relationships.
Because the Kapampangan culture is known for its culinary heritage, expressions related to food and hospitality are common.
Cebuano in Cebu and Central Philippines
Cebuano is the most widely spoken dialect of the Bisayan, or Visayan, language group and is widely used in the Southern Philippines. It is the lingua franca of Central Visayas, most parts of Mindanao, and some Western parts of Palawan. The name “Cebuano” comes from the island of Cebu — the source of standard Cebuano.
Cebuano is heavy on vowels but soft pronunciations. There’s a smooth prosodic pattern that fits well with English. In terms of vowel phonemes, /a/ is an open front unrounded vowel, similar to how “father” is pronounced in English, for example. Regarding consonants, the velar nasal exists in all positions, including at a word’s beginning (for example, “ngano,” for “why.”)
Note that, in the Mindanao region, Cebuano is widely spoken in Davao City, another melting pot of languages and cultures, which has influenced it.
What are Accents?
An accent is a way of pronouncing a language. In the U.S., for example, the way people speak in the South is much different from the pronunciations in the East.
Likewise, in the Philippines, accents are based on the language, the speaker’s education level, the region they’re in, and what their first language is. Compared to Americans, for example, Filipinos tend to elongate or accentuate certain words. So, while an American might say “cert’n,” for “certain,” a Filipino might say “sir tan.”
Also, some sounds collapse together. For example, “p” and “f” both sound like “p,” and “b” and “v” sound like “b.” Because some vowel sounds collapse, “park” and “pork” sound the same to someone in the U.S.
Moreover, some Filipinos sound as if they have a Spanish accent while others will sound more American. They also often have unique colloquialisms. For example, they’ll often say “open the light” instead of “turn on the light. A public restroom is a “comfort room” and McDonalds is “McDo.”
Accents and Call Centers
While there is great beauty in accents — we all have one — the fact is that people are judged on how they speak. Such linguistic profiling has been known to have an unfavorable impact on the employability of those whose speech patterns are deemed undesirable.
This is particularly apparent in positions that require a great deal of verbal communication. Customer call center agents are prime examples. Consumers have been known to demonstrate impatience, extend less trust, and speak rudely to call center agents who have accents they consider foreign.
Tomato.ai is working to solve this problem with an accent translation filter that clarifies offshore agent’s voices in realtime. The result is that callers hear words that are pronounced more like a language’s native speaker. In turn, this mitigates consumer frustration due to perceived improved intelligibility.
