Mabuhay! Kamusta mga kaibigan?
That phrases above literally means, “long live” and “how are you friends?” And that language is in Tagalog, my native language; a language from the Philippines. However, instead of Tagalog, we usually call our language “Taglish.” That is because our language is mixed with English. Get it? “Tag” from Tagalog and “ish” from English. Weird huh?
Get this. If an American visits my home country, he/she will not have a hard time communicating with the natives there. Why? That is because everyone there know how to speak English fairly well (their accent is thick but their grammar is very well, well enough that a lot sounds like a college professor). If not, then some Filipinos will be able to at least understand English just fine. Now, you might be asking why on earth are they speaking “Taglish?”
Here's my thought. In the Philippines, English is a priority. Their national language Tagalog and English are taught there in schools, public and private. You will hear English in Filipino television shows, news, radio, songs, etc. Since English is globally used for education, media, politics and business, it somewhat symbolizes success. Since language is an important means of communication to share ideas, feelings, thoughts, etc., we must be able to communicate with different country for economic and political purposes. As we all know, English is the language that is used for global trade or global economy.
Philippines is a third world country, very poor with economical crisis. Imagine if the people of Philippines did not consider learning English, how will they be part of the global trade. The country would be in even worst condition, a country who would not have any ally for aid and support. After all, every country runs under globalization, each country depends on another country.
There are more English speakers in the world than Tagalog, and on top of that most English countries are doing well economy wise. So why not learn English and learn and communicate with countries who are doing well. Philippines is not the only country that considers learning the English language and western custom for the global trade. Countries such as Korean, China, and Japan are as well. You can see how big China has grown from the trade, but if China did not know how to speak English which gave them the ability to communicate with the west for trades, would they be as successful as they are today?
It may seem like that English is dominating, but it's okay. It is actually nice that each country in our world is able to communicate somehow. Imagine how difficult and frustrating it would be if no country consider learning each others' language. A country has specific resources that some country cannot get so this is when trade comes in. Without the ability to communicate with other countries we may not even be able to acquire important resources that we can't gather in our own country.
