The History of Language is the History of Its People: A Reflection on Historical Linguistics and Its Role in Rebuilding Lost Language and Culture

Language has always been a bearer of culture and an identifying mark of a society. It names our customs, beliefs, and ideals. It describes our norms and those that goes against them. It helps us establish our set of values and teach them to the next generation. This is why the underrated aspect of our history is the contribution of language in every chapter it was written. It is part of our identity as a people, and understanding it fully is understanding who we are as a whole. However, not all aspects of a native language survive. Take for instance, the written form of the precolonial Filipino language, Baybayin.

Filipinos lost Babayin for a number of reasons: the people stopped using Baybayin because of the new form of writing introduced by the colonizers; since there are less people are knowledgeable in reading the text, less and less read the remaining texts; since there are few who know the texts, they were not reproduced and the materials where they were written began to disintegrate; lastly, colonizers actively disposed known written texts in the precolonial era by burning them. This is how we lost Baybayin. This is how we lost an aspect of our culture, our identity, because of colonization. However, all is not lost. There is a way to revive and rediscover Baybayin.

One kind of Linguistics that can help us develop our culture through language is Historical Linguistics. One of its main objectives is to trace the roots of languages and how they developed into their current form. They provide the necessary data to differentiate one family of language from another. They also present how dynamic language is, and how flexible and adaptable it could be as its persists to endure. Understanding the history of language helps us appreciate how it grows with our society, how it describes the things that shape our culture, and how it provides development through learning. All these are ideals of Historical Linguistics on a general scale. It can offer more, especially to Filipinos, on a local level.

Filipinos use the native language Filipino and the second language English. Despite the existence of both languages and the capacity of most Filipinos to understand both, there is still room for Historical Linguistics to rediscover the written language of Filipinos before the colonial era, the Baybayin. If Historical Linguistics can trace the roots of languages and the system that they used, it is likely that it can also work on an extinct form of writing that complements an existing language like Filipino. How is this possible?

Since Historical Linguistics traces the roots of languages, it can also work on the roots of Baybayin. Once it is identified under a specific family of language, historical linguists can determine the patterns, recurrences, and restrictions of the languages where Baybayin belongs. It can provide the system and encompassing rules that the Filipino language also uses. This can illustrate and can probably reveal more distinct features of the Filipino language in relation to how Baybayin is written.

With the numerous Baybayin variations, every variant can draw the striking similarities across regional languages, while preserving a distinct quality that made it localized for a particular language or dialect. This can help us determine the functionality of the Filipino language in its diverse environment and localized experiences of its users. This can help us identify to the language that sounds different from one region to another. Understanding the similarities and differences of Ilocano, Kapampangan, Tagalog, and other regional languages will help our society bridge the concept of regionalism, towards a unified country. Historical Linguistics can bring us the mother language of our regional languages and help us discover our being Filipino in the midst of diversity.

With Historical Linguistics, we can even trace how Filipino language was used before the influence of the colonizers. A lot of words incorporated in our native language are from Spanish that we have adopted during the colonial period. We can identify the words that our ancestors used and understand their values and customs based on how they name everything. It will be an acquaintance with the beginnings and how the Filipino minds shape into its current values. Indeed, it will open minds to better appreciate what we have had, and how we have become the unique race that we are now.

Understanding the linguistic system, rediscovering the parent language of all regional languages, and knowing the lexicon that describes our culture in the past are just some of the things we can do to revive an extinct form of writing. What happens after the discovery is the responsibility of everyone. The rediscovered form of writing must be taught, used, and normalized. Our culture is not for mere stage spectacle. We do not rediscover ourselves just so we can have another identity to remember. We need to merge the past to what we have in the present.  Our culture should not be special, rather, it should be the norm. We can always start this journey through Historical Linguistics, then follow through.

All these ideals are romantic. However, reality is speaking in irony. The recent change in the Philippine curriculum in the tertiary level scrapped Filipino and Philippine Literature. We already have a vague grasp of our way of writing, now, we are gradually unlearning our native tongue. People who argue that elementary and secondary classes in Filipino are enough to learn our native language fail to see that learning the language is just a means to an end.

Elementary level provides the basics of the language. Secondary level provides exposure, usage, practice, and mastery. The tertiary level was supposed to provide the avenue for students to read, write, and communicate with mastery to understand the Filipino as a people. It was supposed to provide enrichment through reading and discourse not only with academic texts, but literature that speaks more than of the requisites of classroom instruction – the literature of life, wisdom, culture, and society that makes us who we are.

That is the end goal of every language learning program. We are supposed to learn who we are as a people after we learn our language.

It is already difficult espousing our identity with everything colonial in our society. People should understand that nationalism is beyond the pride in international fame or winning sports and beauty pageants. How we value the language we have, in writing and in practice, is part of the basics of being Filipino. The history of our language speaks of our identity. Without Filipino, who are we?