Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Language diversity in the USA
- 2 Language contact in the USA
- 3 Native American languages in the USA
- 4 Spanish in the USA
- 5 Chinese in the USA
- 6 Tagalog in the USA
- 7 French in the USA
- 8 Vietnamese in the USA
- 9 German in the USA
- 10 Korean in the USA
- 11 Russian in the USA
- 12 Italian in the USA
- 13 Arabic in the USA
- 14 Portuguese in the USA
- 15 Polish in the USA
- 16 Language policy in the USA
- Notes
- Media resources related to the top twelve non-English languages in the USA
- References
- Index
6 - Tagalog in the USA
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Language diversity in the USA
- 2 Language contact in the USA
- 3 Native American languages in the USA
- 4 Spanish in the USA
- 5 Chinese in the USA
- 6 Tagalog in the USA
- 7 French in the USA
- 8 Vietnamese in the USA
- 9 German in the USA
- 10 Korean in the USA
- 11 Russian in the USA
- 12 Italian in the USA
- 13 Arabic in the USA
- 14 Portuguese in the USA
- 15 Polish in the USA
- 16 Language policy in the USA
- Notes
- Media resources related to the top twelve non-English languages in the USA
- References
- Index
Summary
Introduction
Tagalog is one of the top twelve non-English languages spoken at home by people over the age of 5 in the USA (US Census 2000a). Ranking third in the list, with more than 1.4 million speakers, it also ranks second to Chinese among Asian languages spoken in the USA. Tagalog has experienced an increase of over 45 percent in its population from 1990 to 2000, and an increase of another 21 percent from 2000 to 2007. This can be attributed mainly to the immigration of Filipinos who speak Tagalog, either as a first or second language. On a global scale, including the US Census, the Filipino language is primarily referred to as Tagalog. Therefore Tagalog is the term that will be used in this chapter, and the terms Filipino(s) or Tagalogs will refer to the people who speak the language.
Of the 171 languages spoken across the Philippine islands (Gordon 2005), Tagalog is the most widely spoken. Campbell (1995) estimates that there are approximately 20 million speakers of Tagalog as a first language around the world, and around 43 million who speak it as a second language. In the 1987 Philippine Constitution, Article XIV (Education, Science and Technology, Arts, Culture, and Sports) establishes “Filipino,” a Tagalog-based language, as the national language, and Filipino and English as the official languages of the Philippines. Hence, every Filipino who is educated up to at least primary level may be assumed to have been taught in or exposed to the Tagalog language.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Language Diversity in the USA , pp. 96 - 109Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010