The politics of ‘p’ and ‘f’: a linguistic history of nation-building in the Philippines

Abstract

This paper maps out the linguistic history of nation-building in the Philippines through the politics of ‘p’ and ‘f’ in the country. This politics concerns the various strategic acts of naming the national language at different periods of the country's history that have shaped its fate as the most hegemonic indigenous Philippine language. Tagalog, Pilipino and Filipino have been names given to the national language, each loaded with ideological, political and historical significance. Against English, ‘p’ was appropriated through the renaming of Tagalog as Pilipino; against all other Philippine languages, ‘f’ was institutionalized through Filipino to symbolize the multilingual nature of the national language. Thus, the machinations of ‘p’ and ‘f’ show that the national language is a story of the triumph of the Tagalog language over the vernacular languages. Filipinos have fought colonial rule for centuries, but hegemonic visions of a collective national(ist) struggle and identity have likewise exposed the country to its internal struggles over power and control.