Sunido, Katrina M.

Kapampangan Culture
TE-401 Mr. Abraham San Pedro
Assignment no.2 (midterm)
I. AN OVERVIEW OF THE KAPAMPANGAN LANGUAGE
1. Ethnologue (2019) of the Philippine Language
The Philippines is a multilingual state with at least 175 living languages
originating and spoken by various ethno-linguistic groups. There was no one single
common language across every cultural group in the Philippine archipelago when the
Spanish arrived in the 16th century. The four major trade
languages were Visayan, Kapampangan, Pangasinan, and Ilocano. As the Philippine
languages are mostly closely related and therefore easy for Filipinos to learn, most
speakers of smaller languages speak two or more of such regional languages.
The eventual capital established by the Spaniards in the Philippines was Manila,
situated in a Tagalog-speaking region. The first dictionary of Tagalog, published as
the Vocabulario de la lengua tagala, was written by the Franciscan Pedro de San
Buenaventura, and published in 1613 by the "Father of Filipino Printing" Tomas
Pinpin in Pila, Laguna. A latter book of the same name was written
by Czech Jesuit missionary Paul Klein (known locally as Pablo Clain) at the beginning
of the 18th century. Klein spoke Tagalog and used it actively in several of his books.
He wrote a dictionary, which he later passed to Francisco Jansens and José
Hernández. Further compilation of his substantial work was prepared by Juan de
Noceda and Pedro de Sanlúcar and published as Vocabulario de la lengua tagala in
Manila in 1754 and then repeatedly re-edited, with the latest edition being published in
2013 in Manila.
Spanish served in an official capacity as language of the government during the
Spanish colonial period. During the American colonial period, English became an
additional official language of the Philippines alongside Spanish.

2. Krauss (1992) Prediction of World's Languages

“The world’s languages in crisis” (Krauss 1992), the great linguistic call to arms
in the face of the looming language endangerment crisis, was first delivered in an
Endangered Languages Symposium at the 1991 annual meeting of the Linguistic
Society of America. Using the best available sources, he surveyed the global situation
and estimated that only 10% of languages seem safe in the long term, up to 50% may
already be moribund, and the remainder are in danger of becoming moribund by the
end of this century. Twenty years later, better information is available. In this paper we
use information from the latest edition of the Ethnologue (Lewis, Simons & Fennig
2013) to offer an update to the global statistics on language viability. Specifically the
data for this study come from our work to estimate the level of every language on earth
on the EGIDS or Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (Lewis &
Simons 2010). Our finding is that at one extreme more than 75% of the languages that
were in use in 1950 are now extinct or moribund in Australia, Canada, and the United
States, but at the other extreme less than 10% of languages are extinct or moribund in
 sub-Saharan Africa. Overall we find that 19% of the world’s living languages are no
longer being learned by children. We hypothesize that these radically different
language endangerment outcomes in different parts of the world are explained by
Mufwene’s (2002) observations concerning the effects of settlement colonization
versus exploitation colonization on language ecologies. We also speculate that
urbanization may have effects like settlement colonization and may thus pose the next
great threat to minority languages.

3. Del Corro (2004) Why do Kapampangan people prefer to use Tagalog?

During the Spanish colonial era, the different ethno-linguistic groups
within the Philippines, atleast the major ones, were regarded as “nations” by the
Spaniards (Morga, 1609; San Agustin,1698; Diaz, 1745 and Bergano, 1860). The
Spaniards took advantage of these differences andpitted one nation against the other.
For instance, the Kapampangan people, who were highlyfavoured by the Spaniards,
made up the bulk of the Spanish colonial armed forces and were usedto quell various
ethnic uprisings all over the archipelago (Henson, 1965 and Corpuz, 1989).
OneSpanish friar wrote, “One Castillan plus three Kapampangan is equal to four
Castillans” (Diaz,1745, see also Henson, 1965; Tayag, 1985 and Corpuz, 1989).
When the Philippines declared its Independence from Spain in 1898,
their constitution defined “nation” simply as “the political association of all Filipinos”
(1899 Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines). The “Filipinos” at that time
saw no commonality among themselves except a shared historical experience of being
a Spanish colony. It was a Tagalog, in the person of Manuel Luis Quezon, the
Resident Commissioner of the Philippine Islands under the United States and later
president of the Philippine Commonwealth Government, who envisioned and laboured
for the creation of a Filipino “nation” that is unified by one common language and
identity (Gueraiche, 2004). In 1937, Quezon proclaimed Tagalog as the basis of the
national language through an Executive Order (Bautista, 1996). The teaching of
Tagalog in all schools became obligatory by 1940 (Gueraiche, 2004).Through the
years, an educational system and language policies were designed to mould and unify
the population according to Quezon’s vision of a Filipino nation, with one language
and one culture. In 1959, Education Secretary Jose Romero issued a department order
renaming the Tagalog-based national language as Pilipino (Bautista, 1996). It was
later spelled Filipino. Under Article XIV of the 1987 Constitution. This naming game
was a clever double speak tactic aimed at distracting possible opposition to the use of
Tagalog as the national language. Through conditioning in schools, students learned
that to be Filipino, one ought to speak Filipino(which is actually Tagalog). To speak
Kapampangan or any other Philippine language is deemedun patriotic. Nationalism
and patriotism has been equated to speaking Pilipino/Tagalog. During the presidency
of Ferdinand Marcos in the late 1960s to the early 1980s, the Kapampangan homeland
became the hotbed and breeding ground of the nationalist and anti-establishment
movement. However, the language they used was Tagalog and not Kapampangan. To
prove their patriotism, Kapampangan nationalists became well-versed in the Tagalog
language. The best publicly known Tagalog speaker to date, who is a product of that
time, is the Philippine national television talk show host, journalist and socialist
 Professor Randy David of the University of the Philippines, a native Kapampangan
speaker. After the fall of the Marcos Dictatorship, Tagalog has finally replaced
English as the second language of the Philippines (Anicia del Corro, pers.comm., May
9, 2009). Through decades of conditioning in schools and the broadcast media,
Tagalog has become the dominant language even within the Kapampangan homeland.

4. Language Imposition. What are factors why Kapampangan language is

endangered?
The Kapampangan language has about 2 million speakers according to the population
census conducted in the year 2000. But population figures alone are not enough to
determine whether ornot a language is endangered. Therefore, the framework designed by
Brenzinger, Yamamoto et al will be used in this chapter. To determine the varied nature of
language endangerment, nine factors have been considered by Brenzinger, Yamamoto et al.
These are: (1) Intergenerational language transmission; (2) Absolute numbers of speakers; (3)
Proportion of speakers within the total population; (4) Loss of existing language domains; (5)
Response to new domains and media;(6) Materials for language education and literacy; (7)
Governmental and institutional language attitudes and policies; (8) Community members’
attitudes towards their own language; and (9)Amount and quality of documentation (Lewis,
2006).
Intergenerational Language Transmission
The home used to be the last sanctuary of a language that is restricted in
certain domains like the schools, the media and the workplace. The same was true for
the Kapampangan language until the effective and widespread establishment of public
pre-schools known as the Day Care Centers in every barangay or basic community
within the Kapampangan homeland. In November 23,1990, the Philippine Senate and
House of Representatives passed Republic Act No. 6972 that called for the
establishment of the Day Care Centers in every barangay (basic community) for the
care and education of children below the age of six. Since the medium of instruction
used in the Day Care Centers is Filipino (Tagalog), parents who wanted their pre-
school children to be advanced in their lessons have began speaking to them in
Tagalog. With the effective implementation of Republic Act No. 6972 in the late
1990s, the Kapampangan language has lost even the home as its final refuge.
The Kapampangan language may currently be on the brink of becoming
moribund, at least in theurban centres of San Fernando, Angeles and the surrounding
municipalities, as more and moreparents have stopped using it with their children.
Children below the age of twelve can now befound speaking only Tagalog. Even
officers and active members of certain Kapampanganlanguage and culture advocacy
groups can be found guilty of speaking Tagalog to their childrenor grandchildren.
Absolute numbers of speakers
The Kapampangan language may be endangered despite the fact that it is
one of the eight major languages of the Philippines with approximately 2 million
speakers. In a span of 20 years, from 1975 to 1995, Del Corro presented a graph that
illustrated the steady decrease of Kapampangan speakers in proportion to the rapid
increase of Tagalog speakers within the Kapampangan Region.
Proportion of Speakers within the Total Reference Group
The Kapampangan language is still spoken by the majority within the
Kapampangan speaking areas. However, it is in danger of becoming moribund since
an increasing number of parents are no longer teaching it to their children. There is
also an increasing phenomenon of code switching to Tagalog in certain social
situations among the generation that speak it, mostly among teenagers and young
adults. Lexical attrition is also evident in their version of the language whereby an
increasing amount of Tagalog words replaces the traditional vocabulary.
Loss of Existing Language Domains
Currently, the Tagalog language has penetrated many of the traditional
and even exclusive domains of the Kapampangan language.
 In the Home
 In School
 In the Workplace
 In Particular Social Functions
 In Religion
 In Government

Response to New Domains and Media

Since the collapse of the Marcos Dictatorship in 1996, Tagalog has
quickly replaced English as the new medium in the national media, it being identified
as the language that toppled the dictatorship (Del Corro, pers. comm., May 9, 2009).11
Tagalog has replaced English in the news broadcasts. It can be said that the mass
media has helped reinforce the dominance of Tagalog and the decline of the
Kapampangan language, especially among children (Bas, 2007). Children’s programs
in the Tagalog language has replaced the ones in English. Even the most popular
cartoons and Japanese animation have now all been rendered in Tagalog. Children
now mimick their favourite television cartoon characters speaking the Tagalog
language. Despite the dominace of Tagalog in the mass media, the Kapampangan
language has somehow still managed to cope with mobile communication technology
and the internet but have somehow made minimal responses to the more conventional
electronic media.

 On GSM Mobile Communications

 On The Internet
 On Television
 On the Aiwaves

Accessibility of Written Materials for Education and Literacy

The Kapampangan language has a rich literary heritage as evidenced by
those collected and published by Venancio Samson (1979), Rosalina Icban Castro
(1981), Edna Zapanta Manlapaz (1981) and Evangelina Hilario Lacson (1984). It
boasts of the longest work ever in Philippine literature, Gonzalo de Cordoba, written
by Anselmo Fajardo of Bacolor in the early 1800s, the first ever zarzuela (Spanish
version of the opera) written in any Philippine language, Ing Managpi, written by
Mariano Proceso Pabalan of Bacolor in 1900, and a even a literary golden age at the
beginning of the 1900s (Manlapaz, 1981). Unfortunately these collections of literary
pieces look more like obituaries of the Kapampangan language rather than an actual
record of its vitality (Tayag, 1985). They are also now quite rare and not readily
available to the public. The Kapampangan people experienced two major calamities in
the 20th century that destroyed much of their literature: World War II in 1941-45
(Manlapaz, 1981) and the volcanic eruption of Pinatubo and the subsequent mudflows
in 1991-96 (Nestor Galura, pers.comm, August, 1997 and Joy Soto, pers.comm., July
1998-April 2009).15 When President Manuel L. Quezon of the Philippine
Commonwealth Government legislated the teaching of English in place of Spanish in
schools in the 1930s (Gueraiche, 2004), Kapampangans started to become illiterate in
their language since it was originally written in the Spanish orthography (Henson,
1965). Henson blames the Philippine educational system in making their children
illiterate in their mother tongue. It was also at about this time that Kapampangan
writers began to lament the increasing role of Tagalog in Kapampangan society
(Larkin, 1972). To complicate things further, the remaining literate population found
themselves fighting over the issue of orthography when the Akademyang
Kapampangan began campaigning for the use of the indigenised “Tagalog”
orthography, the ABAKADA, in Kapampangan writing (Pangilinan, 2006). At
present, Kapampangan speakers, except for an elite few who still squabble on what
orthography to use, are illiterate in their own language.
Governmental and Institutional Language Attitudes and Policies
Since the time of President Quezon in the late 1930s, the Philippine
Government have systematically tried to unify the different ethno-linguistic groups
within the archipelago under one Filipino (Tagalog) language and culture. This
resulted in the marginalisation of the existing languages that have been erroneously
taught in schools as mere “regional dialects” that can be sacrificed for the sake of the
“national language.” The local government within the Kapampangan homeland have
for generations been nothing more than mere extensions of the central government in
Manila. They merely oversee the implementation of policies dictated by the central
government, including those that are detrimental to the development of their own
language and culture. To date, the Kapampangan language does not even enjoy an
official language status within the province of Pampanga, the supposed bastion of the
Kapampangan language.17 Public street signs and official notices throughout the
province are in the Tagalog language. Government sessions, and the deliberation of
laws and policies in both the provincial and the municipal levels, are also conducted in
the Tagalog language. Currently, there are no existing legislations that favour the
development, or at least the protection, of Kapampangan language and culture.
Community Members’ Attitudes toward Their Own Language
For decades, the Kapampangan ethno-linguistic group have exhibited a
very problematic self image. A survey of ethnic attitudes conducted by the Filipinas
Foundation in the early 1970s revealed that a significant percentage of the
Kapampangan people chose Tagalog over their own as the most favoured ethnic
group. Only 31% of the Kapampangan people chose themselves as favourable.
Amount and Quality of Documentation
The amount and quality of documentation for the Kapampangan language
is fragmentary at best and quite inadequate at worst. A problem in Kapampangan
language is the phenomenon of diglosia. The written language, for what remains of it,
is done traditionally in the formal classical style. It uses a lot of euphemisms and
archaic vocabulary. It also has a tendency of being purist whereby words that are
 conspicuously foreign are weeded out. Kapampangan written in the 1970s would
probably look no different from the ones written in the 1870s. Written Kapampangan
therefore does not reflect the state in which the language is actually spoken and
therefore can not probably be effective in determining the degree of endangerment. A
separate method should be used in documenting the written and the spoken form of the
language.
 Grammar Studies
 Dictionaries

II. INTRODUCTION TO KAPAMPANGAN LANGUAGE

a. The distinct features of Kapampangan language
From the 10th century AD to 1571, before the Spanish conquest of Lúsung Guo which
resulted in the creation of the Province of Pampanga, Kapampangans used a writing system
known as Kulitan or Sulat Kapampangan. Augustinian missionaries studied the Kapampangan
language and its writing system.
As late as 1699, more than a century after the Spanish conquest, Spaniards continued studying
the Kapampangan language and writing system. The Spanish introduced a Romanized
orthography, known as the Bacolor Orthography, Súlat Bacúlud or Tutûng
Kapampángan (English: "genuine Kapampangan") because of the number of works written in
this orthography. The orthography contains the letters q, c, f, ñ and ll.
By the end of the Spanish colonization, the Abakada alphabet (also known as Súlat
Wáwâ or Guagua script) replaced c and q with k. Kapampangan nationalist writers from Wáwâ
(Guagua) wanted to create an identity distinct from the Bacúlud literary tradition. They were
inspired by José Rizal, who proposed simplifying the Romanized Tagalog by
replacing c and q with k. Two Kapampangan writers from Wáwâ, Aurelio Tolentino and Monico
Mercado (with his translation of Rizal's "Mi último adiós") have adapted Rizal's proposal into
Kapampangan writing.

On December 31, 1937, Philippine president Manuel L. Quezon proclaimed the language

based on Tagalog as the commonwealth's national language. Zoilo Hilario proposed
standardizing Kapampangan orthography. A member of the Institute of National Language
(INL), Hilario sought to adopt the Abakada alphabet used in Tagalog as Kapampangan's
orthographic system. The legal imposition of Tagalog as the Philippine national language placed
all other Philippine languages (including Kapampangan) in a subordinate position. The conflict
between the "purists" and "anti-purists" which plagued the Tagalog literary scene was echoed by
Kapampangan writers.
In 1970 (before his translation of the Bible into Kapampangan), Venancio Samson called the
dispute over Kapampangan orthography to the attention of the Philippine Bible Society and
submitted a proposal aimed at reconciling the old and the new spelling in Kapampangan writing
with what is known as Ámung Samson's hybrid orthography. Samson's synthesis was readily
accepted by the Catholic Archdiocese of Pampanga, which used it in most of its Kapampangan
publications during the early 1970s.
In 1997, the Batiáuan Foundation said that the major obstacle to popularizing Kapampangan was
the intense conflict over orthography. The prediction that the Kapampangans would be absorbed
by the Tagalogs was seen by Kapampangan groups as a real threat, since Tagalog words were
replacing indigenous words in spoken Kapampangan. They revised the Abakada alphabet in
Kapampangan writing, removing the letter w and mandating simplified diacritical marks.
According to Akademyang Kapampangan, the Batiáuan revision complicates Kapampangan
writing and confuses adherents of their proposed orthography. Batiáuan insists that the diacritical
marks are essential in written Kapampangan, because many words are spelled the same but are
pronounced differently. From this perspective, diacritical marks facilitate understanding instead
of complicating the language.

b. How is Kapampangan language applied in various discourse

c. Historical background of Kapampangan language

Kapampangan is derived from the root word pampáng ("riverbank"). The language was
historically spoken in the Kingdom of Tondo, ruled by the Lakans.A number of Kapampangan
dictionaries and grammar books were written during the Spanish colonial period. Diego Bergaño
wrote two 18th-century books about the language: Arte de la lengua Pampanga[5] (first published
in 1729) and Vocabulario de la lengua Pampanga (first published in 1732). Kapampangan
produced two 19th-century literary giants; Anselmo Fajardo was noted for Gonzalo de
Córdova and Comedia Heróica de la Conquista de Granada, and playwright Juan Crisóstomo
Soto wrote Alang Dios in 1901. "Crissotan" was written by Amado Yuzon, Soto's 1950s
contemporary and Nobel Prize nominee for peace and literature to immortalize his contribution
to Kapampangan literature.

d. Language issues regarding Kapampangan language

  In the Philippines our Lingua Franca is Tagalog. This is the second if not the first
language of the Filipinos. It is the base of the Filipino language as stated in the Constitution.
Lingua Franca is not a product of legislation but a natural response and result for the need for
communication. This is the language that unites us.
The assumption now is, do we really have the control to preserve a language? Section 6 of
Article XIV of the 1987 Philippine Constitution states: The national language of the Philippines
is Filipino. As it evolves, it shall further be developed and enriched on the basis of existing
Philippine and other languages. Changes in language whether dying or living is not just for
anybody to do. It is a collective decision.
The state plays an important role in the preservation of language. The Commission on the
Filipino Language was established by Republic Act No. 7104 and signed on August 14, 1991 by
then President Corazon Aquino. The Commission is the official regulating body of the Filipino
language and the official government institution tasked with developing, preserving, and
promoting the various local Philippine languages. This was established in concurrence with the
1987 Constitution of the Philippines.
Angeles City in Pampanga addressed this dying language concern by passing Ordinance No.
424, Series of 2017 – an ordinance establishing Kapampangan as an official language of Angeles
City and institutionalizing its use in all sectors, alongside existing national and official
languages. This ordinance was sponsored by Councilors Amos B. Rivera, Edgardo D.
Pamintuan, Jr. and Jae Vincent T. Flores.
Currently, Kapampangan is the official medium of communication used by all local government
agencies in Angeles City and across Pampanga. The Sangguniang Panglungsod of Angeles City
has made an intensive drive to help preserve, revitalize, safeguard, promote and develop
Kapampangan, being the indigenous language of Angeles City.            
Chapter 2, Section 3, No. 3.12 on the Legal Bases of the Ordinance refers to R.A. 10533,
otherwise known as the K-12 Law, particularly section 5-F thereof; Chapter 8 of the Ordinance
on Education, Section 17 on Inclusion of Local Language in Basic Education; Grade level
standards to include Kapampangan in its curriculum from Kindergarten to Grade 3.
Up to what point do we preserve the language? As a medium of instruction, for daily use or for
nationalistic sentiment?  It is important for families to use the native language at home so that
their children will naturaly speak it.  If one parent consistently speaks the native language from
birth onward to the child and another parent speaks Tagalog while the grandparents or teachers
in school speak English, the child can easily learn and absorb three languages.
In 2009, the DepEd passed DO 74, s. 2009 or Institutionalizing Mother Tongue-Based
Multilingual Education. Findings from local and international studies in basic education
validated the superiority of the use of the learner’s mother tongue or first language in improving
learning outcomes and promoting education for all (EFA). Students learn to read more quickly
when in their first language; pupils who have learned to read and write in their first language
learn to speak, read, and write in a second language and third language more quickly than those
who are taught in a second or third language first.
Preservation of the native language requires a strong culture. Language is culture, culture is
language. When a language dies, so does the culture it nurtures. For a language not to become
extinct, it must have writing systems and adequate historical records intact. A strong culture can
be brought about by literature. If we really want to preserve regional languages, we must develop
and preserve regional literature. Let the students read. Then we need to promote regional culture.
Like for example Pampanga uses Crisotan. It is part of their culture and history. And lastly,
every region must be able to write down and formulate the grammar of each regional language.
To impose a rule requiring students to use the language without literature will be detrimental to
learning.
According to Dr. Sarah Grey Thomason of the University of Michigan, “every loss of a language
deprives us of a window into the human mind and the human spirit” and the “unique repository
of human experience and thought.”
Preservation of national sentiment, the oneness of our nation must take primacy at all times
because we are one country. It is important that we develop and protect regional culture but that
must be seen on the concept that we are one nation.
Language must not divide the country. It must unite us. We must recognize the use and value of
the regional lingua franca but it is important that we have to develop and use the national lingua
franca to unite us as a people, and as one country