Mandarin Chinese Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language ...

is the primary formal

Chinese language Chinese (, especially when referring to written Chinese) is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in Greater China. About 1.3 billion people (or approximately 16% of the ...

taught academically to Chinese Filipinos in Chinese Filipino schools and across other schools and institutions in the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

, especially as the formal written Chinese language. Both

Standard Chinese Standard Chinese ()—in linguistics Standard Northern Mandarin or Standard Beijing Mandarin, in common speech simply Mandarin, better qualified as Standard Mandarin, Modern Standard Mandarin or Standard Mandarin Chinese—is a modern standa ...

( PRC) (known in ) and

Taiwanese Mandarin Taiwanese Mandarin, ''Guoyu'' ( zh, s=, t=國語, p=Guóyǔ, l=National Language, first=t) or ''Huayu'' ( zh, s=, t=華語, p=Huáyǔ, first=t, l=Mandarin Language, labels=no) refers to Mandarin Chinese spoken in Taiwan. A large majority of the T ...

( ROC) (known in many schools in

Hokkien The Hokkien () variety of Chinese is a Southern Min language native to and originating from the Minnan region, where it is widely spoken in the south-eastern part of Fujian in southeastern mainland China. It is one of the national languages ...

) are taught and spoken in the Philippines depending on the school, with some schools and speakers using

Simplified Chinese characters Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters used in mainland China, Malaysia and Singapore, as prescribed by the '' Table of General Standard Chinese Characters''. Along with traditional Chinese characters, they are o ...

, some using

Traditional Chinese characters Traditional Chinese characters are one type of standard Chinese character sets of the contemporary written Chinese. The traditional characters had taken shapes since the clerical change and mostly remained in the same structure they took a ...

, and some using a mixture of both. Meanwhile, Chinese language publications have traditionally used Traditional Chinese characters. Mandarin Chinese is formally used in print publications in

newspapers A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, spor ...

and books in the Philippines, such as ''

World News World news or international news or even foreign coverage is the news media jargon for news from abroad, about a country or a global subject. For journalism, it is a branch that deals with news either sent by foreign correspondents or news agen ...

United Daily News ''United Daily News'' (UDN; ) is a newspaper published in Taiwan. It is considered to support the pan-Blue Coalition in its editorials. History UDN was founded in 1951 by Wang Tiwu as a merger of three newspapers, ''Popular Daily'' (全民� ...

, Chinese Commercial News'', and many others.

Classification

Mandarin in the Philippines can be classified into two distinct Mandarin dialects: ''Standard Mandarin'' and ''Colloquial Mandarin''. Standard Mandarin is either the standard language of

Mainland China "Mainland China" is a geopolitical term defined as the territory governed by the China, People's Republic of China (including islands like Hainan or Chongming Island, Chongming), excluding dependent territories of the PRC, and other territorie ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the no ...

, while Colloquial Mandarin in the Philippines tends to combine features from Mandarin () and features from

() of the local

Philippine Hokkien Philippine Hokkien is a dialect of the Hokkien language of the Southern Min branch, primarily spoken vernacularly by Chinese Filipinos in the Philippines, where it serves as the local Chinese '' lingua franca'', primarily spoken as an oral l ...

dialect, which is the

heritage language A heritage language is a minority language (either immigrant or indigenous) learned by its speakers at home as children, and difficult to be fully developed because of insufficient input from the social environment. The speakers grow up with a ...

of many Chinese Filipinos.

Usage

Only a small minority of Chinese Filipinos claim Mandarin as their native first language, with Tagalog or English typically being the first language. The lack of environment for speaking the language and the difficulty of learning it created not just a lack of interest, but even great disgust by some towards it. Efforts in the 21st century to promote Mandarin Chinese education in Chinese Filipino institutions and recent utilitarian trends, such as more Mandarin job opportunities, recent immigrants from China or Taiwan, summer education trips to China or Taiwan, encouragement of universities and schools by past presidents, and education exchange deals with China have spurred interest and potential for growth in the usage of Mandarin.

Code-switching

Sometimes Chinese Filipinos also code-switch Mandarin together with other languages, such as

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

Tagalog Tagalog may refer to: Language * Tagalog language, a language spoken in the Philippines ** Old Tagalog, an archaic form of the language ** Batangas Tagalog, a dialect of the language * Tagalog script, the writing system historically used for Taga ...

(or other

Philippine languages The Philippine languages or Philippinic are a proposed group by R. David Paul Zorc (1986) and Robert Blust (1991; 2005; 2019) that include all the languages of the Philippines and northern Sulawesi, Indonesia—except Sama–Bajaw (language ...

), and Hokkien, as a form of pidgin language, just like Hokaglish or

Singlish Singlish (a portmanteau of ''Singapore'' and ''English'') is an English-based creole language spoken in Singapore. Singlish arose out of a situation of prolonged language contact between speakers of many different languages in Singapore, inc ...

Education

There are about 150 or so

Chinese school A Chinese school () is a school that is established for the purpose of teaching the varieties of Chinese (in particular, Mandarin and Cantonese), though the purpose can vary to teaching different aspects of Chinese culture such as Chinese art, ca ...

s that exist throughout the

, around a third of which operate in

Metro Manila Metropolitan Manila (often shortened as Metro Manila; fil, Kalakhang Maynila), officially the National Capital Region (NCR; fil, link=no, Pambansang Punong Rehiyon), is the capital region, seat of government and one of three List of metrop ...

. Most education of

( Mandarin) provided in the

is facilitated through Chinese Filipino schools established by Chinese Filipinos, which typically include the teaching of

( Mandarin) along with other school class subjects. In terms of phonology, vocabulary and grammar, the " Chinese" ( Mandarin) taught during most of the 20th century in the Philippines in many older Chinese Filipino schools was often the Taiwanese variety (known in Mandarin and in

) of

, using

and the

Zhuyin Bopomofo (), or Mandarin Phonetic Symbols, also named Zhuyin (), is a Chinese transliteration system for Mandarin Chinese and other related languages and dialects. More commonly used in Taiwanese Mandarin, it may also be used to transcribe ...

phonetic system (known in many older Chinese Filipino schools in

), which was also often taught using

Amoy Xiamen ( , ; ), also known as Amoy (, from Hokkien pronunciation ), is a sub-provincial city in southeastern Fujian, People's Republic of China, beside the Taiwan Strait. It is divided into six districts: Huli, Siming, Jimei, Tong' ...

Hokkien Chinese The Hokkien () variety of Chinese is a Southern Min language native to and originating from the Minnan region, where it is widely spoken in the south-eastern part of Fujian in southeastern mainland China. It is one of the national languages ...

medium of instruction A medium of instruction (plural: media of instruction, or mediums of instruction) is a language used in teaching. It may or may not be the official language of the country or territory. If the first language of students is different from the offic ...

due to the majority of Chinese Filipinos in Chinese Filipino schools being of Hokkien descent and historic ties to Southern Fujian. This was in due part as a result of the direct control formerly provided to the

Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeas ...

Ministry of Education An education ministry is a national or subnational government agency politically responsible for education. Various other names are commonly used to identify such agencies, such as Ministry of Education, Department of Education, and Ministry of Pub ...

over

Chinese schools A Chinese school () is a school that is established for the purpose of teaching the varieties of Chinese (in particular, Mandarin and Cantonese), though the purpose can vary to teaching different aspects of Chinese culture such as Chinese art, ca ...

throughout the archipelago after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

when the

Third Republic of the Philippines Third or 3rd may refer to: Numbers * 3rd, the ordinal form of the cardinal number 3 * , a fraction of one third * 1⁄60 of a ''second'', or 1⁄3600 of a ''minute'' Places * 3rd Street (disambiguation) * Third Avenue (disambiguation) * Hig ...

and the

Republic of China (ROC) Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...

signed the Sino-Philippine Treaty of Amity. As a result of the

Chinese Civil War The Chinese Civil War was fought between the Kuomintang-led government of the Republic of China and forces of the Chinese Communist Party, continuing intermittently since 1 August 1927 until 7 December 1949 with a Communist victory on main ...

, the

soon retreated to

Taiwan (ROC) Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northea ...

, where it rules today. Such situation continued until 1973, when amendments made during the Marcos Era to the Philippine Constitution effectively transferred all Chinese schools to the authority of the Department of Education (DepEd) of the Philippines. With this, the

for teaching

( Mandarin) in Chinese classes shifted from Amoy Hokkien Chinese to purely

(or in some schools to

). Teaching hours relegated to Chinese language and arts, which featured prominently in the pre-1973 Chinese schools, were reduced. Lessons in Chinese geography and history, which were previously subjects in their own right, were integrated with the Chinese language subjects, whereas, the teaching of Filipino (

) and Philippine history, civics and culture became new required subjects. As a result of longstanding influence from the ROC

of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Council of the

Republic of China (Taiwan) Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...

extending from when the

was still on

since the early 1900s up to 2000, many Chinese Filipino schools still continued to use dictionaries and books from

. In recent decades around the early 2000s, many schools started to shift to using

and the

Pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...

phonetic system instead, which were introduced from

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

and

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

, where books and teaching materials from

, and

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federal constitutional monarchy consists of thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two regions: Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo's East Mal ...

started to be used and taught. Today, many Chinese Filipino schools now currently teach Chinese ( Mandarin) in

Simplified characters Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters used in mainland China, Malaysia and Singapore, as prescribed by the ''Table of General Standard Chinese Characters''. Along with traditional Chinese characters, they are on ...

with the Pinyin system, modeled after those in

and

, though some older schools still teach both or either of the systems, where a few still remain teaching solely in

and the

phonetic system. Chinese ( Mandarin) newspapers in the Philippines, such as ''

, Chinese Commercial News'', and many others still mostly use

Traditional Chinese character Traditional Chinese characters are one type of standard Chinese character sets of the contemporary written Chinese. The traditional characters had taken shapes since the clerical change and mostly remained in the same structure they took a ...

s in writing. Due to the selection by the founders and sponsors of different

s, many schools now either teach using

only,

only, or a mixture of both. Many Chinese Filipino schools either use

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...

and/or

bopomofo Bopomofo (), or Mandarin Phonetic Symbols, also named Zhuyin (), is a Chinese transliteration system for Mandarin Chinese and other related languages and dialects. More commonly used in Taiwanese Mandarin, it may also be used to transcribe ...

(''zhuyin fuhao'') to teach the language. Chinese Filipino schools often use the first language approach, which assumes that students of Chinese Filipino schools have had native experience of Mandarin, despite the contrary.

Notes

References

{{Authority control Chinese-Filipino culture Mandarin Chinese *

Classification

Usage

Code-switching

Education

See also

Notes

References