Re: Rant: Defending Indonesian (was: Re: Newbie says hi)

Teoh wrote:
>Or Tagalog, or Mandarin, for that matter. The Philipino lady I was
>referring to told me that Tagalog just took of all the diverse languages
>in the region and became something of a linguia franca in that area. She
>claims there were no "original" speakers of Tagalog. Just like what you
>describe below:
>
Tagalog is a good counter-example to the Indonesian experience.  (It is/was
a perfectly good language in its own right, and there have always been
plenty of speakers.)  But it was the language of Manila, which just happened
to become the administrative center early on (the best harbor around).
There was a movement for a "national language" from at least the 1920s on,
but it tended to be Tagalog-centered.  There were/are actually more Bisayan
speakers than Tagalogs, and to this day they resent its predominance..   The
Powers that Be try to promote Pilipino, which is indeed a planned and
tinkered-with product, but it's still Tagalog, with a slight overlay of
suggested words that have gained currency from other local languages. Not to
mention a ton of English and left-over Spanish.

"400 years of the convent, 50 years of Hollywood", as they say.

So, unlike Indonesia, there was no widely spoken second language that could
be promoted (and idealistically accepted!) in the name of National Unity.