Filipino/Tagalog, A Language of the Philippines, Expands at UCLA
Department of Asian Languages and Cultures offers courses in
Advanced Filipino for the first time. Published: Thursday,
February 10, 2005 by Shoichi Iwasaki The Philippines is an
island country with 86 million people in Southeast Asia. It is
situated between the Philippine Sea and the South China Sea, and
is located east of Vietnam. Its two official languages are
Filipino and English, but there are also eight major dialects:
Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilocano, Hiligaynon or Ilonggo, Bicol, Waray,
Pampango, and Pangasinense. Filipino is a lingua franca based on
Tagalog. According to the recent U.S. Census, Filipino/Tagalog
is the second most commonly-spoken Asian language with about
840,000 speakers, after Chinese, in the United States. The
teaching of Tagalog or Filipino/Tagalog has a long history at
UCLA, for it was the first Southeast Asian language briefly
taught in the 60’s. It was re-established in 1990 as a UC
Extension course, and it became a regu