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Philippine English is legitimate, says Oxford English Dictionary editor

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<p>MANILA -- Contrary to what many Filipinos think, Philippine English is a legitimate variety of the English language, according to an expert.</p><p>Dr. Danica Salazar, world English editor for the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), stressed that Philippine English is &quot;not slang, not wrong, not carabao English, or any other derogatory word that&#x27;s been used over the years.&quot;</p><p>She said that just like British, American, Australian, and Singaporean variants, Philippine English plays an important role in the historical development of the language, which OED seeks to document.</p><p>&quot;What OED does is it tells the history of the English language through the development of its words, and that story is not complete if we don&#x27;t tell the part that Philippine English plays,&quot; she said in a recent webinar organized by the Philippine Embassy in Spain.</p><p>&quot;Philippine English, just like American English or British English, or Indian English or Singapore English, are all part of the same story,&quot; she added. &quot;We all have a role to play in this. Philippine English has as much of a place in the history in the lexicon of the English language as all these other varieties.&quot;</p><p>According to Salazar, adding Philippine English words to OED takes them months of work, but was quick to reiterate that &quot;it&#x27;s worth it.&quot;</p><p>&quot;These words like &#x27;bongga&#x27; or &#x27;kilig,&#x27; you might find them silly but they do say something about our culture and they are worth spending hours and months researching,&quot; she said.</p><div><strong>PHILIPPINE ENGLISH ACCENT</strong></div><p>Salazar also pointed out how Filipinos have their own unique way of speaking in English, and that this is something that should be embraced.</p><p>She noted how some people try to sound American or British, under the impression that this is the &quot;right&quot; way to communicate using the English language.</p><p>&quot;I&#x27;ve been living in the UK for seven years now, and nobody&#x27;s ever told me, &#x27;I don&#x27;t understand you.&#x27; And I speak with a totally Philippine English accent,&quot; she said.</p><p>&quot;The accent and the words that we use, these are a reflection of our identity, of our culture,&quot; she explained. &quot;And adapting languages to suit a communicative means is something that everyone does. Americans adapted British English, Australians did the same, people in New Zealand do the same. So why can&#x27;t we do the same?&quot;</p><p>Salazar went on to share that the Philippine accent is &quot;one of the most understandable accents in the world,&quot; saying this is &quot;one of the reasons why our call center industry is so successful.&quot;</p><p>&quot;We don&#x27;t need to sound American to speak English correctly,&quot; she stressed, adding, &quot;We don&#x27;t have to waste our time in the classroom trying to twist our students&#x27; tongues in shapes that they can&#x27;t make.&quot;</p><p>Watch Salazar talk about Philippine English starting at the 1:04:14 mark in the video below:</p><div><script src="https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&amp;version=v2.5" async="" type="text/javascript"></script></div><div class="fb-post" data-href="https://www.facebook.com/PHinSpain/videos/2107568266053259" data-width="auto"> </div>