There are hundreds of ways to express love.
This was proven by a document shared by the UP Department of Linguistics.
The document showed a list of how “iniibig kita” or “I love you” is expressed in over two hundred Philippine languages and dialects.
This was compiled by linguist Ernesto Constantino and other members of the linguistic department in 1967.
According to Ethnologue Languages of the World, there are 186 established languages in the Philipines, with four of which now extinct.
Of the living languages, 41 are classified as institutional, 72 are developing, 46 are vigorous, 13 are in trouble, and ten are dying.
On February 6, the House of Representatives approved on final reading a bill that seeks to suspend the use of the mother tongue as the primary medium of instruction in early-grade education.
This bill is a response to the scarcity of learning materials in the mother tongue.
RELATED: House OKs suspension of using mother tongue to teach young learners
In October last year, there was also a push to remove Mother Tongue as a subject in Grade 1 to 3 classes.
Education Undersecretary Epimaco Densing III said, “there is no need to teach it (mother tongue) to the children because this is already their everyday language in the school and community and family.”
While others have welcomed this suggestion, the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) expressed concern saying that the “step will make learning recovery more difficult and shows how the agency lacks real appreciation of the Mother Tongue’s role in learning.”
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