Philippine Hokkien

The term Philippine Hokkien is used when differentiating the variety of Hokkien spoken in the Philippines from those spoken in China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and other Southeast Asian countries.[12][5]

Historically, it was also known in Philippine English, Filipino (Tagalog), and other Philippine languages as Fookien[4] or Fukien[6] across the country, derived from the Chinese postal romanization of the Nanjing court dialect Mandarin reading of Fujian province in China, such as in the old newspaper, The Fookien Times.

The endonym used by speakers of the dialect itself or the Hokkien language in general though is typically, Chinese: 咱人話 / 咱儂話; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Lán-nâng-ōe / Lán-lâng-ōe / Nán-nâng-ōe; Tâi-lô: Lán-nâng-uē / Lán-lâng-uē / Nán-nâng-uē.[4]

Only 12.2% of all ethnic Chinese in the Philippines have a variety of Chinese as their mother tongue. Nevertheless, the vast majority (77%) still retain the ability to understand and speak Hokkien as a second or third language.[13]

Front page of Doctrina Christiana en letra y lengua china (1593) by Spanish Dominican Friar Juan Cobo, written in Classical Chinese mostly in dialogue form based on Hokkien used in Spanish Colonial Philippines.

From the late 16th century to the early 17th century, Spanish friars in the Philippines, such as the Dominican Order and Jesuits specifically in Manila, produced materials documenting the Hokkien varieties spoken by the Chinese trading community who had settled there in the late 16th century:[14][9]

• Doctrina Christiana en letra y lengua China (1593), a Hokkien version of the Doctrina Christiana.[15][10][16][17][18]
• Dictionarium Sino Hispanicum (1604), by Pedro Chirino[19]
• Vocabulario de la Lengua Española y China / Vocabulario Hispanico y Chinico[19]
• Bocabulario de la lengua sangleya por las letraz de el A.B.C. (1617), a Spanish-Hokkien dictionary, with definitions.[19]
• Arte de la Lengua Chiõ Chiu (1620), a Spanish-Hokkien grammar book.[20]
• Dictionario Hispanico Sinicum (1626-1642), a primarily Spanish-Hokkien dictionary (with additional incomplete Mandarin part), giving equivalent words, but not definitions.[21]
• Vocabulario de letra china (1643), by Francisco Diaz[19]

These texts appear to record a dialect descended primarily from the Chiangchiu (Zhangzhou) dialect of Hokkien, from the old port of Yuegang (modern-day Haicheng, an old port that is now part of Longhai),[22] but with some attested features of the dialects of Chuanchiu (Quanzhou) and Teo-Swa as well, hence Klöter (2011) considers it to be a contact variety, known as Early Manila Hokkien (EMH).[9]

扶西德孫墓 (Hokkien POJ: Hû-se Tek-sun Bō͘, lit. Jose Tecson's Grave; Santa Cruz d. 1728 AD), located in San Andres Apostol Church of Candaba, Pampanga (as of 2010)

By 1832, Rev. Walter Henry Medhurst still noted in his Hokkien dictionary, originally as an account given by Conrad Malte-Brun (1775-1826) on the province of Hok-këèn (Fujian), that[23]

Tchang-chew-fou (Chëang-chew-hoó) [Zhangzhou Prefecture] is near the port of Emouy (Āy-moôiⁿᵍ)[Amoy/Port of Xiamen], a great emporium of trāde, frequented by the Spaniards from Manilla [Manila].

— Conrad Malte-Brun, as quoted by Walter Henry Medhurst, A Dictionary of the Hok-këèn Dialect of the Chinese Language, According to the Reading and Colloquial Idioms: Containing About 12,000 Characters, A Short Historical and Statistical Account of the Province of Hok-këèn. (Compiled from European and Chinese Authors.)

The Spanish trade with Amoy from Manila had later grown nominal because the Hokkien Chinese merchants from Amoy and Chinchew to and from Manila outcompeted the Spaniards during the early 1800s, as noted by the British, such as James Matheson, co-founder of Jardine Matheson:[24]

Amoy, a much more substantial port giving access to the tea-growing province of Fukien, was open to Spanish trade only. But the right was merely nominal because Chinese junks could transport goods to and from the Philippines much more cheaply than could the Spaniards. The latter had practically given up the trade; only one Spanish ship put in at Amoy between 1810 and 1830. ...Another witness said the Spaniards had given up the Amoy trade since 1800.

— Michael Greenberg, British Trade and the Opening of China, 1800-1842, Chapter III: The Canton Commercial System, p.47

By 1873, Rev. Carstairs Douglas writes in his Hokkien dictionary that[25]

Singapore and the various Straits Settlements [such as Penang and Malacca], Batavia [Jakarta] and other parts of the Dutch possessions [Indonesia], are crowded with emigrants, especially from the Chang-chew [Zhangzhou] prefecture; Manila and other parts of the Philippines have great numbers from Chin-chew [Quanzhou], and emigrants are largely scattered in like manner in Siam [Thailand], Burmah [Myanmar], the Malay Peninsula [Peninsular Malaysia], Cochin China [Southern Vietnam], Saigon [Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam], &c. In many of these places there is also a great mixture of emigrants from Swatow [Shantou].

— Carstairs Douglas, Chinese–English Dictionary of the Vernacular or Spoken Language of Amoy, Extent of the Amoy Vernacular, and its Sub-division into Dialects: Colonization And Emigration

By 1883, Rev. John Macgowan also records 3 entries explicitly defining Hokkien Chinese: 呂宋; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Lū-sòng; lit. 'Luzon' in his Hokkien dictionary:

Luzon, 呂宋 Lū-sòng,—belongs to Spain, 呂宋是大°呂宋之°屬國 Lū-sòng sī Tōa lū-sòng ê siók kok

— John Macgowan, English and Chinese Dictionary of the Amoy Dialect, L[26]

Manilla [sic], 呂宋 Lū-sòng, very many Chinese go to—, 唐°人°去°呂宋盡多° tn̂g lâng khì Lū-sòng tsīn tsōe.

— John Macgowan, English and Chinese Dictionary of the Amoy Dialect, M[27]

Philippines, 呂宋 Lū-sòng.

— John Macgowan, English and Chinese Dictionary of the Amoy Dialect, P[28]

The Chinese community of the Philippines during the Spanish colonial era used to also speak a sort of Spanish pidgin variety known as "Caló Chino Español" in Spanish or "Kastilang tindahan" in Tagalog, especially because the Chinese community before obligates Chinese cabecillas (community leaders) to teach rudimentary Spanish to new Chinese immigrants which was taught in Chinese-owned schools. They could speak these Spanish pidgin varieties after one month which many, especially old timers later became very fluent, albeit some still with accented Spanish. Spanish was prevalent enough among the educated in the Philippines during the Spanish colonial era, that Joseph Earle Stevens, an American that stayed in Manila from 1893-1894 had this to say in his book, "Yesterdays in the Philippines":[29]

Spanish, of course, is the court and commercial language and, except among uneducated natives who have a lingo of their own or among the few members of the Anglo-Saxon colony, it has a monopoly everywhere. No one can really get on without it, and even the Chinese come in with their peculiar pidgin variety

— Joseph Earle Stevens, Yesterdays in the Philippines

By 1941, Vicente Lim publishes a dictionary in Manila, titled "Chinese-English-Tagalog-Spanish Business conversation and social contact with Amoy pronunciation" giving equivalent words in the stated 4 languages,[30] where "Chinese" and "Amoy" referred to a formalized literary form of the local Chuanchiu-based Hokkien as used by the author and the Chinese Filipino community in the Philippines at that time. As per Lim's dictionary, American English took precedence as consistent with the American colonial era, when English along with Spanish began to be taught as the official language of the Philippine Islands under the Insular Government, which later, Tagalog was chosen as the basis of Filipino, the national language of the Philippines under the 1935 constitution of the Philippine Commonwealth.

During the late 20th century, despite Standard Chinese (Mandarin) taking the place as the usual Chinese class subject taught in Chinese Filipino schools as the topic of study, some schools had Chinese teachers that used Amoy Hokkien as medium of instruction in order to teach Mandarin Chinese to native-Hokkien-speaking Chinese Filipino students, but decades later around the Marcos Era, regulations became stricter and the medium of instruction for teaching Standard Chinese (Mandarin) in Chinese classes shifted from Amoy Hokkien Chinese to purely Mandarin Chinese (or in some schools to English). Also, due to the increased rural to urban migration of Chinese Filipinos, Chinese Filipino schools in urban areas increased but those in the provinces gradually declined, some closing down or some turning into ordinary Philippine schools, where some tried to preserve their "Chinese" characteristic by instead teaching Hokkien as their Chinese class subject, deeming it as more practical in the Philippine-Chinese setting.[31]

As of 2019, the Ateneo de Manila University, under their Chinese Studies Programme, offers Hokkien 1 (Chn 8) and Hokkien 2 (Chn 9) as electives.[32] Chiang Kai Shek College offers Hokkien classes in their CKS Language Center.[33]

The contractions, 卅 (sam/sap) and 廾 (lia̍p), used on a grave tablet in the Manila Chinese Cemetery.

21st century Philippine Hokkien (咱人話; Lán-nâng-ōe) is largely derived from the Coastal Quanzhou (泉州; Choân-chiu) Hokkien dialects of Jinjiang (晉江; Chìn-kang), Coastal Nan'an (海南安 / 下南安; Hái Lâm-oaⁿ / Ě Lâm-oaⁿ), Shishi (石狮; Chio̍h-sai), Quanzhou City Proper (泉州市; Choân-chiu), Hui’an (惠安; Hūi-oaⁿ), but has possibly also absorbed influences from the adjacent Amoy dialect of Xiamen (廈門; Ē-mn̂g), Coastal Tong’an dialect (同安; Tâng-oaⁿ), Highland Nan'an (頂南安 / 山南安; Téng Lâm-oaⁿ / Soaⁿ Lâm-oaⁿ), Inland Yongchun (永春; Éng-chhun), and Inland Anxi (安溪; An-khoe) dialects of Xiamen and Highland Quanzhou respectively.[34][35][36]

Meanwhile, the older late 16th to 17th century Early Manila Hokkien once spoken around the Manila Bay area was largely derived from Coastal Zhangzhou (漳州; Chiang-chiu) Hokkien dialects of Longxi (龍溪; Liông-khe) and Haicheng (海澄; Hái-têng), both now merged by 1960 within modern-day Longhai (龍海; Liông-hái) of Coastal Zhangzhou (漳州; Chiang-chiu) on the mouth of the Jiulong River (九龍江; Kiú-liông-kang) from where the old smuggling port of Yuegang (月港; Goe̍h-káng) used to operate from, before being overshadowed by the Port of Xiamen (廈門港; Ē-mn̂g Káng) closer to the sea by around the mid-1600s at the Ming-Qing transition due to conflict between the Ming loyalist, Koxinga, and the Qing forces.

Although Philippine Hokkien is generally mutually comprehensible especially with other Quanzhou Hokkien variants, including Singaporean Hokkien and Quanzhou-based Taiwanese Hokkien variants, the local vocabulary, tones, and Filipino or Philippine Spanish and English loanwords as well as the extensive use of contractions and colloquialisms (even those which are now unused or considered archaic or dated in China) can result in confusion among Hokkien speakers from outside of the Philippines.

Hokaglish is code-switching involving Philippine Hokkien, Tagalog and English. Hokaglish shows similarities to Taglish (mixed Tagalog and English), the everyday mesolect register of spoken Filipino language within Metro Manila and its environs.[12]

Both ways of speaking are very common among Chinese Filipinos, who tend to code-switch these languages in everyday conversation, where it can be observed that older generations typically use the Hokkien Chinese sentence structure base while injecting English and Tagalog words while the younger ones use the Filipino/Tagalog sentence structure as the base while injecting the few Hokkien terms they know in the sentence. The latter therefore, in a similar sense with Taglish using Tagalog grammar and syntax, tends to code-mix via conjugating the Hokkien terms the way they do for Filipino/Tagalog words.[37]

In other provinces/regions of the Philippines, a similar code-switching medium is also done with Philippine Hokkien and English, but instead of or along with Tagalog, other regional languages are used as well, such as Cebuano Bisaya (akin to Bislish), Hiligaynon/Ilonggo, Ilocano, Bikolano, Waray, Kapampangan, Pangasinense, etc., so in Metro Cebu, Chinese Filipino families speak a code-swtiching mix of Philippine Hokkien, Cebuano Bisaya, and Philippine English, while in Metro Davao and Cagayan de Oro (CDO), a mix of Philippine Hokkien, Cebuano Bisaya, Tagalog, Philippine English is used, while in Iloilo and Bacolod, a mix of Philippine Hokkien, Hiligaynon (Ilonggo), and Philippine English is used, while in Vigan and Baguio, a mix of Philippine Hokkien, Ilocano, and Philippine English is used, while in Naga, a mix of Philippine Hokkien, Central Bikolano, and Philippine English is used, while in Zamboanga City, a mix of Philippine Hokkien, Chavacano, Philippine English, and sometimes Cebuano and/or Tagalog are used.

• Hokkien architecture
• Hokkien culture
• Hokkien media
• Hoklo people
• Holopedia
• Mandarin Chinese in the Philippines
• Medan Hokkien
• Penang Hokkien
• Pe̍h-ōe-jī
• Singapore Hokkien
• Southern Malaysia Hokkien
• Speak Hokkien Campaign
• Taiwanese Hokkien
• Taiwanese Romanization System
• Written Hokkien

• Klöter, Henning (2011). The Language of the Sangleys: A Chinese Vernacular in Missionary Sources of the Seventeenth Century. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-18493-0. - An analysis and facsimile of the Arte de la Lengua Chio-chiu (1620), the oldest extant grammar of Hokkien.
• Doctrina Christiana en letra y lengua china (in Spanish). Manila. 1607 – via Biblioteca Digital Hispánica. – Hokkien version of the Doctrina Christiana.
• Arte de la Lengua Chio-chiu (in Spanish). Manila. 1620 – via Biblioteca Patrimonial Digital de la Universitat de Barcelona. – A manual for learning Hokkien written by a Spanish missionary in the Philippines.
• Van der Loon, Piet (1966). "The Manila Incunabula and Early Hokkien Studies, Part 1" (PDF). Asia Major. New Series. 12: 1–43.
• Van der Loon, Piet (1967). "The Manila Incunabula and Early Hokkien Studies, Part 2" (PDF). Asia Major. New Series. 13: 95–186.