Why are people from the Philippines referred to as Filipinos rather than Philippinos?

May 28, 2007 10:35 AM

Why are people from the Philippines referred to as Filipinos rather than Philippinos?

None of my Filipino friends have ever been able to explain this to me... just curious if there is a particular reason for the shift from "Ph" to "F" in the description of nationality.

posted by modernnomad to writing & language (7 comments total)

From here:

[Origin: 1895–1900; < sp, derived from (las islas) filipinas - philippine (islands)]

So it's from the Spanish, a hundred years or so ago when things were less quickly Anglicized. It probably didn't hurt that the language was also "Filipino".
posted by mendel at 10:59 AM on May 28, 2007

Dictionary: "1898 (fem. Filipina), from Sp., from las Islas Filipinas "the Philippine Islands."

Wikipedia: "the term "Filipino" originally referred to Spaniards born in the Philippines, also known as insulares, criollos or español filipino ... In various Philippine languages, Filipino is translated to Pilipino. The use of /p/ is used since many lack /f/ as a phoneme."

On preview, mendel beat me to it!
posted by falconred at 11:04 AM on May 28, 2007

(That's because I don't waste time closing tags properly, you see.)
posted by mendel at 11:07 AM on May 28, 2007

Yes, "Ph" is the Anglicized name -- it helps to know that we were a US Commonwealth from 1898 to 1945, during which time the "Ph" fell into common usage.

For a long time our native alphabet didn't have an "F" in it, so it was "Pilipino," but a new alphabet introduced after 1986 included "F" (along with other new favorites like X, J, and Ñ) and "Filipino" quickly fell back into popular usage.
posted by brownpau at 11:27 AM on May 28, 2007

what about Pinoy?
posted by blue_beetle at 11:44 AM on May 28, 2007

It has to do with the adoption of the Latin Alphabet by The Philippines and the different paths the words "The Philippines" and "Filipinos" took to get into the written language.

The Philippines was named by the Spanish for King Philip II of Spain. Since the islands were named for a known personage no transcription was needed. The islands were spelled with a "Ph" because that's how Philip spelled his name. Prior to this naming, there were no "Filipinos" on the islands, there were instead Ilocanos, Cebuanos, etc.

A lot of native words in the Tagalog language when written with the Latin Alphabet are very phonetic. Even when you have two vowels next to each other, you are expected to pronounce both of them. The Tagalog word "paalam" has 3 syllables, in contrast, the English word "either" has 2. With this phonetic adoption of the Latin alphabet, perhaps the "foreign" word "filipinos" as heard by the natives would then have to follow the alphabet rules and begin with an "F" and not a "Ph".

However, if you go back in history, you will find that the letter "F" was initially not in use by natives who did not use the corresponding sound for words. When spoken by a Filipino with a heavy accent, an "F" sounds like it is a "P" and so you have: "Pilipinos". In 1976 the letter "F" was introduced specifically to accommodate words adopted from other cultures, and the spelling changed to “Filipino”.

In the Filipino American community I've seen both Filipino and Pilipino used. I personally use Filipino (or Filipina) to describe myself.
posted by Fricka at 12:15 PM on May 28, 2007

@blue_beetle:

Pinoy is colloquial for Pilipino and you can see the pattern when people make nicknames by contracting words and adding o/y. My friend named Dimples for example: her nickname is Ipoy.
Jeff: Jepoy
And so on. It's one of the nuances of Tagalog language, and, in recognizing this, brings you a step closer to learning about Filipino culture.
posted by drea at 7:27 AM on April 3