Living in a city that both hosts and endangers language diversity

Originally published in Manila Bulletin

As I walk through the dense and ever-evolving urban landscape of Metro Manila—one of Southeast Asia’s most linguistically diverse metropolises—I’m met with a contradiction I can’t ignore. This city, teeming with life from every corner of the archipelago and beyond, is home to at least 217 local and international languages. Yet many of these tongues, particularly indigenous ones, are slipping into silence right under our noses.

This contradiction hits close to home. As a member of the Karay-a ethnolinguistic group, I’ve witnessed firsthand how once-vibrant dialects steeped in ancestral rituals and folk wisdom now hover on the brink of extinction. Language isn’t merely a tool for communication—it’s an archive of cultural memory, ecological knowledge, and worldview. When we lose a language, we lose far more than words; we lose centuries of insight embedded in grammar, song, and story.

In neighborhoods from Quezon City to Parañaque, the streets echo with a dizzying array of voices—Kapampangan vendors haggling in wet markets, Chavacano elders chatting in side streets, Taglish teenagers narrating their lives on TikTok. Communities of Hokkien, Nepali, and even Kyrgyz speakers have carved out cultural niches. And yet, even as we celebrate this linguistic polyphony, the tongues of entire generations vanish from dinner tables and playgrounds.

Why? The pressures are manifold. Urban migration has uprooted provincial families and replanted them into the city’s dominant linguistic soil: Filipino and English. These languages are associated with education, jobs, and social mobility. Our national policies reinforce this reality—Filipino and English dominate official discourse, while regional tongues are implicitly assigned to the domestic sphere, if not ignored entirely.

In schools, this hierarchy is painfully evident. Children whose first languages are Ilocano, Cebuano, or Waray are taught in Filipino or English—languages that may be unfamiliar at home. The result? A growing generation alienated from their own linguistic heritage. Over time, bedtime stories in Kinaray-a fade into textbook lessons in Tagalog, and intimate conversations with grandparents turn into formal exchanges in “proper” Filipino.

Layered onto this are the silent wounds of stigma. I’ve spoken to students who’ve been mocked for their “provincial” accents, pressured to modify their speech, and made to feel that sounding “authentic” means sounding inadequate. These microaggressions chip away at self-worth and hasten the abandonment of heritage speech patterns—musical inflections that once carried lullabies, riddles, and communal humor.

Yet it’s not all loss. In my fieldwork and language audit across the metro, I’ve encountered remarkable resilience. In Pasay, Kyrgyz merchants use their native tongue while negotiating in Tagalog. In Mandaluyong, Nepali-speaking families preserve their traditions through community gatherings. In the digital realm, Ilocano vlogs and Mangyan learning apps offer pathways to revitalization.

There is still time to turn this paradox into possibility.

We can reimagine Metro Manila as a living laboratory for language renewal—one where bilingual education isn’t an exception but the norm, where storytelling nights in endangered tongues are hosted in barangay halls and cafés, and where public media platforms amplify—not erase—local voices.

The stakes are high. UNESCO estimates that nearly half of the world’s 7,000+ languages could vanish by century’s end. The Philippines, with 175 living indigenous tongues, is among the most vulnerable—and most vital—countries in this fight for linguistic survival. Of these, 59 are already endangered.

We must act. Not only to preserve, but to revitalize. This means investing in community-led efforts, supporting teachers who incorporate mother tongues into their curricula, and building digital tools that make learning indigenous languages accessible and engaging. Policy must evolve to reflect our multilingual reality—not suppress it.

In a world rapidly moving toward homogenization, Metro Manila stands as both a cautionary tale and a beacon of hope. We can choose whether this kaleidoscope of languages dims to monochrome—or glows brighter with every voice remembered, every word reclaimed.

The number 217 is not just a statistic. It’s a responsibility.

This article builds on a blog originally published on the Southeast Asia Center’s website at the London School of Economics and Political Science: "Metro Manila’s Linguistic Paradox: A Melting Pot on the Brink."

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