Filipino newcomers losing language
Community growing in province but children gravitate to English
A national language of the Philippines is being spoken by twice as many people as it was five years ago in Saskatchewan, but that could change. According to the 2016 Canadian census, the province has 20,045 native Tagalog speakers, an increase of 123 per cent since 2011. Their children, however, are quick to learn English.
“Right now they do not know how to speak Tagalog, but they can still understand,” Venone Bihag, a pastor at the Regina Filipino Christian Fellowship, said of his three children, aged 17, 14 and eight.
“When they were little, they could speak fluently, but right now I think they just only understand Tagalog. Mostly they just speak English,” Divina Linantud said of her four children, aged two through nine.
This is not a new phenomenon. Raising their three children in Saskatoon in the 1970s and ’80s, Paulino and Sandra Pabello spoke Tagalog at home, while their children excelled in English and French immersion at school.
The Filipino-Canadian Association of Saskatoon (FilCAS), of which Paulino Pabello was the first president in 1973, started its heritage language school too late for his kids to take part.
“They can understand, but they can’t speak anyway,” said Pabello. “It would have been nice if they did, because it is nice to know a lot of languages growing up.”
The 2016 census shows Tagalog as the immigrant language most commonly spoken on the Prairies: 20,045 people list it as their mother tongue — 1.9 per cent of the population — and 11,345 people say it’s the language they most commonly speak at home.
In Regina, there are 5,155 native Tagalog speakers; in Saskatoon, there are 6,745.
The numbers have climbed since the 2011 census, when 10,990 people said it was their mother tongue and 5,645 people spoke it most often at home.
Some of the Philippines’ other 175 dialects register in Canadian statistics as well: Cebuano (1,545 native speakers), Hiligaynon (260), Bikol (80), Ilocano (790), Malay (125), Pampangan (175), Pangasinan (40) and Waray-Waray (60).
Only a fraction of these languages are most often spoken in Saskatchewan homes, though. In the case of Bihag and his wife Helen Rose, it’s because they each speak different dialects — Cebuano for him and Cuyonon for her.
The next census could see a greater representation of Filipino languages, if immigration continues.
“We’ve seen how the Filipinos are growing here in numbers. In the church we see new Filipinos coming,” said Bihag, who moved to Regina in 2008.
“It’s really growing in numbers.” “I can see it because I have a business and I see different Filipinos,” added Linantud, who immigrated to Regina 11 years ago.
Pabello was part of the “first
wave” of Filipino immigration to Saskatchewan, moving to Saskatoon in 1967 to study veterinary medicine.
“We started helping the immigrants that came in our city,” said Pabello. That work continues today. “We unite each other, that’s the aim of the association, so we can also support (newcomers),” said Marte Nogot, FilCAS’s current president, who came to Saskatoon in 2008 as a welder through the Saskatchewan Immigrant Nominee Program.
“Being Filipino, we are looking for a greener pasture or a good opportunity, so we found that Saskatchewan is the best place for the opportunity because of the SINP program,” said Nogot.
“We found it easy to come here and we are very welcome here in the community.”
For 38 years, FilCAS has operated the Philippines pavilion at Saskatoon’s cultural festival, Folkfest.
The celebration introduces the wider community to Filipino culture, while also educating immigrants’ children, said Nogot.
“Even to the new generation, to the Filipinos who are born here in Canada, it’s kind of showing them where we came from, what we are, so they’ll not forget our roots,” he said.
Pabello dreams of the community having its own multipurpose facility, where it can host its Folkfest pavilion.
This year’s Folkfest takes place August 17 to 19 at Prairieland Park.