Words on the Walls: A Linguistic Diversity Campaign

The Philippines, being an archipelago composed of more than 7,000 islands, has a total of 187 individual languages. According to Ethnologue.com, of the 187 Philippine individual languages 183 of these are living while the other 4 have gone extinct. Ethnic Groups in the Philippines warns that according to estimates of linguists only 1/10th of our languages will remain by the 22nd Century. This poses a threat to our indigenous languages in the Philippines, which are at a high risk of becoming extinct. The Provincial Government of Pangasinan, headed by its Governor Amado T. Espino, Jr., admitted that Pangasinan is a dying language and something must be done to preserve it.

The Metro-Dagupan Colleges (MDC) Library hopes that the linguistic diversity campaign introduced may be fully adapted and become a regular service of the library. It will contribute to the promotion and protection of the Ilocano and Pangasinan languages. The campaign also hopes to produce a multilingual dictionary (English-Filipino-Ilocano-Pangasinan) in the long run.

This paper is aimed at marketing and promoting library services as well as conservation and preservation of the local language and is anchored on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) concept that linguistic diversity should be encouraged especially with respect to the mother tongue. This is strengthened by the IFLA concept that libraries should support and promote cultural and linguistic diversity at all levels.

The study made use of descriptive-survey method to determine the impact of the linguistic diversity campaign as introduced by the MDC Library to 114 high school students with regards to perceptions on inclusivity, influence to learn a new language, and appreciation of cultural diversity. The campaign generally comprised multilingual signs of words and/or phrases presented in four (4) translations: 1) English, 2) Filipino, 3) Ilocano and 4) Pangasinan posted on conspicuous places within the library.

Based on the survey done, the linguistic diversity campaign produced the following impact: 82% of the respondents (93) felt accepted despite the language diversity in the environment, 82% (or 94) of the respondents were influenced to want to learn a new language (English) according to 34% (39 respondents), and 84% (or 99) of the respondents were influenced to appreciate linguistic diversity in the school. While the campaign was only done in a month, the campaign showed promise if continued.