​マニラの本屋さんにて。

マニラの街中ですぐ気が付くことだけれど、

フィリピノ語の存在感がだいぶ薄く、ほとんど英語、あと少しの中国語。

本屋さんの中身も同じようなもので、子供の本でさえ大部分は英語の本。

フィリピノ語の絵本は、絵本コーナーの片隅にほんの少しという感じ。

フィリピンは島国で、しかも少数言語がたくさんあるので、

英語という共通語を用いるのが便利なのだろうけれど、

大言語に飲み込まれている感じがして、少しわびしい。

​

A book from Manila.

This is something you may notice immediately after you are in Manila,

but the presence of Filipino/Tagalog is quite small, flooded with English and Chinese.

The same thing happens in bookstores.

Even children's books are mostly in English, and those in Filipino are scarce.

The Philippines are an island nation with full of languages,

and people are used to communicating in English as their lingua franca.

However, it is very sad to observe a language is on the verge of being swallowed

by two dominant languages.