Filipino or Tagalog is among the top languages spoken in the United States besides English and Spanish, according to a recent report by a US think tank.
Tagalog is the most spoken language in nine cities, including Anchorage in Alaska and Las Vegas in Nevada, according to WordFinderX.
“The American West is home to 45% of all US Asians, making Asian languages the most spoken in many cities, following English and Spanish,” the report by the think tank states.
Las Vegas is also home to one of the largest Filipino-American communities in the United States.
But a language expert believes that it is still premature to determine if the Filipino language will soon overtake more areas in the States.
“The Filipino language has not attained its prestige like English. It is also unclear, even in the Philippines, if Filipino has already accommodated at least half of our native languages—being Tagalog-centric or Tagalog-based,” Mark Angeles, a Filipino essayist and professor at the University of Santo Tomas (UST), said.
Angeles also emphasized the differences between the use of the Filipino language abroad and back in the archipelago when it comes to diction and intonation.
“Since the United States is multilingual, I see variations in stress and tone. We must consider that the Filipino language being used by a Filipino, Filipino-Chinese, and Filipino-American have different words and intonation,” he added.
Filipino migration to the US is one of the primary factors in the widespread usage of the native tongue on foreign soil, according to Angeles.
“We see Filipinos [in the States] in the police force and in government offices,” he said.
Recent shifts, such as the Filipinx movement, have risen among the States in recent years in an attempt to decolonize the language from foreign influences and culture – being one of the key examples of the integration of foreign adoption of the local tongue.
There are more than 4 million Filipinos in the United States as of 2021, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center.
Besides English, Filipino, and Spanish, WordFinderX identified eight other languages that have dominated across the States in the past year: German, Navajo, Chinese, Portuguese, French, Haitian, and Aleut.