Languages of the Philippines
The Phiilippines are a group of islands between Malaysia and Taiwan. Many different groups of people live on the Philippines. Between 120 and 187 languages are spoken on the Phiilippines. For over three centuries, the Philippines were a colony of Spain. Amongst others, the Spanish introduced free public schools, which taught in Spanish. For a long time, the United States controlled the Philippines, so English is also commonly understood. In 1935, both English and Spanish were national langues. In the 1970s, when the Phliipppines had become independent, Spanish was dropped as an official language, and standardized version of Tagalog, called Filiipino was added. The 1987 constitution designates Filipino, a standardized version of Tagalog, as the national language and an official language along with English. Fililipino serves as a lingua franca. It allows people from different language families to communicate. On October 30, 2018, President Rodrigo Duterte signed into law Republic Act 11106, which declares Filipino Sign Language or FSL to be the country's official sign language and as the Philippine government's official language in communicating with the Filipino Deaf.