- published: 03 Feb 2015
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The culture of the Philippines reflects the country's complex history. It is a blend of the Malayo-Polynesian and Hispanic cultures, with influence from Chinese.
The Philippines was first settled by Melanesians; today they preserve a very traditional way of life and culture, although their numbers are few. After them, the Austronesians or more specifically, Malayo-Polynesians, arrived on the islands. Today the Austronesian culture is very evident in the ethnicity, language, food, dance and almost every aspect of the culture. These Austronesians engaged in trading with China, India,Japan, the Ryukyu islands, the Middle East, Borneo, and other places. As a result, those cultures have also left a mark on Filipino culture.
When the Spanish colonized the islands, after more than three centuries of colonization, they had heavily impacted the culture. The Philippines being governed from both Mexico and Spain, had received a little bit of Hispanic influence. Mexican and Spanish influence can be seen in the dance and religion many other aspects of the culture. After being colonized by Spain, the Philippines became a U.S. territory for about 40 years. Influence from the United States is seen in the wide use of the English language, and the modern pop culture.
The Filipino people or Filipinos are an Austronesian ethnic group native to the islands of the Philippines. There are about 94 million Filipinos in the Philippines, and about 11 million living outside the Philippines.
There are around 180 languages spoken in the Philippines, most of them belonging to the Austronesian language family, with Tagalog and Cebuano having the greatest number of native speakers. The official languages of the Philippines are Filipino and English and most Filipinos are bilingual or trilingual.
Most Filipinos refer to themselves colloquially as "Pinoy" (feminine: "Pinay"), which is a slang word formed by taking the last four letters of "Pilipino" and adding the diminutive suffix "-y". The lack of the letter "F" in the pre-1987 Philippine alphabet, Abakada, had caused the letter "F" to be substituted with "P". This is why, when the 28-letter modern Filipino alphabet was made official in 1987, the name Filipino was preferred over Pilipino. The name Filipino was chosen by the Spanish explorer Ruy López de Villalobos, who named the islands "las Islas Filipinas" ("the Philippine Islands") after Philip II of Spain.