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Philippine English, also Filipino English, is the variety of English used in the Philippines. It has some co-official status with Filipino. English is the second western colonial language, after Spanish; the United States took the territory in 1898 from Spain, whose colony it had been since 1521. The nation is diverse, with a Malay majority, a Chinese minority, and many people of mixed Malay, Chinese, Spanish, and U.S. backgrounds. Because English is used in varying degrees by over half the population of about 60 million, the Philippines rightly claims to be a major English-speaking country.
Like U.S. English, Philippine English pronounces r in words such as art, door, and worker. Also, h is pronounced with the tip of the tongue curled back and raised. Vowels tend to be full in all syllables (e.g., seven being pronounced "seh-ven," not "sev'n"). An "s" or "sh" sound may serve instead of a "z" or "zh," as in "carss" (cars), "pleshure" (pleasure). In grammar, the present progressive is commonly used for habitual behavior, rather than the simple present ("We are doing this work all the time" for "We do this work all the time"), the present perfect may be used rather than the simple past ("We have done it yesterday" for "We did it yesterday"), and the past perfect rather than the present perfect ("They had already been there" for "They have already been there").
Distinctive vocabulary includes: (1) Hispanicisms, unchanged or adapted, e.g., asalto (surprise party), querida (mistress); (2) words from Tagalog, e.g., boondock (mountain) - whence "the boondocks," kundiman (love song), tao (man) - as in "the common tao"; (3) local coinages, e.g., carnap (to steal a car), formed by analogy with kidnap, and jeepney (small bus), blending jeep and jitney, a jeep adapted for passengers.
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