Hokkien in the Philippines

The term Philippine Hokkien is used when differentiating the variety of Hokkien spoken in the Philippines from those spoken in China, Taiwan and other Southeast Asian countries.[3][2]

Sometimes, it is also colloquially known as Fookien[1] or Fukien[6] around the country.

Only 12.2% of all ethnic Chinese in the Philippines have a variety of Chinese as their mother tongue. Nevertheless, the vast majority (77%) still retain the ability to understand and speak Hokkien as a second or third language.[7]

Front page of Doctrina Christiana en letra y lengua china (1593) by Spanish Dominican Friar Juan Cobo, written in Classical Chinese mostly in dialogue form based on Hokkien used in Spanish Colonial Philippines.

In the early 17th century, Spanish missionaries in the Philippines produced materials documenting the Hokkien varieties spoken by the Chinese trading community who had settled there in the late 16th century:[8][4]

• Doctrina Christiana en letra y lengua China (1593), a Hokkien translation of the Doctrina Christiana.[9][5]
• Diccionarium Sino-Hispanicum (1604), a Spanish-Hokkien dictionary, giving equivalent words, but not definitions.
• Bocabulario de la lengua sangleya (c. 1617), a Spanish-Hokkien dictionary, with definitions.
• Arte de la Lengua Chiõ Chiu (1620), a grammar written by a Spanish missionary in the Philippines.

These texts appear to record a Zhangzhou dialect of Hokkien, from the area of Haicheng (an old port that is now part of Longhai).[10]

As of 2019, the Ateneo de Manila University, under their Chinese Studies Programme, offers Hokkien 1 (Chn 8) and Hokkien 2 (Chn 9) as electives.[11] Chiang Kai Shek College offers Hokkien classes in their CKS Language Center.[12]

The contractions, 卅 (sam/sap) and 廾 (lia̍p), used on a grave tablet in the Manila Chinese Cemetery.

Philippine Hokkien is largely derived from the Jinjiang dialect of Quanzhou but has possibly also absorbed influences from the Amoy dialect of Xiamen and Nan'an dialects of Quanzhou.[13][14]

Although Philippine Hokkien is generally mutually comprehensible with any Hokkien variant, including Taiwanese Hokkien, the numerous English and Filipino loanwords as well as the extensive use of colloquialisms (even those which are now unused in China) can result in confusion among Hokkien speakers from outside of the Philippines.

Some terms have been shortened into one syllable. Examples include:

• dī-tsa̍p/lī-tsa̍p (二十) > dia̍p/lia̍p (廿 / 廾): twenty; 20 (same format for 20-29, i.e. 二十一[21] is "dia̍p-it" 廿一)[15]
• saⁿ-tsa̍p (三十) > sap (卅): thirty; 30 (same format for 30-39, i.e. 三十二[32] is "sa̍p-dī" 卅二)[16]
• sì-tsa̍p (四十) > siap (卌): forty; 40 (same format for 40-49, i.e. 四十三[43] is "siap-saⁿ" 卌三)[17]

• Hoklo people
• Hokkien culture
• Hokkien architecture
• Written Hokkien
• Hokkien media
• Taiwanese Hokkien
• Singapore Hokkien
• Penang Hokkien
• Southern Malaysia Hokkien
• Medan Hokkien
• Mandarin Chinese in the Philippines
• Pe̍h-ōe-jī
• Taiwanese Romanization System
• Holopedia
• Speak Hokkien Campaign

• Klöter, Henning (2011). The Language of the Sangleys: A Chinese Vernacular in Missionary Sources of the Seventeenth Century. BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-18493-0. - An analysis and facsimile of the Arte de la Lengua Chio-chiu (1620), the oldest extant grammar of Hokkien.
• Doctrina Christiana en letra y lengua china (1607). Manila. 1607. - Hokkien translation of the Doctrina Christiana.
• Arte de la Lengua Chio-chiu. Manila. 1620. - A manual for learning Hokkien written by a Spanish missionary in the Philippines.
• Van der Loon, Piet (1966). "The Manila Incunabula and Early Hokkien Studies, Part 1" (PDF). Asia Major New Series. 12 (1): 1–43.
• Van der Loon, Piet (1966). "The Manila Incunabula and Early Hokkien Studies, Part 2" (PDF). Asia Major New Series. 12 (1): 95–186.