Latin is a dead word, they say, but our Filipino language might never become one…never with the 90 million or so Filipino population. It may not be extinct in the Philippines, but what about in the Filipino migrant communities around the world?

Back in the Philippines, while we would normally converse in Bisaya, we made it a point to communicate with our daughter in English. It was our strategy to make her learning in school much easier. My wife and I thought that if English would be our daughter’s normal form of communication, it would become second nature to her and learning in school, with English as the medium of communication, would be a breeze for her. Until she was seven years old, she got to communicate with us in English (as we didn’t respond to her when she spoke Bisaya). That was our life in Cebu – Bisaya trying to be English speaking (anyway, only with our daughter).