I haven t read everything about but a few comments is that Charley I agree with what you just said We ve already achieved consensus on just that or s t very similar Corinne I get a somewhat similar impression but the govt does say the national language is Filipino That is the language of the Filipino people The idea that this is anything but Tagalog is a political fiction but nonetheless the name is used RioHondo Filipino is based on Manila dialect but it s not quite the same thing just as RP is not exactly London dialect Hy jungo is not exactly Tokyo dialect Putonghua is not exactly Beijing dialect etc Wtmitchell Philippine languages is a proposed branch of the Austronesian family that includes most but not all languages of the Philippines as well as a few languages not in the Philippines I don t particularly like the name but it does follow our naming guidelines