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Our local languages are just as endangered as the chimpanzee. Unless we do
something to save them, we would wake up one day to see them gone.
Would future Filipinos harbor any regret if ever our languages become extinct?
If I happen to live that long and am then among those future Filipinos, I certainly would find their disappearance extremely regrettable. It would probably be the same way with Benjie, Jed, Lino, Dindo, Danny, Gus, Harvey, Tim, Edwin, Ronald, Dag, Sonny, Linda, Carmen and the rest of DILA's Long Gray Line.
But on among future Filipinos already speaking the national language as their first language, I'd doubt it. Born differrently as a result of their having been brought up with such nationalistic thoughts as what is presently being inculcated in them now, they would most likely be satisfied with the language they were born with. Their ancestors may have been Cebuano speakers, but since they can't speak it and can only listen to it in tape recordings whenever they go to the Museum of Dead Languages generously provided by the government, they don't actually have any interest in them. Pride for one's ancestral language is not an inherited trait. People tend to love only the language they are born with, and even then, the majority, as witnessed by what we see around, don't even really seem to care.
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