Philippine Hokkien is a dialect of the Hokkien language of the Southern Min branch of Min Chinese descended directly from Old Chinese of the Sinitic family, primarily spoken vernacularly by Chinese Filipinos in the Philippines, where it serves as the local Chinese lingua franca within the overseas Chinese community in the Philippines and acts as the heritage language of a majority of Chinese Filipinos. Despite currently acting mostly as an oral language, Hokkien as spoken in the Philippines did indeed historically have a written language and is actually one of the earliest sources for written Hokkien using both Chinese characters (traditionally via Classical Chinese () worded from and read in Hokkien) as early as around 1587 or 1593 through the Doctrina Christiana en letra y lengua china and using the Latin script as early as the 1590s in the Boxer Codex and was actually the earliest to systematically romanize the Hokkien language throughout the 1600s in the Hokkien-Spanish works of the Spanish friars especially by the Dominican Order, such as in the Dictionario Hispánico-Sinicum (1626-1642) and the Arte de la Lengua Chiõ Chiu (1620) among others. The use of Hokkien in the Philippines was historically influenced by Philippine Spanish, Filipino (Tagalog) and Philippine English. As a lingua franca of the overseas Chinese community in the Philippines, the minority of Chinese Filipinos of Cantonese and Taishanese descent also uses Philippine Hokkien for business purposes due to its status as "the Chinoy business language" [sic]. It is also used as a liturgical language as one of the languages that Protestant Chinese Filipino churches typically minister in with their church service, which they sometimes also minister to students in Chinese Filipino schools that they also usually operate. It is also a liturgical language primarily used by Chinese Buddhist, Taoist, and Matsu veneration temples in the Philippines, especially in their sutra chanting services and temple sermons by monastics.
Terminology The term Philippine Hokkien is used when differentiating the variety of Hokkien spoken in the Philippines from those spoken in China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and other Southeast Asian countries.
Historically, it was also known in Philippine English, Filipino (Tagalog), and other Philippine languages as Fookien or Fukien or Fukienese across the country, derived from the Chinese postal romanization of the Nanjing court dialect Mandarin reading of Fujian province in China, such as in the old newspaper, The Fookien Times. It was historically and is still also called as just "Chinese" in English or "Intsik" and "Tsino" in Filipino (Tagalog), usually generalized to refer to Chinese languages in general, usually by those unfamiliar with the Hokkien language compared with other Chinese languages or to promote to such people. It was also historically and is still formally and conservatively known as "Amoy", usually by Protestant Chinese Filipino churches and schools who conduct "Amoy Worship Service" or "Chinese Worship Service" as part of their liturgy, despite the danger of confusing the Amoy dialect of Hokkien compared to the Hokkien language in general, although these protestant Chinese Filipino churches also do indeed occasionally use abstract liturgical terms from the Amoy dialect of Hokkien too from time to time and also typically use bibles and hymnal books from Xiamen (Amoy) typically written in the Amoy dialect of Hokkien.
The endonym used by speakers of the dialect itself or the Hokkien language in general though is typically, ; Tâi-lô: Lán-nâng-uē / Lán-lâng-uē / Nán-nâng-uē.
Sociolinguistics 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.
History
From the late 16th century to the early 17th century, Spanish friars in the Philippines, such as the Dominican Order and Jesuits specifically in Manila, produced materials documenting the Hokkien varieties spoken by the Chinese trading community who had settled there in the late 16th century:
Doctrina Christiana en letra y lengua China (1593), by Miguel de Benavides and Juan Cobo, a Hokkien version of the Doctrina Christiana. Rectificación y Mejora de Principios Naturales (1593), by Juan Cobo, a mostly Classical Chinese work written to transmit Roman Catholicism and western scientific knowledge to Hokkien Sangleyes. Espejo Rico del Claro Corazón—Beng Sim Po Cam (1590s), by Juan Cobo and Miguel de Benavides, a Hokkien book of proverbs and warnings from various texts for children's enlightenment and moral guidance. Dictionarium Sino Hispanicum (1604), by Pedro Chirino Vocabulary & Grammar Chin-Cheu (1600s) Vocabulario de la Lengua Española y China / Vocabulario Hispanico y Chinico Bocabulario de la lengua sangleya por las letraz de el A.B.C. (1617), a Spanish-Hokkien dictionary, with definitions. Arte de la Lengua Chiõ Chiu (1620), a Spanish-Hokkien grammar book. Dictionario Hispánico-Sinicum (1626-1642), a primarily Spanish-Hokkien dictionary (with additional incomplete Mandarin part), giving equivalent words, but not definitions. Vocabulario de letra china (1643), by Francisco Diaz
These texts appear to record a dialect descended primarily from a coastal Chiangchiu (Zhangzhou) dialect of Hokkien, specifically modern-day Haicheng () from the area around the old port of Yuegang (an old initially illegal smuggling port that was later legalized in 1567 and is now part of Longhai), but also with some attested features of the dialects of Chuanchiu (Quanzhou), such as from Anhai () and Tong'an (), and Teo-Swa as well, hence Klöter (2011) considers it to be a contact variety, known as Early Manila Hokkien (EMH). Yuegang (), part of Zhangzhou Prefecture under the late Ming China and Qing China used to be the Chinese terminus to and from Spanish Manila, under the Spanish Empire, which was part of the main artery that linked the trans-Pacific trade carried by the Manila galleon over the Pacific to Acapulco in New Spain (modern-day Mexico) of the Spanish Americas, that was also linked to the trans-Atlantic trade from the port of Veracruz to Seville in Spain, spreading trade goods from Asia across the Americas and later across Iberia and Europe. Later, the old port of Yuegang () would be overshadowed and supplanted by the Port of Xiamen () closer to the sea by around the mid-1600s at the Ming-Qing transition due to conflict between the Ming/Southern Ming loyalist, Koxinga (), and the Qing forces.
As a result as well of a 1603 Sangley Rebellion and a 1639 2nd Sangley Rebellion which both caused massacres of ethnic Sangley Chinese in Manila or Southern Luzon in general, the loss of Spanish Formosa to the Dutch in 1642, and the victory of Koxinga () in 1662 against the Dutch at the Siege of Fort Zeelandia in Taiwan, which caused the founding of the Kingdom of Tungning, Koxinga would send an ultimatum to Spanish Manila demanding to pay tribute to him or else he would send a fleet to conquer them and expel the Spaniards as well. The Spanish took the threat very seriously and withdrew their forces from the Moluccas, Sulu, and Mindanao to strengthen Manila in preparation for an attack. There would be several raids across Northern Luzon by Koxinga's forces. In the same year of 1662, Koxinga would suddenly die of malaria, only a few months after defeating the Dutch, in a fit of madness and delirium after discovering that his son and heir, Zheng Jing, had an affair with his wet nurse and conceived a child with her. A 1662 Sangley Massacre would ensue due to these mounting events and many Sangley Chinese fled by ship or to the mountains. Likewise during the 1700s, Spanish Dominican friar missionaries in Amoy/Xiamen would be severely persecuted in the region as well, but nevertheless continued to operate clandestinely.
The Sangley Chinese community in the Philippines would survive through the 1700s but intermix locally to create Chinese Mestizos (Mestizos de Sangley) and be replenished by migrants from Amoy/Xiamen and Chinchew/Quanzhou. Some of whom even aided the British during the British occupation of Manila in 1762-1764. The Chinese Mestizo (Mestizos de Sangley) descendants throughout the centuries with each succeeding generation would gradually stop speaking Hokkien though in favor of assimilating to the local mainstream languages of their time, especially Tagalog and Spanish, such as in the mestizo family of Philippine national hero, Jose Rizal. The Hokkien spoken across the Philippines throughout the past centuries introduced certain amounts of Hokkien loanwords to Philippine Spanish and the major lowland Austronesian languages of the Philippines, such as Tagalog, Kapampangan, Cebuano Bisaya, Hiligaynon, Central Bicolano, Pangasinense, Ilocano, Waray-waray, Chavacano, etc. as a result of the generations of intermarriage and assimilation. Those who chose to marry endogamously and retained speaking the language and as a result of gradual replenishment of migrants from Amoy/Xiamen and Chinchew/Quanzhou, especially relatives from Fujian, China of those already in the Philippines, throughout the centuries would later continue the Sangley Chinese community in the Philippines that spoke Hokkien.
Later in the early 1800s, the Spanish Empire would also have its issues with conflicts and wars that would seriously destabilize it, starting with the Napoleonic Wars in Europe, and the numerous conflicts and wars of independence across the Spanish Americas, which eliminated the Spanish Americas as the center of the Spanish Empire.
Around 1815, the Manila–Acapulco galleon trade would finally cease when the Mexican War of Independence broke out, which the First Mexican Empire would gain independence from the Spanish Empire by 1821. From then on 1821 to 1898, Spanish Philippines would be under direct royal governance under Madrid in Spain.
By 1832, Rev. Walter Henry Medhurst still noted in his Hokkien dictionary, originally as an account given by Conrad Malte-Brun (1775-1826) on the province of Hok-këèn (Fujian), that
The Spanish trade with Amoy to and from Manila later grew nominal as a result of the above destabilizing conflicts cutting the empire in half. The Hokkien Chinese merchants from Amoy and Chinchew to and from Manila would later outcompete the Spaniards by the mid-1800s, as noted by the British, such as James Matheson, co-founder of Jardine Matheson:
The Suez Canal which would later link Spanish Philippines directly to Spain in Iberia without rounding the cape would only start construction by 1859 and be completed at 1869.
By 1873, Rev. Carstairs Douglas writes in his Hokkien dictionary that
By 1883, Rev. John Macgowan also records 3 entries explicitly defining Hokkien in his Hokkien dictionary:
The Chinese community of the Philippines during the Spanish colonial era used to also speak a sort of Spanish pidgin variety known as "Caló Chino Español" or "La Lengua del Parian" in Spanish or "Kastilang tindahan" in Tagalog, especially because the Chinese community before obligates Chinese cabecillas (community leaders), such as Capitan Carlos Palanca Tan Quien Sien, to teach rudimentary Spanish to new Chinese immigrants which was taught in Chinese-owned schools. They could speak these Spanish pidgin varieties after one month which many, especially old timers later became very fluent, albeit some still with accented Spanish. Spanish was prevalent enough among the educated in the Philippines during the Spanish colonial era, that Joseph Earle Stevens, an American that stayed in Manila from 1893-1894 had this to say in his book, "Yesterdays in the Philippines":