Ilocano

- Ilocano is the third most spoken language in the Philippines with 11 million speakers in 2015, including 9.1 million native speakers [source]. There are also about 85,000 Ilocano speakers in the USA, mainly in Hawaii, and 26,000 in Canada [source]. Ilocano has been used as a medium of instruction in Philippine schools since 1897. It is currently used as such in schools in the Ilocos and Cordilleras region until grade 3. Ilocano was first written with a version of the Baybayin script known as Kur-itan or Kurdita. This was gradually replaced by the Latin alphabet the Spanish arrived in the Philippines in the 16th century. One of the first publications in Iloko was the Doctrina Cristiana of 1621. Several ways to write Ilocano with the Latin alphabet were devised, based either on Spanish spelling or Tagalog spelling. The Spanish-based spelling is preferred by most of the older generation.