Living in a city that both hosts and endangers language diversity

As I walk through the dense and ever-evolving urban landscape of Metro Manila—one of Southeast Asia’s most linguistically diverse metropolises—I’m met with a contradiction I can’t ignore.

- ANNA MAE YU LAMENTILLO

This city, teeming with life from every corner of the archipelago and beyond, is home to at least 217 local and international languages. Yet many of these tongues, particularly indigenous ones, are slipping into silence right under our noses.

This contradiction hits close to home. As a member of the Karay-a ethnolinguistic group, I’ve witnessed firsthand how once-vibrant dialects steeped in ancestral rituals and folk wisdom now hover on the brink of extinction. Language isn’t merely a tool for communication—it’s an archive of cultural memory, ecological knowledge, and worldview. When we lose a language, we lose far more than words; we lose centuries of insight embedded in grammar, song, and story.

In neighborhoods from Quezon City to Parafiaque, the streets echo with a dizzying array of voices—Kapampangan vendors haggling in wet markets, Chavacano elders chatting in side streets, Taglish teenagers narrating their lives on TikTok. Communities of Hokkien, Nepali, and even Kyrgyz speakers have carved out cultural niches. And yet, even as we celebrate this linguistic polyphony, the tongues of entire generations vanish from dinner tables and playgrounds.