Filipino language is now being offered in the Advancing Philippine Studies Program of Humboldt University of Berlin in Germany.
Germany’s premier university will have its first Filipino language full module as one of the major components of the Philippine Studies Program in the HU’s Institute of Asian and African Studies (HU-IAAW) starting Summer Semester 2020 until Winter Semester 2021-2022.
The Filipino language course will be taught by Antonio Galang Jr., a Filipino language instructor from the University of the Philippines (UP), for four hours/week per semester starting with Filipino I in SoSe 2020. Filipino II will be offered in WiSe 2020-2021, Filipino III in SoSe 2021, and Filipino IV in WiSe 2021-2022.
This winter semester, Galang is teaching 2-hour introductory seminars on Filipino language as a Free Elective Course that is open to BA and MA students every Friday.
The Filipino language seminars at HU-IAAW are part of the PH Studies at HU project directed by Dr. Rosa Castillo and funded by a donation offered to the University through the Office of Senator Loren Legarda and the Philippine Embassy in Berlin.
The HU Berlin’s Advancing Philippine Studies Program was launched in July 2019 to promote the Philippines and Filipino studies through its “academic programs, projects and activities related to the culture, society, and history of the Philippines and the Filipino people.”
The launch featured Prof. Armand Mijares of the University of the Philippines’ Archaeological Studies Program who gave a lecture on the groundbreaking discovery of the Homo luzonensis in Cagayan’s Callao Cave, a new hominid species.
The good news of the new program in Germany delighted Filipino language teachers in the Philippines who praised the initiative in the face of the Supreme Court ruling to exclude the subjects of Filipino and Panitikan (Literature) from the core subjects in the country’s college curriculum.
Aside from Germany, other countries have been teaching the Filipino language as a subject in universities, such as the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, France, China, Japan, Taiwan, Brunei, Malaysia, and Canada.
More Filipino words are also being added to Oxford English dictionary.
Earlier this year, the Filipino accent was voted as the sexiest accent in Asia.
With additional reports from Angie Quadra-Balibay.
SEND cheers in the comments below to Humbolt University and the University of the Philippines for teaching Filipino heritage and culture outside the country!
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