First of 2 parts

THE Philippines is one of the most linguistically diverse nations in the world. According to Ethnologue, a catalogue of world languages that keeps being updated yearly, there are 171 living languages in the archipelago. Many Filipinos mistakenly label as a 'dialect' any language which is not widely spoken in the country, like Bicolano, Chavacano or Waray. This is a pejorative distinction that has no basis from a linguistic point of view. As the eminent linguist Max Weinrich said, 'a language is a dialect with an army and a navy,' meaning, clearly all dialects are actually languages. The only difference is the existence of any political support.