The War of Translation!
http://hagarthehorrible.com/comic_tag/language-barrier/
Link: https://search.proquest.com/docview/1683319372/fulltextPDF/FA1C8E6B6BA04188PQ/1?accountid=15053
Within his scholarly article, “The War of Translation: Colonial Education, American English, and Tagalog Slang in the Philippines,” Vicente L. Rafael discusses the role of language in nationalist attempts at decolonization during the Commonwealth Era and beyond. Within the Philippines, Rafael outlines that “American colonial education imposed English as the sole medium of instruction,” and that as a result, “native students suppressed their vernacular languages” (283). He also outlines a shift; as time passed, the use of translation and language shifted from being a means to dominate to being a democratizing, playful expression in a postcolonial context. Rafael talks about a series of speeches given by Najeeb Saleeby who spoke about the failure of imposing a foreign language as a tool for dominance. Saleeby states, “three centuries of Spanish rule [...] failed to check the vernacular [...] twenty five years of intensive English education has produced no radical change.” (288). Rafael notes that due to the prevalent use of local languages and widespread English-language education pushed by the United States, the Philippines developed a dialect of English that was unique to the islands. The American colonial government had hoped that English spoken in the territory would be identical to American English. When Philippine English emerged as a separate dialect, the American government attempted to discourage the use of it. This aligns with our argument that Filipino people were able to use agency to take the imposition of language thrusted upon them and morph it into something helpful and fun to them.
Rafael, Vicente L. "The War of Translation: Colonial Education, American English, and Tagalog Slang in the Philippines." The Journal of Asian Studies 74.2 (2015): 283-302. ProQuest. Web. 21 Oct. 2018.