Even today, not every Filipino can communicate with all his fellow countrymen in their language. The linguistic anthology "Ethnologue'', which catalogs all languages of the world, lists in its latest edition a total of 187 individual languages of the Philippines.

However, four of these have now become extinct, including the three Philippine dialects of the Aeta people and Katabaga. Of the 183 active languages and dialects, 175 are indigenous and 8 are non-indigenous. 

Non-indigenous languages are languages that were established in the country by conquerors or immigrants. These include, in particular, the second official language English, the former official language Spanish, three Chinese languages are spoken by about 650,000 Chinese, Basque, the American sign language, and Sangil, an Indonesian language native to the Sangir Islands, which belong to Indonesia, and also spoken by about 70,000 Filipinos on neighboring Philippine islands.

In the eventful history of the Philippines, the official language has changed several times. With the colonization by the Spanish from 1565 onwards, Spanish became the first lingua franca. Before this time there was no uniform language and the inhabitants could only communicate with each other within their own vernacular. 

Through colonization, the freedom movements gradually awakened a national consciousness among Filipinos. Under the leadership of the national hero Andrés Bonifacio, the father of the Philippine revolution in the late 19th century, the constitution of 1897 established Tagalog as the official language of the Filipinos. It was also the time when the term Filipino was extended to all strata of the population. 

This was followed by the Philippine-American War from 1899 to 1902 with the subsequent colonization by the Americans. It was not until the constitution of 1935 that Spanish and English were once again designated as national languages, but the effort to establish a national language based on indigenous languages was also established. Since Tagalog was the language that most Filipinos mastered, this language was to become the basis for the later official language Filipino. 

In 1959 Filipino was introduced under the name Pilipino and was declared an official language in the constitution of 1973. At the same time, the Spanish lost its status as an official language. The constitution of 1987 finally declared Filipino to be the official language and the official national language alongside English. 

All other indigenous languages were not prohibited but were given the status of "complementary" official languages.

As in many other languages, all Filipino languages have numerous dialects. While the dialects of Tagalog and Kapampangan are still relatively understandable when speaking the language, Bikolano in particular is known to produce a wide variety of its dialects, so Bikolano speakers from different places have difficulty communicating with each other.