Locale En Ph
Use when working with the English (Philippines) locale (`en-PH`) — its endonym English (Philippines), Latin script, left-to-right (LTR) direction, or spoken-population data. Reference data and translation guidance (register, grammar, idiom, typography) for this specific locale; see [[locale]] for general i18n/l10n concepts (BCP 47, plural rules, RTL) that apply across all locales.
Reference data for the English (Philippines) locale — endonym English (Philippines), written in the Latin script, left-to-right (LTR).
Identifiers
- BCP 47 tag:
en-PH - ISO 639-1:
en - ISO 639-3:
eng - Script: Latn (Latin)
- Region: PH (Philippines)
- Text direction: ltr — left-to-right (LTR)
Speakers (approximate)
- L1 (native): 3,400,000
- L2 (additional): 60,000,000
- L1+L2 (total): 63,400,000
Base locale
This is a regional variant of Locale En 001 (English), the base/macro locale for this language.
Pluralization
CLDR plural categories for this locale: one, other (2 forms).
- one —
i = 1 and v = 0(e.g. 1) - other — everything else (e.g. 0, 2~16, 100, 1000, …)
See Unicode Messageformat for writing plural messages using these categories.
Translating into this locale
Apply Locale En 001 and use these Philippine conventions. Philippine English is shaped by American usage, and English is an official language with Filipino.
- Spelling: American forms (-ize, -or, -er).
- Dates and numbers: month/day/year is common, with day/month/year used in some contexts; write the month in words to avoid ambiguity. The peso sign is ₱; the decimal point and comma thousands separator apply.
- Usage: "for a while" (meaning "wait"), "open the light", "comfort room" (restroom), and Taglish are local; avoid them in international copy.
- Tone: warm and respectful; "po" and "opo" honorifics are in Filipino, not English, and are not carried over.
Common pitfalls
- Using British spellings by default.
- Mixing Taglish phrases into formal or international text.
- The general pitfalls in Locale En 001 also apply.
Learn more
- Locale for BCP 47 identifiers, locale-sensitive formatting, pluralization, and text-direction concepts that apply across all locales.
- Unicode Messageformat for writing plural/selection messages correctly for this locale's grammar.
- Microsoft Writing Style Guide (https://learn.microsoft.com/style-guide/welcome/)
- Unicode CLDR locale data for date, number, and currency formats (https://cldr.unicode.org)