1 Tyron Judes D. Casumpang May 6, 2015 PS 220 Final Requirement Dr. Santamaria Zamboangueño Chavacano: Philippine Spanish Creole or Filipinized Spanish Creole? This paper aims to shed light on different questions regarding Chavacano. To do this, three sources shall be used as primary references: Spanish Contact Vernaculars in the Philippine Islands by Keith Whinnom (1956), Zamboanga Texts with Grammatical Analysis by Michael Forman (1972), and The Place of Chavacano in the Philippine Linguistics Profile by John Lipski (2001). These studies are linked to each other to the extent that Forman will refer a number of times to Whinnom – being one of first scholars to investigate on Chavacano – and Lipski to both Forman and Whinnom. All three supplied grammatical analysis for Chavacano. However, each one’s primary contribution in his study shall be different. Whinnom gave a detailed history and theory on the emergence of Chavacano and its dialects; Forman showed how Chavacano is a language with its own system, and not a bastardized Spanish contrary to some scholars’ valuation of the language; lastly, Lipsky continued Whinnom’s work by giving his own refined theory on the formalization of Zamboangueño Chavacano, different to that of Whinnom’s. These major points discussed by Whinnom, Forman, and Lipski shall be the main content of this paper together with some additional topics: grammatical comparison of Zamboangueño Chavacano, Tagalog, and Spanish; and an evaluation of Zamboangueño Chavacano as Philippine Spanish Creole or Filipinized Spanish Creole. Lastly, a few issues and terminologies must be clarified. As evident in how the three authors approached the word ‘Chavacano’, the term then pertains to a language existing in the Philippines, and not to a particular ethnic group, unlike Tagalog which refers to both the language and the people. According to Whinnom, Chavacano has four dialects in different places in the