the fact that very few Chinese Filipinos are conversant in Mandarin or have it as a heritage language. For the Chinese mestizos, Spanish used to be the most important prestige language and the preferred first language at the turn of the century, especially during the Spanish colonial era. Starting from the American period, the use of Spanish gradually decreased and is now completely replaced by either English or Filipino. Hokkien / Fukien / Fookien (Philippine Hokkien) Since most Chinese Filipinos in the Philippines trace their ancestry to Southern Fujian in Fujian Province of Mainland China, the Hokkien language, specifically the Philippine Hokkien dialect, is the heritage language of most Chinese Filipinos. Currently, it is typically the elderly and those of the older generations, such as the Silent Generation, the Baby boomer generation and part of Generation X, who speak Philippine Hokkien as their first or second language, especially as first- or second-generation Chinese Filipinos. The younger generations, such as part of Generation X and most Millennials and Generation Z youth, sparsely use Hokkien as a second or third language and even more seldom as a first language. This is due to Hokkien nowadays only being used and heard within family households and no longer being taught at schools. As a result, most of the youth can either only understand Hokkien by ear or do not know it at all, using instead English, Filipino (Tagalog) and in some cases one or more other Philippine languages. The variant of Hokkien spoken in the Philippines, Philippine Hokkien, is locally called Lannang-ue (Philippine Hokkien ). Philippine Hokkien is mutually intelligible to a certain degree with other Hokkien variants in mainland China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, etc. and is particularly close to the variant spoken in Quanzhou, especially around Jinjiang. Its unique features include its conservative nature that preserves old vocabulary and pronunciations, the presence of a few loanwords from Philippine Spanish and Filipino and frequent code-switching with Philippine English, Filipino/Tagalog and other Philippine languages (such as Visayan languages), excessive use of shortenings and colloquial words (e.g., "pīⁿ-chhù" [病厝]: literally, "sick-house", instead of the Taiwanese Hokkien term "pīⁿ-īⁿ" [病院] to refer to "hospital" or "chhia-thâu" [車頭]: literally, "car-head", instead of the Taiwanese Hokkien term "su-ki" [司機] to refer to a "driver") and use of vocabulary terms from various variants of Hokkien, such as from the Quanzhou, Amoy (Xiamen) and Zhangzhou dialects of the Hokkien language.