Yummy Hypothesis by Mr. Nolasco

Today is the 128th birthday of the “Ama ng Wikang Pambansa”, Manuel Luis Quezon. However, I will not be featuring the former president’s life. Instead, I want to share with you this article by Rome Jorge about a man who have a revolutionized thinking regarding our language.

eBalita Guest Editorial:
Speaking in tongues–Pilipino-style
By Rome Jorge

It is not Linggo ng Wika; it’s Buwan ng Wika. It’s not Abakada and Tagalog; it’s ABCD and Pilipino. It’s no longer Taglish as a language borrowed and corrupted; it’s now translation and code switching as proof of comprehension and multilingual mastery. It’s more than just stodgy textbooks and formal oratorical balagtasan; it’s also a celebration of comic-book lore and street corner kwentuhan. It’s no longer Isang Bansa, Isang Diwa; it’s now Buwan ng Wikang Pambansa ay Buwan ng mga Wika sa Pilipinas.

Our languages are growing and changing. Beyond barely spoken formal-textbook examples, they are alive and screaming. And there’s no better proof than how 2006’s Buwan ng Wika brings together a man of immense academic credentials and invigorating ideas, National Language Commission (Komisyon ng Wikang Filipino or KWF) chairman and Doctor in Linguistics Ricardo Nolasco; and a man often underestimated by the intelligentsia: pop culture icon, author of 800 novels of which 200 were translated into films, and comic-book creator most noted for the modern mythology of Panday, Carlo J. Caparas. Poles apart, they are both speaking as one and celebrating diversity. So should we.

From August 1 to 31 we celebrate Philippine Languages Month in a way unheard of. From poetry competitions in panggalatok at the Pangasinan State University to the Gantimpalang Carlo J. Caparas Storytelling Competitions at the Marikina River Banks Center, events across the nation celebrate the 170 languages across the 7,100 islands of the nation, as well as the true champions of linguistic dissemination long derided by purist academicians: comic books, movies and television.

Nolasco explains, “Buwan ng Wikang Pambansa ay Buwan ng mga Wika sa Pilipinas is a pitch for linguistic diversity. Isang Bansa, Isang Diwa was the slogan during the martial-law regime and that promoted dangerous ideas such as that having many languages was disadvantageous to the country ­and that’s not correct.”

“We are 10th in linguistic diversity in the world,” Nolasco notes. “There are 7,000 languages among 200 nation states. Majority of people across the globe, even those from the most progressive countries, are neither monocultural nor monolingual.” Nolasco declares, “To be multilingual is the norm ­in the world and in the Philippines. We should not be ashamed of it; we should promote it.”

He elaborates, “Many think we have only one language and that is Pilipino and that the rest of the speech varieties are just dialects ­and we know that belittles these languages. The difference between a dialect and a language is mutual intelligibility. Example: if a Cebuano speaks his or her language to an Ilocano speaker, they won’t understand each other. Tagalog has many dialects: Tagalog Bulacan, Tagalog Quezon, Tagalog Batangas etc.­they all have their own accents but they all understand each other.

“I’m all for teaching English. But we should also teach Japanese, Chinese and Spanish. You cannot put all your eggs in one basket. It is true that you cannot survive the world without English. But you cannot survive if you know only English. To speak only one language is to be selected for extinction,” he opines.

As for Taglish (Tagalog-English fusion), he counters purists, contending, “The aim of literacy is a functional language.” He notes, “Whether Taglish is acceptable is not the point. If this is happening at the University of the Philippines [UP], what more in other places?” A study of Barbara Garland for the University of California documented UP students reading lessons in English, discussing them with teachers in Pilipino and Taglish, then answering exams and assignments in English again. “This is phenomenal. There is no better proof of understanding than translation,” cites Nolasco.

“If you talk about Taglish as a corrupted and borrowed language, then English is the most corrupted language,” Nolasco says. The etymology of the word “soldier” is French, “assassin” is Arabic and “boondocks” is Tagalog. “How did they modernize English? Why deny themselves the same strategy?” Nolasco reasons.

“Each of the languages a person speaks plays a different role in his or her life,” he notes. He explains that “nanay,” “mommy” and “ermats” all mean the same thing, but that there are some situations where one usage is more appropriate than the other. “Why worry? Kids know when to use it,” he says.

Instead, the forward-thinking linguist castigates conservative language czars: “Akala nila alam nila. Pero sa totoo lang hindi nila gets.”

He is even more unforgiving of self-proclaimed foreign experts on Pilipino language. “They thing they know,” he says of them. He illustrates that “hinalikan ko siya” and “humalik ako sa kanya” both translate as “I kissed her” in English. The difference is indistinguishable to a foreigner, but to a Filipino the former connotes brutish and the later respectful behavior.

He concedes, “Many students have been turned-off with the way the national language has been taught. Pilipino was taught using English categories with too much emphasis on grammar.” He explains that unlike English, any word in Pilipino can become a noun, a verb or an adjective with the proper affixes and suffixes.

Instead Nolasco likes to use metaphors we can identify with. The “pinakbet hypothesis” notes that just as this dish is comprised of various vegetables that have foreign origins (okra and eggplant are native species of Africa) yet still identifiably Ilocano in the way it is cooked, so too is our language made richer by foreign and regional ingredients used in our own unique way. The “sapin-sapin hypothesis” replaces categorization of Filipino words as nouns, verbs or adjectives and instead teaches the language by stripping down a word of its suffixes and prefixes step by step to arrive at the root word, much like the layers of the sweet rice cake.

This fresh approach to our language is already being implemented in the latest textbooks from the KWF and now sees its fruition in Buwan ng Wika.