BY DR. JOSE MA. EDUARDO P. DACUDAO
(Continued from Oct. 7, 2022)
MODERN English, although a Germanic language, uses a scientific vocabulary that is practically all Latin derived. Take away all the Latin terms of a typical textbook of science in English and we would end up with nothing or nonsense.
And so we come to the crux of the problem in the Department of Education materials written in ‘Filipino’ (a honey-coated term for the Tagalog language in order to make it psychologically acceptable to non-Tagalogs) that are being taught to our children right here right now. In my opinion, the writers of most of these materials had acquired books in English, presently the universal language of science, learning, and commerce (just as Latin was for nearly 2000 years), and then endeavored to erase the Greco-Latin terms (which they probably thought were indigenous English words), replacing them with invented Tagalog terms.
What comes out is nonsense. Just take this example from the 2005 Basic Literacy Learning Material (BLLM) of the Department of Education which tries to explain the nutrient cycles.
There are four basic nutrient (Latin ‘nutrire’) cycles (Latin ‘cyclus’ from the Greek ‘kuklos’) in the ecosystem (Greek ‘oikos’ plus Latin ‘systema’ from the Greek ‘sustçma’): 1. The carbon (Latin ‘carbon’) cycle 2. The nitrogen (Latin ‘nitrum’ from the Greek ‘nitron’) cycle 3. The oxygen (Greek ‘oxus’) cycle 4. The hydrological (Greek ‘hudôr’) cycle
There is also an energy (Greek ‘energeia’) flow, which was wrongly described as a cycle in the BLLM. There is no such thing as an energy cycle in the ecosystem.
Among others, the BLLM uses the following vocabulary in order to try to explain these fundamental ecological concepts, to quote:
1. Ang Pag-ikot ng Tubig, Hangin, at Enerhiya sa Kagubatan 2. Pag-ikot ng tubig 3. Pag-ikot ng Hangin 4. Sikat ng Araw 5. Ikot ng Sustansiya 6. Sustansya sa lupa
The above explanation is nonsensical. How could one possibly describe the carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen cycles in the ecosystem as ‘pag-ikot ng hangin’? In English, this would translate as the nonsensical and misleading ‘air cycle,’ or worse as the ‘whirling of the wind.’
As mentioned, not even the French, Italians, Spanish, Germans, English, and Poles, who after all started the first modern Universities, dared to replace the Greco-Latin terms with non-existent words. One could go on and on with such ridiculous examples of what would happen if one were to erase the Greco-Latin terms in a Science subject, but I would like to be brief.
The most reasonable thing to do is to simply retain the original Greco-Latin terms for most of the science-related vocabulary. The French, Italians, Spanish, Germans, English, and Poles did it, and it worked; we now have our modern Colleges and Universities.
For instance, one could simply translate the Nitrogen Cycle into Siklo de Nitrogen, Siklo sg Nitrogen (Hiligaynon Visayan), Siklo ka Nitrogen (Karay-a Visayan), Siklo sa Nitrogen (Cebuano Visayan), or even just use the term Nitrogen Cycle as it is. The Latin derived ‘Siklo’ is retained.
One could also simply use the English language (which already has incorporated Greco-Latin terms) as the medium for teaching the physical and social science subjects. The Universities did use Latin for hundreds of years. The scientists of the 16th to early 20th century who essentially gave us modern science and technology were all educated in Latin, and mostly wrote in Latin. None of them insisted on using say German or Italian in their works, even if they were German or Italian. The proof of the efficaciousness of their education is all around us; all our modern sciences and technologies are derived from their works. The Tagalistas who insist that we have to teach our Sciences in Filipino-Tagalog in order for us to develop good scientists are propagating an ideological lie that is idiotizing our youth.
In my opinion, these are the serious problems with the BLLM.
1. In some areas, the tone to my mind is condescending, as though the recipient ethnic people are ‘primitives’ who need to be taught the proper things in life by their superiors in the government. 2. The tone does not respect the diversity of our ethnolinguistic peoples, or even places our diversity in a bad light. This should be corrected. It must be remembered that the Philippines is signatory to UN resolutions that say we should respect the identities of our ethnolinguistic peoples. 3. As is clear in the above example, there are serious errors in the contents itself of the learning material.
In my opinion, the fundamental problem of the above problems is the Tagalog Nationalism of Tagalistas. Among others, this ideology presupposes that one has to be a good Tagalog in order to be a good Filipino. Since the problem is ideological, it becomes attitudinal. It creates an attitude that tries to erase all words that are perceived to be English in origin and replace them with Tagalog. This is quite silly if only because the English themselves probably thought it was silly too, for they adopted Greco-Latin terms wholesale into the English language; and so what deluded Tagalistas are really erasing are Greco-Latin terms that have been accepted internationally by learned people for hundreds of years./PN
