Constitutional provisions on language in the Philippines, 5

BY DR. JOSE MA. EDUARDO P. DACUDAO

THE PROVISION that the auxiliary official languages are the regional languages (Hiligaynon, Bicolano, Cebuano, Ilocano, etc.) and shall serve as an auxiliary media of instruction has not been satisfactorily implemented either.

Incredibly, no government agency of the Philippines, at the time of this writing, has ever published a non-Tagalog Philippine language grammar book, much less taught it in schools.

Ironically, anyone who is interested in learning a non-Tagalog Philippine language has to learn it from the grammar books of Christian missionaries, both Catholic and Protestant, or from other private sources.

Even the Philippine Constitution in English has not been commercially produced in any Philippine language other than Tagalog although there is a mandate to do so.

Another sticky fundamental issue that needs to be openly discussed is the technical feasibility of creating a ‘Filipino’ language that is to be ‘developed and enriched on the basis of existing Philippine and other languages.’ Why is this a sticky issue?

We have to consider that this provision is based on the spirit of respecting the various Philippine languages and the ethnic peoples that speak them. Yet it is also linguistically impossible to develop a single language from all the Philippine languages while retaining each of the language’s unique identity, given the differences in each language’s grammar, syntax, vocabulary, and accent.

Such an artificial language would be a different language from the present Philippine languages, and imposing it on all Filipinos would be in effect imposing a foreign artificially created language on them. Such an imposition is contradictory to the spirit of respecting all the Philippine languages and the ethnic peoples that speak them.

The best way to clarify this is by concrete examples, and so we shall give three below (there are a lot more of course, but we don’t have time for that in this essay.)

Visayan languages heavily use ‘Existentials’. For example take the English sentence ‘I am here.’ In Cebuano this could be translated to ‘Di-a ako’ or ‘Na-a ako’. In Hiligyanon (Ilonggo), it’s ‘Ari ako, or ‘Ara ako.’ These literally mean ‘I exist (here)’. Cebuanos and Ilonggos may also use the ‘Locative’ – ‘Diri ako,’ but less often. This literally means ‘I am located here.’

Tagalogs do not have the Visayan Existentials; and thus almost exclusively use the Locative ‘Nandito/Narito ako,’ which is the same as the above Visayan ‘Diri ako’ – ‘I am located here.’ There is simply no Tagalog equivalent to ‘Na-a’, or ‘Ara.’

What does the above example teach us? One. Clearly, adopting a ‘Filipino’ that uses only Locatives would result in annihilating an entire cultural language perspective that views the world in terms of ‘existing’ instead of ‘being located in’. Two. As opposed to the myth fabricated by Tagalistas that non-Tagalog languages are impoverished of ideas and viewpoints, it seems that in this particular category, it is Tagalog that is lacking, and the Visayan languages far richer.

I won’t go deeper into the Aspect-oriented nature of southern Visayan languages, which inflects for Action-Begun instead of Tense (as in Tagalog). Suffice to say, the sentence ‘Gi-kaon ko ang isda’ in Cebuano can mean both ‘I ate the fish’ and ‘I am eating the fish.’

In Aspect-oriented Cebuano verbs, the prefix ‘gi-’ denotes action begun, but does not pinpoint an action on a definite timeline. One has to insert a modifier in order to indicate when the action has stopped. Thus if one wants to show that it has stopped in the past, one says for example, ‘Gi-kaon ko ang isda ganina’ or ‘Gi-kaon ko na ang isda’ – ‘I already ate the fish a while ago.’ If one wants to show that the action is still continuing into the present, one says for example, ‘Gi-kaon ko ang isda karon’ or ‘Gi-kaon ko pa ang isda’ – ‘I am still eating the fish now.’ This sounds utterly nonsensical to a Tagalog who uses only ‘Kinain ko ang isda’ for ‘I ate the fish’ (past); and ‘Kinakain ko ang isda’ for ‘I am eating the fish (present).’ (To be continued)/PN

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