BY DR. JOSE DACUDAO
“BELIEVING in the inviolability of the small set of rules that they have managed themselves to acquire, they condemn others from a different dialect background, or who have not had the same educational opportunities as themselves, for not following those same rules. Enthused by the Stalinesque policing metaphor, they advocate a policy of zero tolerance, to eradicate all traces of the aberrant behavior. This extreme attitude would be condemned by most people if it were encountered in relation to such domains as gender or race, but for some reason it is tolerated in relation to language. Welcomed, even, judging by the phenomenal sales of Eats, Shoots and Leaves.” — David Crystal, British linguist
What Crystal is talking about is the attitude known to most of us as ‘racism’ or ‘discrimination’. If one were to go around saying that black skinned people from Africa constituted an inferior race, then “This extreme attitude would be condemned by most people.” What he is complaining about is that if applied to ethnolinguistic peoples and their languages, few seem to mind.
What are we talking about?
As in many cases, it is best demonstrated by concrete examples from our setting here in the Philippines.
The most racist pop song that I have ever heard in the Philippine setting is the one that goes “Ako’y Isang Pinoy.” In brief, it purports that the ‘National Language’, presumably pertaining to Tagalog, is our true language, and that if we do not love it, we would smell worse than rotten fish.
What if you are not Tagalog? Suppose you were to say that I love Binisaya more than Tinagalog, since I am a Bisaya, and my true language is Binisaya. Does that mean I am not a Filipino and that I smell worse than rotten fish?
The song is so explicitly racist and discriminatory, yet few people seem to realize it.
Go back and re-read David Crsytal’s complaint above. It might make more sense now that we can now apply it to a specific Philippine example.
Taken literally, the proposal that if one does not love one’s native tongue one would smell worse than rotten fish is a general statement. It is racist and discriminatory. Tagalistas and those that they have brainwashed that automatically presume that the language that is being talked about is Tagalog. They blithely and perversely go around telling Visayans and other non-Tagalog people that if you do not love Tagalog, you are unpatriotic, un-Filipino, and smell worse than rotten fish.
If you should ask my opinion, it is they who smell worse than rotten fish. (For comments and suggestions please email to mabuhibisaya2017@gmail.com)/PN
