PSN answers questions related to the language revolution he masterminded in 2014 in response to the evolving Hiligaynon as used by millennials, and new writers in Western Visayas.
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What did you discover while editing?
First, that new writers tend to write as they speak.
For the present progressive “playing”, for example, most new writers just use “gahampang” instead of the correct “nagahampang”.
Now, ‘naga’ is an important prefix, as opposed to ‘maga’ and ‘nag’ that differentiate tenses.
You loose that accuracy if you short cut the present progressive form to just “gahampang”.
So it seems to me that many of these writers do not understand that there is a different discipline for Hiligaynon writing.
Now, I am very particular about this because I am a Hiligaynon tester of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages.
There is a different test for writing, and another test for speaking Hiligaynon.
Second, I also noticed a lot of corrupted words that newer writers use carelessly.
For “even if”, they use “biskan” when it should be “bisan”.
They also use “maskin ano” instead of “maski ano” for “whatever”.
The new generation also uses “Ambi ko” for “I thought”.
They say it with a careless extra ‘m’ instead of “Abi ko”.
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Aside from catching the grammatical lapses and careless words, what major editing changes did you make?
Because the materials are from a competition, I could not really rewrite them without betraying the integrity of the contest.
But to advance the orthography of my Hiligaynon revolution, I reinstated Spanish and English spellings when I thought that they were unobstrusive, and kept our adapted spelling as variants.
Thus, you will see “señorita”, “fuerte”, “alas cinco” in some stories; and “senyorita”, “pwerte”, “alas singko” in others.
You will also see “cute”, “crush”, “sex”, and “whiskey shot” and their variants “kyut”, “kras”, “seks”, and “syat”.
I use “alak” and “vino” for wine, but seldom “bino”.
You will also see a lot of “siempre” instead of “syempre”, “hasta” instead of “asta” when people cannot remember “tubtub”.
“Corazon” instead of “korason”, “intiende” instead of “intindi” or “intyende”, but I kept “kwarto” for room rather than use “cuarto”, which I reserved to mean “a quarter”.
In addition, because I have altogether dropped the accent or stress marks.
I tried to experiment and made most adjectives and verbs end in U instead of O, and I instead of E, reserving O for soft rounded sounds, and E for soft “e” sounds usually found in borrowed and appropriated foreign words.
So, for me, it is U for the glottal “o” sounds of verbs and adjectives, thus, “daku” instead of “dako” for big, “madamu” instead of “madamo” for many, and “malayu” instead of “malayo” for far.
My rule was, Write it as you say it, and when in doubt, use only the vowels A, I, and U because those were the original vowel sounds of the Philippine Babayin orthography before the Spaniards came, before Tomas Pinpin prescribed learning the E and O for those words that the Spaniards brought to us.
It’s “atake” instead of “ataki” from Spanish “ataque” for attack, “tener” for to stay, “tokar” for to play, and “promesa” instead of “promisa”.
“Inum” not “inom” for to drink, “kaun” not “kaon” for to eat; but I keep the O for most nouns like “pagkaon” for food, and “ilimnon” for something to drink.
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Does your generalized guideline for the use of U instead of O work?
Most of the time it does, but not always.
I still spell the adjective “maayo,” meaning good, with a final O because there is a verb “maayu” meaning “to haggle”, and the latter has an obvious glottal U sound.
But I see no problem with adjectives “magayun” for beautiful, “maambung” for handsome, subscribing to my “rule of U” even if they might have a softer O sound before when spelled as “magayon” and “maambong”.
As I said, I have no quarrel with nouns keeping their O’s so I may still spell beauty in Hiligaynon as “kagayon” and handsomeness as “kaambong”.
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So, the jury is still out on spelling standardization?
There are really no strict rules in changing E to I, or O to U, but only because I work with the language as much as I do, I think that my Hiligaynon spelling and editing guidelines are closer to standardization than anyone else’s.
For example, my Hiligaynon for earthworm is “lago”; and for dirty laundry, “lagu”.
“Tango” is the dance, not a weird spelling “tanggo”, while “tangu” is for nod.
“Toyo” is soy sauce, “tuyo” is sleepiness as in “ginatuyo”, “tuyu” is objective or goal from “katuyuan” or “tinutuyu”.
“Tubo” is pipe, and “tubu” is sugarcane, “tubu” is also for the verb to grow.
But in most cases, my rule of O for nouns, and U for adjectives and verbs, works: “habol” for blanket, “habul” for blunt; “kalayo” for fire, “kalayu” for far away.
If you say them aloud correctly, you can also see why my spelling guideline works.
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Do you anticipate a lot of criticism?
Of course.
And it’ll mostly come from people in the academe and our so-called veteran writers.
Because I am not an academician, no MFA or PhD, or specialization degree in Literature or Linguistics, the people who have crowned themselves experts and powers-that-be are threatened by me.
Well, they and the senior writers can rant all they want, but I will prevail.
But they have to remember that I only waged this revolution because they didn’t do anything for over three decades.
To be very honest, I am not in business for them.
My new Hiligaynon is geared towards the new generation of writers and readers who have no recollection of “hunghungan” for “telephone” or “balatangan” for “bed”.
My generation is the Facebook and Skype generation.
People who frequently go out of the country and have become truly cosmopolitan eating Kentucky Fried Chicken and not just pinirito nga manok, and having the Starbucks cafe experience instead of just pangapekape.
My Hiligaynon revolution is the Hiligaynon for the globally aware, and for those who use “post”, “delete”, “like”, “tweet”, “skype”, and “facebook” as activities of daily living.
Welcome to my global Hiligaynon. (500tinaga@gmail.com/PN)
