Culture
Dagitab, gadya at buntala: unearthing Tagalog word porn
(facebook.com/GinoongTalinghaga)
Beyond the timpalak sanaysay (essay-writing contest), timpalak sabayang pagbigkas (speech choir competition), several other contests, and sashaying in our best ternos and barong tagalogs, August is the month when we commemorate the “Father of the Filipino Language” Manuel L. Quezon, and his efforts to push Filipino as the country’s national language.
Contrary to popular knowledge, it was only during President Ramon Magsaysay’s term when the celebration of the Linggo ng Wika was changed to August. The first “National Language Week” was celebrated on March 27 to April 2, 1947 during President Sergio Osmeña’s term.
On January 25, 1997, President Fidel Ramos signed Proclamation No. 1041, declaring the whole of August as the “National Language Month.”
The search for the country’s National Language is a colorful and complicated one, but setting conflicts aside (and continuing the language discourse), the page Talasalitaang Filipino – Filipino Word Porn aims to unearth some of the words beyond the conversational Tagalog we use.
Despite graduating with an Engineering degree from University of the Philippines in Los Baños, the page administrator, who prefers to stay anonymous because “developing vocabularies in Filipino is still questioned by many, and most of the time, starts up a debate,” became interested in Filipino while reading his Araling Panlipunan textbook as a high school freshman.
“Out of boredom, I browsed the textbook page-by-page and found out we have this own way of writing until the Spaniards changed everything.”
Upon getting his hands on his family’s Tagalog-English dictionary at home, he read it thoroughly, and was surprised by the language’s extent of words. Dictionary-reading became a habit and he eventually finished the 1,583-page Tagalog-English dictionary by Fr. Leo James English—one of the three sources he uses for the page.
Realizing he had discovered a treasure chest full of new knowledge, he decided to create an online platform to spread the words (pun intended).
“I don’t own these words, we do. I just can’t imagine a dictionary as just another history book.”
Because of the page, we have learned there is a Tagalog term for using our fingers or hands to test water temperature (pagtigi), and that the spaces between our fingers and toes is called siha or ngingi.
Filipino is a pearl waiting to be discovered
The page creator recognizes the fact that there is still a lot about the Tagalog language that needs to be discovered.
“Filipino is our national language based on, but not limited to Tagalog. Despite that, even the Tagalogs have yet to learn the same vocabulary as the non-Tagalogs. I think that needs action.”
The discourse about Tagalog as the basis of the National Language continues in the page, and he acknowledges it.
“It is true that the words listed on the book of del Rosario (Maugnaying Talasalitaang Pang-agham by Gonsalo del Rosario, published on 1969) is highly based on Tagalog. This is a big reason for it not to be representative of the Filipino translation as the non-Tagalog linguists have pointed out. I have to be sensitive and considerate with such comments though, and be respectful.”
Tagalog today
The admin believes that the language is evolving, and creates new meanings entirely as time progresses.
“[Jejemon and bekimon] are eccentric languages…The words are almost unrecognizable from their roots, have multiple variations, and have no definite spelling.”
“Technology nowadays grows exponentially: new words are becoming part of the official list of vocabulary, and old words are having new meanings. Filipino has yet to grow,” he added.
He also notes that the language, being dynamic, has yet to catch up with fast-paced technological advancements. “By this time, formal scientific writing is impossible to be written in Filipino without the italicized foreign words.”
“Filipino, itself, is a made-up language for the purpose of establishing a standard language to be used by Filipinos… By this, we should expect neologisms and translations to stand for modern and technical words with no Filipino equivalents,” he said.
With the Internet being a storage of unlimited information nowadays, he hopes to inspire other people to create their own pages based on their own dialects.
“What do we know. Maybe tomorrow we’ll have the Hiligaynon, Cebuano, Ilokano, etc. Word Porn.”
