Language, learning, identity, privilege
Ithink
By JAMES SORIANO
August 24, 2011, 4:06am
MANILA, Philippines — English is the language of learning. I’ve known this since before I could go to school. As a toddler, my first study materials were a set of flash cards that my mother used to teach me the English alphabet.
My mother made home conducive to learning English: all my storybooks and coloring books were in English, and so were the cartoons I watched and the music I listened to. She required me to speak English at home. She even hired tutors to help me learn to read and write in English.
In school I learned to think in English. We used English to learn about numbers, equations and variables. With it we learned about observation and inference, the moon and the stars, monsoons and photosynthesis. With it we learned about shapes and colors, about meter and rhythm. I learned about God in English, and I prayed to Him in English.
Filipino, on the other hand, was always the ‘other’ subject — almost a special subject like PE or Home Economics, except that it was graded the same way as Science, Math, Religion, and English. My classmates and I used to complain about Filipino all the time. Filipino was a chore, like washing the dishes; it was not the language of learning. It was the language we used to speak to the people who washed our dishes.
We used to think learning Filipino was important because it was practical: Filipino was the language of the world outside the classroom. It was the language of the streets: it was how you spoke to the tindera when you went to the tindahan, what you used to tell your katulong that you had an utos, and how you texted manong when you needed “sundo na.”
These skills were required to survive in the outside world, because we are forced to relate with the tinderas and the manongs and the katulongs of this world. If we wanted to communicate to these people — or otherwise avoid being mugged on the jeepney — we needed to learn Filipino.
That being said though, I was proud of my proficiency with the language. Filipino was the language I used to speak with my cousins and uncles and grandparents in the province, so I never had much trouble reciting.
It was the reading and writing that was tedious and difficult. I spoke Filipino, but only when I was in a different world like the streets or the province; it did not come naturally to me. English was more natural; I read, wrote and thought in English. And so, in much of the same way that I learned German later on, I learned Filipino in terms of English. In this way I survived Filipino in high school, albeit with too many sentences that had the preposition ‘ay.’
It was really only in university that I began to grasp Filipino in terms of language and not just dialect. Filipino was not merely a peculiar variety of language, derived and continuously borrowing from the English and Spanish alphabets; it was its own system, with its own grammar, semantics, sounds, even symbols.
But more significantly, it was its own way of reading, writing, and thinking. There are ideas and concepts unique to Filipino that can never be translated into another. Try translating bayanihan, tagay, kilig or diskarte.
Only recently have I begun to grasp Filipino as the language of identity: the language of emotion, experience, and even of learning. And with this comes the realization that I do, in fact, smell worse than a malansang isda. My own language is foreign to me: I speak, think, read and write primarily in English. To borrow the terminology of Fr. Bulatao, I am a split-level Filipino.
But perhaps this is not so bad in a society of rotten beef and stinking fish. For while Filipino may be the language of identity, it is the language of the streets. It might have the capacity to be the language of learning, but it is not the language of the learned.
It is neither the language of the classroom and the laboratory, nor the language of the boardroom, the court room, or the operating room. It is not the language of privilege. I may be disconnected from my being Filipino, but with a tongue of privilege I will always have my connections.
I really feel bad for this kid and i know he's part of a lot of kids, mostly from the upper class who look down upon our beautiful language. I know may mamimilosopo jan na sasabihin tira ako ng tira english din naman ginagamit ko sa start ng blog. Baka lang kasi mabasa ni sir James at di nya ma grasp yun Filipino eh. Alam ko na di ako debater or I'm not at the top of my class at baka isipin mo wala ako karapatan na pagsabihan ka bata on why i think di natin masyado magamit ang filipino language sa classroom.
First of all bago lang relatively ang filipino, ang english, mandarin french, spanish etc matagal na sila and most of their scholarly discoveries were written in their language and kung hindi man translated into their language. Eh ang Filipino? Ilan centuries ito na suppress due to foreign occupation. Parati bida yun dialect ng colonizer When we got our independence developed na ang english, most of the books were written in english already. Lets compare it with Japan na they have their own terms when it comes to math, science and other subjects kasi the Japanese language was allowed to develop enough for them to write their own books for school regarding math and science. Now that we're using filipino, di tyo makasabay sa kanila dahil mahirap pahinugin sa pilit ang language. Naka fast forward ang mundo ngayon kaya wala tayo choice but to embrace english as a medium of instruction kung hindi mapag iiwanan tyo. Gets mo? Iba ang sarili mong wika mas malapit sa puso mo puro ka walang english translation jan! Bakit sa english rice lang ang term, sa atin tatlo ang terms nun palay, bigas at kanin! Kasi culture natin ang rice and it is a part of our daily lives compared sa kanila. If you have a message na gusto mo iimpart sa amin mas maging sensitive ka mas na brand ka tuloy na elitista.
Hirap kasi sa atin ang sinasamba natin yun magaling mag english kahit na puro yabang lang, intimidated na kagad tyo. Konting mali lang ng diction at grammar tinatawanan natin. The world doesn't expect us to speak perfect english kasi di natin native tongue yun. Si pacquiao ba pag mali mali ang english tinatawanan nila sa states? Dito lang naman eh.
Inaantok na ako dapat talaga kahapon ko pa ginawa to para mas acute yun rage against the article. Nag simmer down na kasi kaya di ko na malagay lahat ng saluobin ko. Here's another take on our language na mas maganda ang delivery http://www.isaganicruz.net/page8.php?post=30
