My father used to tell us this funny story on dialect. Though both he and my late mother came from the same province in the South and lived only some twenty minutes away from each other before they got married, they speak different versions of the same dialect.
My father who comes the city speaks Hiligaynon, while my mom who is from the suburbs speaks Kinaray-a, both of which are Illong-go. Most of the words remain common but some, specially the basics, remain quite different. Dog, for instance is “i-do” (pronounced ee-doh) in Papa’s vocabulary while some 20 minutes in my mom’s town it becomes “a-yam” (pronounced ah-yam).
It was no surprise then that the first month of their marriage was a bit confusing for both of them.
Being born and raised as a Manileño, I thought I have mastered the national language well enough. Though both parents hail from the Visayas, I grew up speaking Tagalog. I remember Filipino as one of my favorite subjects in high school.
But home schooling Carmella made me discover there is so much I do not know about the dialect I was born with. Much like my father during the early days of his wedded life, I still get confused.
What has made Tagalog, so with the other local dialects, fascinating are its words. Depending on where the stress is they take on different meanings.
Take word “BUHAY”; if the stress is on the first syllable, means life. If placed on the second syllable, however, it means alive. If you add the other local dialects, then it becomes even more interesting. Filipino is a language with interesting word play.
I may have a hundred or so in my vocabulary of Filipino words and in several dialects but there are still discoveries to be made. Indeed, there is so much to know.
I never knew, for instance, that “talampas” is the Tagalog word for plateau and that “lambak” is valley. “Daglat”, on the other hand is abbreviation so “dinaglat” is a verb meaning to abbreviate. A nephew thought “burol” is Tagalog for cliff but is in fact hill.
I just learned while teaching Carmella that the Tagalog for bay is “look” (pronounced lo-ok) so Manila Bay is “Look ng Maynila” in pure Tagalog translation.
Based on the sentence it was taken from, I am guessing that “pakli” means replied, “nausal” means said and “pigtal” is to remove or separate.
We are still in the middle of our text book but the two of us can’t wait for the next Tagalog tongue twister.
Ikaw ba ang may akda nito? Aba’y tigib sa mga katanungan, ano ga? (Were you the one who wrote this? It's full of questions, isn't it?)
