Filipino not a ‘language of the learned,’ says columnist

[Monseratto]

Anyone notice many children from higher up the social ladder are struggling with reading and writing skills in Filipino in school?


Language, learning, identity, privilege | The Manila Bulletin Newspaper Online

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.


So I have my education to thank for making English my mother language.

[myk384]

Actually, I come from a middle class family and use filipino most of the time. Sa totoo lang, hindi tayo umuunlad kasi hindi tayo marunong magmahal ng sarili nating wika.

[oj88]

It's just his opinion, no need to make this bigger than it is. He could've kept some of it to himself. Nevertheless, just take it with a grain of salt.

[CVT]

Japan at Korea nga,- umunlad ng walang katakut-takot na ingles-ingles....

14.0K:bike3:

[tidus1203]

Pati din China mahina din English skills nila, pero the foreigners want to learn Chinese... Daming white guys who want to learn Chinese... Dati Japanese, pero la na kwenta Japanese la na rin kasi kwenta economy nila...

[batang_raon14]

I'd say anything that is "alien" to what you're accustomed to will always be hard. Doesn't have to stop you from trying anyways.

A more interesting idea, AFAIK, is that a person who had trouble understanding usually puts the blame on everything else except for himself ala Christopher Lao. Just my .02.

[blue_gambit]

He should have learned to keep things to himself, to avoid offense to us mere mortals who use Filipino as a medium of language... therefore he is in fact an ignoramus of his manners. He may have been thought english since he was a child, but it occupied too much of his time to be thought the manners of a gentleman...

Kahit gano siya kayaman, wala syang kahihiyan para sabihin at ilimbag sa lathalaan pa man din ang mga pananalitang kanyang binitawan. Buti na lang Ingles ang pananalita nya, di bagay ang kagaspangan nya sa wikang Filipino... hehehe

[Ry_Tower]

He should have learned to keep things to himself, to avoid offense to us mere mortals who use Filipino as a medium of language... therefore he is in fact an ignoramus of his manners. He may have been thought english since he was a child, but it occupied too much of his time to be thought the manners of a gentleman...

Kahit gano siya kayaman, wala syang kahihiyan para sabihin at ilimbag sa lathalaan pa man din ang mga pananalitang kanyang binitawan. Buti na lang Ingles ang pananalita nya, di bagay ang kagaspangan nya sa wikang Filipino... hehehe

I Pity him, he is so ignorant of the real world. Babaw ng problem niya! kawawang tao...

Papansin lang yan. Pati sa PEx tinitira katangah*n niya.

[niky]

I don't get what's so insulting about this article? Read it better, and not just the thread title (which isn't his)... he's not trying to insult Filipino at all.

Basically, he's actually bemoaning the fact that he is not proficient in Filipino, but thankful that at least, he knows English.

Unless I'm reading it wrong. Parang mahina ang pagkaintindi ko ng pa-Ingles-Ingles niya.

Sometimes, for a nation to go forward, it has to make sacrifices and accept change. Embracing English is a change, but it's not one meant to destroy the country, but to help it move forward.

Most countries see English not as a colonial imposition, but as a means of attaining economic prosperity. The Chinese want to learn English (from us Filipinos). The Koreans want to learn English (from us, again). The Vietnamese, Thai and Malaysians all want to learn English.

I am like the author... I use English for technical things, but at home, we teach our child Filipino. The reason we do this is because I'm a Fil-Am, born and raised in the US. When I came here, I had a very hard time adapting because I didn't speak Filipino very well (I still don't).

Filipino is the language of feelings, emotions and family. There really are many things you can express in Filipino more easily than English. When I talk to my wife, we talk in Tagalog. When we talk to our daughter, we mix it up... because, honestly, she needs English to have a good future, but she needs Filipino to have a good life. ;)

[dodongo]

How bout we take a look at the other end of the spectrum? The marginalized could be having a difficult time in school, maybe even their teachers, because English is the language used instead of their mother-tongues, especially considering provinces with their own dialects. I did a research paper on this and I believe I saw it on i-Witness, it was proven true, albeit very small sample size.