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

[Monseratto]

Wrter's perception: Filipino = gutter language...=p

[uls]

BUT

being able to speak english doesnt necessarily make a person smart

there lots of dumb Americans. really dumb

point here is if you're able to think only in filipino you are missing an entire universe of ideas and concepts that can only be grasped when you're able to think in other languages

buti sana kung highly advanced language ang filipino

hindi eh

--

anyway

other people they don't care if they can't grasp foreign concepts

what's important to them is that they're happy and content

they don't need to know what algorithms are

as long as they have life's essentials (food, beer, videoke) they don't need anything else

ignorance is bliss

[myk384]

Sa totoo lang, the author should not wrote this in a insulting way. There is nothing wrong with using filipino or english. Pag informal ang usapan - Filipino/Taglish, Pag formal affairs - English. Ang kalalabasan ng article is ang filipino is jologs language. Heck, I know English and Filipino, but do I brag it??? No.

Parang ang kalalabasan that the author is proficient in English among everyone. Kahit sino proficient eh, heck some public school students know English. Pagyayabang ang tunog nito eh.

[oliver1013]

Dapat latin nalang ang tinuturo sa paaralan..

[badsekktor]

Dapat latin nalang ang tinuturo sa paaralan..

lols! pero i would have to agree na overkill yun pagtuturo ng Filipino sa mga paaralan. From elementary to college meron filipino subject!

[Ry_Tower]

lols! pero i would have to agree na overkill yun pagtuturo ng Filipino sa mga paaralan. From elementary to college meron filipino subject!

I agree, dapat till HS lang.

[Ry_Tower]

lols! pero i would have to agree na overkill yun pagtuturo ng Filipino sa mga paaralan. From elementary to college meron filipino subject!

I agree, dapat till HS lang.