LANGUAGE DILUTION
I have noticed another saddening occurrence among the younger (maybe even the older) generation of the Kalanguya people—the tendency to unwittingly insist on incorporating the linguistic features of a second language they know into their own Kalangoya. (FYI, it has been agreed that Kalanguya [with a U] shall be the name of the people and Kalangoya [with an O] shall be the name of the language.)
Even the most linguistically uninformed individual would realize that every language is unique. There can never be an exact one-to-one correspondence among languages. With the exception of nouns, most words or lexemes (as semanticists call them) in one language cannot be translated exactly in another language. Therefore, one cannot just take an English word or statement and say it in Kalangoya or Tagalog and think that he has translated it. Let’s take for example the common greeting “Good Morning.” In English, it is a greeting, almost a wish of nice things to come for the person being greeted. But if you say that to an older Kalanguya who hasn’t been exposed to English or Tagalog, that person would say that you are implying something—maybe trying to ask a favor but too shy to say it directly. So instead of getting an appropriate reply like maybe “Good Morning too,” you will get, “So?” In the Kalanguya culture (and I assumed most of the Igorot culture), it is much better to say “Where are you going? Or What is that you’re carrying?” (if you cross path with someone) or “Let’s have some coffee,” or “Let’s eat” if the person comes to your door. In English, it is impolite to ask where someone is going or what someone is doing (cuz they like to mind their own business). But for us Filipinos, we are not indivisualistic (although some are already moving to that), we are community-minded people so we like other people to care about what we are doing or where we are going. We are not therefore offended but rather delighted when someone asks those questions (except of course if one is doing something or going somewhere questionable, then of course that person would like us to mind our own business.
My purpose for writing this article is to try to make you, my people, understand that your language is unique and doesn’t have to subscribe to the features of another language. I will particularly talk a little bit about discourse features. In Tagalog, the use of the third personal pronoun when conversing with an older person communicates respect or humility. The mere use of a particular pronoun conveys a meaning that is ‘grammatically incorrect’ but semantically pragmatic. One very common feature of the Kalangoya language is the use of a dual pronoun when referring to oneself. But be warned that this discourse element cannot just be pulled out and used as you want. There are particular speech situations that call for it because of its underlying attitudinal force.
Example 1:Kalanguya A: Men ina-no angka la? (How have you been doing?)
Kalanguya B: Way, igya angkita niti ngon andi kapan-alobyagi. (Oh, we are still the same, no improvement!)
Notice in the example above that the response made use of a dual pronoun. In structure, the pronoun is dual (plural), but in essence, the plural pronoun means something else. It implies an empathy-seeking attitude. The problem is that nowadays, I hear Kalanguya native speakers make a ‘stupid’ reply everytime they hear the use of this feature. They’d say, “Ayye, hi-gam ngo!” (Oh no,[ not both of us,] you only!) It is said mostly in jest but seriously, this kind of response defeats the purpose of the discourse feature! It kills the attitudinal aspect of its meaning. If every Kalanguya who uses the dual pronoun would get such a sardonic reply, then I am sure that sooner or later, no one will use it anymore and of course eventually, the discourse of the langauge will lose this particular feature. That would be sad!
In another area, Kalanguyas also tend to limit the meaning of a word because of the influence of a second language.
Example 2:
Kalanguya A. Hinoy, ambanglo noman ngoy lotom! (Wow, your cooking is sweet (delicious!)
Kalanguya B: “An-amih atman! Hapa habon iman et kan moy ambanglo!” (You mean tasty! It’s not soap, so you can’t say sweet.)
Ambanglo is one Kalanguya word that has quite a considerably large semantic range. It covers the senses of smell and taste and can even have a figurative meaning. It can mean delicious, fragrant, delightful, sugary. The problem arises when Kalanguyas exposed to Tagalog put ambanglo in the semantic domain of the Tagalog word 'mabango' (sweet-smelling) and carrying over the semantic features of mabango over to ambanglo resulting to a limited semantic range of an originally ‘meaningful’ word. Not only that! It also results to borrowing from another language a word to try to express ‘only one’ exact meaning of the word in question such as ‘an-amih’ (Ibaloi: an’amis) when in fact simply saying ambanglo does the job.
Not that I am against change, in fact I am all for it! But when it comes to language and culture I am not that a pragmatist! As much as possible. I want to preserve and save every nitty-gritty feature of the Kalanguya language. Linguistic evolution is a fact and I am a fool if I think that language will not change BUT if I can do something, I’d rather have people open their minds to the richness of their language than have them inadvertently contribute to its demise! And I believe that restricting the range of meaning of words of a langauge will eventually lead to language dilution. And listening to a diluted Kalanguya is like drinking an awwalawal ni kapi([lit. maliwanag na kape] kapeng barako na kulang ang kape/brewed coffee with not enough coffee)… at least to my ears!
Even the most linguistically uninformed individual would realize that every language is unique. There can never be an exact one-to-one correspondence among languages. With the exception of nouns, most words or lexemes (as semanticists call them) in one language cannot be translated exactly in another language. Therefore, one cannot just take an English word or statement and say it in Kalangoya or Tagalog and think that he has translated it. Let’s take for example the common greeting “Good Morning.” In English, it is a greeting, almost a wish of nice things to come for the person being greeted. But if you say that to an older Kalanguya who hasn’t been exposed to English or Tagalog, that person would say that you are implying something—maybe trying to ask a favor but too shy to say it directly. So instead of getting an appropriate reply like maybe “Good Morning too,” you will get, “So?” In the Kalanguya culture (and I assumed most of the Igorot culture), it is much better to say “Where are you going? Or What is that you’re carrying?” (if you cross path with someone) or “Let’s have some coffee,” or “Let’s eat” if the person comes to your door. In English, it is impolite to ask where someone is going or what someone is doing (cuz they like to mind their own business). But for us Filipinos, we are not indivisualistic (although some are already moving to that), we are community-minded people so we like other people to care about what we are doing or where we are going. We are not therefore offended but rather delighted when someone asks those questions (except of course if one is doing something or going somewhere questionable, then of course that person would like us to mind our own business.
My purpose for writing this article is to try to make you, my people, understand that your language is unique and doesn’t have to subscribe to the features of another language. I will particularly talk a little bit about discourse features. In Tagalog, the use of the third personal pronoun when conversing with an older person communicates respect or humility. The mere use of a particular pronoun conveys a meaning that is ‘grammatically incorrect’ but semantically pragmatic. One very common feature of the Kalangoya language is the use of a dual pronoun when referring to oneself. But be warned that this discourse element cannot just be pulled out and used as you want. There are particular speech situations that call for it because of its underlying attitudinal force.
Example 1:Kalanguya A: Men ina-no angka la? (How have you been doing?)
Kalanguya B: Way, igya angkita niti ngon andi kapan-alobyagi. (Oh, we are still the same, no improvement!)
Notice in the example above that the response made use of a dual pronoun. In structure, the pronoun is dual (plural), but in essence, the plural pronoun means something else. It implies an empathy-seeking attitude. The problem is that nowadays, I hear Kalanguya native speakers make a ‘stupid’ reply everytime they hear the use of this feature. They’d say, “Ayye, hi-gam ngo!” (Oh no,[ not both of us,] you only!) It is said mostly in jest but seriously, this kind of response defeats the purpose of the discourse feature! It kills the attitudinal aspect of its meaning. If every Kalanguya who uses the dual pronoun would get such a sardonic reply, then I am sure that sooner or later, no one will use it anymore and of course eventually, the discourse of the langauge will lose this particular feature. That would be sad!
In another area, Kalanguyas also tend to limit the meaning of a word because of the influence of a second language.
Example 2:
Kalanguya A. Hinoy, ambanglo noman ngoy lotom! (Wow, your cooking is sweet (delicious!)
Kalanguya B: “An-amih atman! Hapa habon iman et kan moy ambanglo!” (You mean tasty! It’s not soap, so you can’t say sweet.)
Ambanglo is one Kalanguya word that has quite a considerably large semantic range. It covers the senses of smell and taste and can even have a figurative meaning. It can mean delicious, fragrant, delightful, sugary. The problem arises when Kalanguyas exposed to Tagalog put ambanglo in the semantic domain of the Tagalog word 'mabango' (sweet-smelling) and carrying over the semantic features of mabango over to ambanglo resulting to a limited semantic range of an originally ‘meaningful’ word. Not only that! It also results to borrowing from another language a word to try to express ‘only one’ exact meaning of the word in question such as ‘an-amih’ (Ibaloi: an’amis) when in fact simply saying ambanglo does the job.
Not that I am against change, in fact I am all for it! But when it comes to language and culture I am not that a pragmatist! As much as possible. I want to preserve and save every nitty-gritty feature of the Kalanguya language. Linguistic evolution is a fact and I am a fool if I think that language will not change BUT if I can do something, I’d rather have people open their minds to the richness of their language than have them inadvertently contribute to its demise! And I believe that restricting the range of meaning of words of a langauge will eventually lead to language dilution. And listening to a diluted Kalanguya is like drinking an awwalawal ni kapi([lit. maliwanag na kape] kapeng barako na kulang ang kape/brewed coffee with not enough coffee)… at least to my ears!
Comments
are you serious? lol