LEAVE ME ALONE, WILL YA!? :)

I have been scarce, I know, but for good reasons! :)

First, my laptop decided to bog down on me and you know how inconvenient it is to be using not your own. Second, I'm trying to beat a deadline for a book that needs to be written before September ends. (OK!!!??? BB and TB!!?) Hihihi!

Third, there was nothing remotely interesting to me this past week. Fourth, I doped my blogging mind to sleep. Fifth, my man left me. Ooops, not like the 'left' that you're probably thinking... Lol. He went down south to attend their tribal queen's coronation anniversary and so I spend a lot of time choring cuz I do not have anyone to boss around. Hehe! (Best, glelamen ho yaa!) :) Actually, I had to step in for his pastoral responsibilities and stuff like that and that alone can really keep you occupied and dead tired. So you see, I do have valid reasons.,. di ba naman?

My Beloved Kalanguya: Last Sunday in church, one of my charges was called to read a Bible reference. I was expecting to hear a Kalanguya version but to my chagrin, the reader picked up a Tagalog one. Right there and then, a doubt assailed me (again, cuz this is not the first time) as to whether everything that I am 'wasting' my life for is worth it. Is it worth it to spend my time analyzing and learning and writing my language? After church I dug up articles about minor language development hoping to find some reassurances that everything I am doing--developing literature and promoting my language will not just go down the drain.

I read an article by one Philip Deal called "Assumptions, Anyone?" He talked about how he decided to drop language development efforts in the Kuijau after seeing that the native speakers of the language do not seem to care whether their language would survive or not.

Another related article I read is by Robinson, Clinton D. W. 1994. Tilting at the future: How can we know whether minority language development is a viable proposition? Notes on Sociolinguistics. He discussed three dimensions to consider when attempting to assess language development viability.
1. The sociolinguistic dimension covers the crude facts or naked reality of a language situation. According to the article, data belonging to this dimension include levels of comprehension, language relatedness, bilingualism, language use and language attitude. The author said that these crude facts should be interpreted first, thus cannot be relied on as indicators of worth, success, relevance and usefulness of a language project development, giving rise to the necessity of the following dimension.
2. The cultural dimension, which covers all elements or building blocks of a society such as the ‘spiritual, material, intellectual, and emotional features’ of a language group. Robinson also said that cultural issues such as group cohesion, identity, perceptions of ethnicity, ethnic vitality, and relations between culturally differentiated groups can constrain language vitality, and this is the part where sociolinguistic data interpretation may help us predict the direction that these cultural processes are going, but if we add the cultural dimension to the sociolinguistic dimension, the resulting product will provide us a picture which will indicate the factors that make the changes in a cultural society possible and may also give us an indication as to the environment in which language development may be pursued. According to the author, these factors are important because ‘language maintenance/revival take place in the context of the maintenance/renewal of cultural identity, rather than vice versa.’ The elements of this particular dimension can be collected from the following aspects of the cultural society under study: “History, Relationships with other groups: domination, subordination, Ethnic movements and leaders, Migration, Demography, Birth rate, Population size, Life expectancy, Political system, Authority structure, Majority/minority relations, Pluralism, Accountability mechanisms, Economics, Food production, Opportunities for paid work, Markets, Development intervention, Models of development, Sectors of intervention, Communication strategies, and Impact of development intervention.
3. The policy dimension covers three levels of decision makers such as the local, national and the international levels, specifically, the local community, the national government, the international professional agencies, who all have their own values and philosophy on the minority language issue. The values and philosophies of these agencies are expressed in policies which greatly influence the possible, desirable, and imaginable changes that can be done in the pursuit of minority language development. Information regarding policy dimension in the national and international levels can be collected ‘in the form of ideas, statements, recommendations, speeches, and pronouncements.'

Relating this to the Philip Deal article, I believe that in the local level, one way to get a grip on the local (community) policy is through putting aside assumptions and immersing and observing even as the langauge developer is in his culture and language learning stage. He can illicit ideas from the local people. I believe that it is this level that Philip Deal’s decision to pursue the Kuijau translation no longer is largely based. Since all three dimensions are dynamic, a language development agent should be well-aware of the direction to which the elements of these dimensions are heading so as to be able to ride the tide.

Personally, there were two kinds of reaction that has crept into me as I was reading these articles. At first, I felt sorry for the Deals for going into all the ‘trouble’ of preparing for this language and immersing themselves into language and culture learning and even translating some biblical literature for the Kuijau people, which in the end were left sitting on the shelves, with no readers in view, and then eventually deciding to stop the project. I also began to look at myself and my expectations or assumptions for my own language project. This article reminded me that even though I am a mother tongue speaker and writer, and I do personally want to read written literature in my language, and would want to see the oral tradition of transferring stories to the next generation be backed-up by a written tradition, I should be very careful not to think that I represent the whole Kalanguya population. This article also made me realize that when one is very passionate about something, it is so easy to be blinded and not see the reality of the situation. I do want to see minority languages in print and circulation and I earnestly hope that my language project won't end up like the first author's but it seems apparent that I as a translator needs to have the courage, and honor to let go, should a decision like theirs present itself to me in the future.

BUT I doubt that there will come a time in the near future that Cordillera languages would die. I like to think that we Igorots are too proud to let our identity go just like that but my fear is that most minority language speakers are content to speak their language and not read it. The reason why Biblical Hebrew, Aramaic, and other ancient near eastern languages are still viable is because they were preserved in written form. Without written tradition, our languages will lose many of its unique linguistic features. Let's face it, multilingualism causes vocabulary borrowings which in turn dilutes a language. Therefore, writing in their language should be seriously considered and learnt by all mother tongue speakers who cares about their language survival.

(Oh, mahaba na yan ha! I hope this will free me from blogging for a month!) hehe, joke lang kadi! Seriously, I appreciate the