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DAVAO CITY -- “Jay,” I asked my friend, Dorothy Joy who sat beside me. “What is the Bisaya word for try?”
“Tistingi,” she whispered.
We were in class then and I was bored with the lecture so I distracted myself by sending messages to another friend across the room. I was going to say, “Try it” or “Subukan mo” but I wanted to use Bisaya so I wrote down, “Tistingi nimo.”
If I only knew that I would become the subject of my friends’ mockery at the end of the class, I wouldn’t have tried writing in Bisaya.
“It should be tistingi not tistingi nimo” one of them! said. My friends were actually laughing at my note.
I got confused. Later on, I realized that Bisaya was like the English Language where imperative sentences could get away with the “you.” I could say, “Write” instead of “You write” in the same way that in Bisaya one would say “Pagsulat” rather than “Pagsulat ka.” The latter indeed sounded awkward.
I can’t speak Bisaya fluently in the same way that I can’t speak any language smoothly. I speak Tagalog and English, though not perfectly, because they are the ones used at home and in school. My parents belong to different tribes. My father is a Maguindanaon and my mother, a Tausug. During their early years of marriage, my parents spoke in Tagalog so that they could understand each other. It was only years later when they mastered each other’s dialects.
My siblings and I, however, already adopted Tagalog as our first language. Although it was never too late to learn Maguindanaon and Tausug, we didn’t care much whether we could speak them fluently or not as long as we could understand even the basic words only. For instance, I know how to say, “Malingkat ko” or “Manisan ako” both of which mean, “I am beautiful” in Tausug and Maguindanaon respectively.
I actually regret the idea that I never attempted to learn my own language. Whenever I go to Moro communities or meet Muslims I would often feel like I am the odd person out because I can’t relate to what anyone is saying. At one side, I can hear Tausug words while on the other side I recognize Maguindanaon or Maranao accents. I have no idea where to situate myself. I’m hesitant to join any conversation because I can’t speak any dialect fluently. I fear that I might break the bond between these people if I interrupt their conversation. I can’t just ask them a favor to speak in Tagalog so I can relate to what they are saying. That will be embarrassing. It is in fact embarrassing to claim oneself as a Maguindanaon-Tausug who lived all her life in Mindanao particularly in the Maguindanao province yet she never learned her ancestors’ tongue.
I remember an old woman who came to visit our home when I was 11. She wore a silky long sleeved blouse and a malong like most old Maguindanaon women do. I sat in the living room while she stood at the doorway. She asked me something in Maguindanaon.
“Huh? Ano yun?” I asked her politely. That is how I use my Tagalog in a polite way. In Luzon, the proper way of asking a stranger is, “Sino ho sila? Ano po iyon? Sino po ang hinahanap nila?”
I was sure that the old woman was looking for someone but as much as I tried, I could not comprehend what she was saying. Then she gave up, shaking her head. I could say by the way her eyebrows contracted that she was annoyed or frustrated.
“Mga wata a nya, di den mataw bag-Muslim…(These kids today, they no longer know how to speak Muslim),” she murmured as she allowed herself to enter our house and look for someone who she probably thought made sense to her.
The old woman probably meant, “to speak Maguindanaon” instead of Muslim. I just shrugged my shoulders. I get those kinds of comments from old Muslim people particularly from my grandparents. The truth is, my paternal grandparents and I don’t understand each other. If I count the number of hours I spent talking to them since I was a child, it would probably not reach ten hours. This becomes one of my regrets because I have not developed a special bond with my grandparents.
When I reached college, I had to go through a long period of adjustment during my first year. There had to be someone who could translate words for me so I could communicate well with the people. I remember being asked questions like if I was from Luzon because I spoke the Tagalog language. Some were curious as to why I couldn’t speak in Bisaya. It was as if they could not believe that someone who lived in Mindanao didn’t know how to speak in Bisaya. I had to insist that in my hometown, people speak in Tagalog. They probably thought that Tagalog was only spoken in Luzon in the same way that I thought Bisaya was only spoken in the Visayan region.
I remember having a classmate who seemed to doubt my incapability to speak the language.
“Alia,” he said, “which part of Cotabato are you from?”
“The city,” I said, smiling at him. “Why?”
“Because my father had already been to Cotabato,” he said. “He told me that people there spoke in Bisaya just like the Davaoeños.”
I wasn’t sure if I would laugh at him for doing his research or become irritated by his skepticism.
“Maybe your father went somewhere in the Cotabato province and not in the city,” I said calmly. “North and South Cotabato are different from Cotabato City. People from the north and south speak in Bisaya, Ilonggo and Maguindanaon. I’m sure that the official language in my hometown is Tagalog.
I hoped I convinced him.
I consider my hometown a melting pot of different cultures. Maguindanaons, Tausugs, Ilonggos, Maranaos, Iranuns, Bisayas, and Tagalogs live in the city. Perhaps, when these people first settled in the Cotabato, they couldn’t communicate well if they used their own languages that they decided to use the national language, Tagalog, as the official language of the Cotabateños.
The Tagalog used in my hometown, however, is different from the one used in Luzon. People commonly use a few Bisaya words and the tone used is quite hard like there’s a certain force to it when the language is spoken. But when people speak inside their homes, only a few families use Tagalog while majority speak their own dialect.
I still don’t know how to speak Bisaya fluently. Some people may find this hard to believe knowing that I’ve been living in Davao City for almost four years now. I should have learned the language already. But honestly, I was never interested in learning how to speak the language. If given a choice, I want to stick to Tagalog because I think it isn’t fair that I can’t speak my parents’ languages then I have to learn Bisaya. But then again, I regret not being able to comprehend the dialect very well. I realize this more whenever I go to poetry reading sessions. People would start laughing while listening to a Bisaya poem and I sit among them, having no idea what can be so funny.
It also embarrasses me when I try to speak Bisaya and my friends would laugh at my accent and diction. They would say things like “bakikaw” (awkward) or “lain paminawon” (sounds unpleasant). I have no choice but to stick to my Tagalog, which is sometimes mixed with Bisayan expressions. I could only say, “lingaw man pud.” (I enjoy it though).
(originally published at Mindanews.com on 14 March 2005)
“Tistingi,” she whispered.
We were in class then and I was bored with the lecture so I distracted myself by sending messages to another friend across the room. I was going to say, “Try it” or “Subukan mo” but I wanted to use Bisaya so I wrote down, “Tistingi nimo.”
If I only knew that I would become the subject of my friends’ mockery at the end of the class, I wouldn’t have tried writing in Bisaya.
“It should be tistingi not tistingi nimo” one of them! said. My friends were actually laughing at my note.
I got confused. Later on, I realized that Bisaya was like the English Language where imperative sentences could get away with the “you.” I could say, “Write” instead of “You write” in the same way that in Bisaya one would say “Pagsulat” rather than “Pagsulat ka.” The latter indeed sounded awkward.
I can’t speak Bisaya fluently in the same way that I can’t speak any language smoothly. I speak Tagalog and English, though not perfectly, because they are the ones used at home and in school. My parents belong to different tribes. My father is a Maguindanaon and my mother, a Tausug. During their early years of marriage, my parents spoke in Tagalog so that they could understand each other. It was only years later when they mastered each other’s dialects.
My siblings and I, however, already adopted Tagalog as our first language. Although it was never too late to learn Maguindanaon and Tausug, we didn’t care much whether we could speak them fluently or not as long as we could understand even the basic words only. For instance, I know how to say, “Malingkat ko” or “Manisan ako” both of which mean, “I am beautiful” in Tausug and Maguindanaon respectively.
I actually regret the idea that I never attempted to learn my own language. Whenever I go to Moro communities or meet Muslims I would often feel like I am the odd person out because I can’t relate to what anyone is saying. At one side, I can hear Tausug words while on the other side I recognize Maguindanaon or Maranao accents. I have no idea where to situate myself. I’m hesitant to join any conversation because I can’t speak any dialect fluently. I fear that I might break the bond between these people if I interrupt their conversation. I can’t just ask them a favor to speak in Tagalog so I can relate to what they are saying. That will be embarrassing. It is in fact embarrassing to claim oneself as a Maguindanaon-Tausug who lived all her life in Mindanao particularly in the Maguindanao province yet she never learned her ancestors’ tongue.
I remember an old woman who came to visit our home when I was 11. She wore a silky long sleeved blouse and a malong like most old Maguindanaon women do. I sat in the living room while she stood at the doorway. She asked me something in Maguindanaon.
“Huh? Ano yun?” I asked her politely. That is how I use my Tagalog in a polite way. In Luzon, the proper way of asking a stranger is, “Sino ho sila? Ano po iyon? Sino po ang hinahanap nila?”
I was sure that the old woman was looking for someone but as much as I tried, I could not comprehend what she was saying. Then she gave up, shaking her head. I could say by the way her eyebrows contracted that she was annoyed or frustrated.
“Mga wata a nya, di den mataw bag-Muslim…(These kids today, they no longer know how to speak Muslim),” she murmured as she allowed herself to enter our house and look for someone who she probably thought made sense to her.
The old woman probably meant, “to speak Maguindanaon” instead of Muslim. I just shrugged my shoulders. I get those kinds of comments from old Muslim people particularly from my grandparents. The truth is, my paternal grandparents and I don’t understand each other. If I count the number of hours I spent talking to them since I was a child, it would probably not reach ten hours. This becomes one of my regrets because I have not developed a special bond with my grandparents.
When I reached college, I had to go through a long period of adjustment during my first year. There had to be someone who could translate words for me so I could communicate well with the people. I remember being asked questions like if I was from Luzon because I spoke the Tagalog language. Some were curious as to why I couldn’t speak in Bisaya. It was as if they could not believe that someone who lived in Mindanao didn’t know how to speak in Bisaya. I had to insist that in my hometown, people speak in Tagalog. They probably thought that Tagalog was only spoken in Luzon in the same way that I thought Bisaya was only spoken in the Visayan region.
I remember having a classmate who seemed to doubt my incapability to speak the language.
“Alia,” he said, “which part of Cotabato are you from?”
“The city,” I said, smiling at him. “Why?”
“Because my father had already been to Cotabato,” he said. “He told me that people there spoke in Bisaya just like the Davaoeños.”
I wasn’t sure if I would laugh at him for doing his research or become irritated by his skepticism.
“Maybe your father went somewhere in the Cotabato province and not in the city,” I said calmly. “North and South Cotabato are different from Cotabato City. People from the north and south speak in Bisaya, Ilonggo and Maguindanaon. I’m sure that the official language in my hometown is Tagalog.
I hoped I convinced him.
I consider my hometown a melting pot of different cultures. Maguindanaons, Tausugs, Ilonggos, Maranaos, Iranuns, Bisayas, and Tagalogs live in the city. Perhaps, when these people first settled in the Cotabato, they couldn’t communicate well if they used their own languages that they decided to use the national language, Tagalog, as the official language of the Cotabateños.
The Tagalog used in my hometown, however, is different from the one used in Luzon. People commonly use a few Bisaya words and the tone used is quite hard like there’s a certain force to it when the language is spoken. But when people speak inside their homes, only a few families use Tagalog while majority speak their own dialect.
I still don’t know how to speak Bisaya fluently. Some people may find this hard to believe knowing that I’ve been living in Davao City for almost four years now. I should have learned the language already. But honestly, I was never interested in learning how to speak the language. If given a choice, I want to stick to Tagalog because I think it isn’t fair that I can’t speak my parents’ languages then I have to learn Bisaya. But then again, I regret not being able to comprehend the dialect very well. I realize this more whenever I go to poetry reading sessions. People would start laughing while listening to a Bisaya poem and I sit among them, having no idea what can be so funny.
It also embarrasses me when I try to speak Bisaya and my friends would laugh at my accent and diction. They would say things like “bakikaw” (awkward) or “lain paminawon” (sounds unpleasant). I have no choice but to stick to my Tagalog, which is sometimes mixed with Bisayan expressions. I could only say, “lingaw man pud.” (I enjoy it though).
(originally published at Mindanews.com on 14 March 2005)
