ISPOKENING BLING-BLING

Communication began with the use of mother tongue spoken at home to put the message across loud and clear. Diin man ka gikan? Nangaon na mi. Nakakaon na ka?

But early on in school, English as a second lang-uage became an integral part of the institution's long-term policy to enable students to be understood globally. Where have you been? We have already taken our meal. What about you?

And Filipino, being the national language, found favor over mother tongue, so that even when one Bisdak reporter interviews fellow Bisdak on TV in Sinugbuano, the mood is automatically set in Filipino. Observe Manny Pacquiao! You might find yourself in similar funny situation because quite a number of us mirror Pacquiao - no different from a pack of Sinugbuano-speaking Visayans who shun speaking the tongue of Vicente Sotto and Natalio Bacalso "perhaps driven by the wrong notion that Sinugbuano is inferior to Tagalog, more so to English," as observed by online columnist Satur Apoyon over at the PNA website.

Anyway, it is given that he would say Saan ka ba nanggaling? Kumain na kami. Kumain ka na ba?

Recently in a journalism-seminar workshop, I ached to emphasize the significance of a Sinugbuano page in every school organ. But it dawned on me that it would be hard to teach Binisayang Sinugbuano without the standardized guidelines written in vernacular. And with the media itself into Binisayop, it would take extra effort to convince readers that "kikil" is the appropriate term, not "kilkil", to mean extortion. Kilkil is that act of a scabies-stricken doggie responding to a stimulus called itch.

Further, how am I supposed to point out that Takas sa Talisay means "haw-as" or getting out of the waters, not the takas of the Tagalogs which means escape. And tutok here means to give a stare, different from Filipino tutok which means to poke something at/on.

Edgar Godin, associate editor of a magazine in vernacular, when asked on how to translate "feature story" even said "wala gyod tay equivalent ana 'day sama nga way Ininglis sa silong."

Which reminds me of a senior editor who observed how we inaccurately translate puso as hanging rice. "Leave it as it is. Wa may puso ang mga Amer'kano, ngano man gyod nga ipa-mugos ta man nang hanging rice nga awkward kaayo," the chief ed said.

"Ang nakalisod god kay all journalism books are written in English," Godin added when asked to give appropriate terms for the elements of news supposedly for the use of aspiring news writers in Sinugbuano.

Today, we wear languages like bling-blings. Fashionable, trendy, the in-thing but sometimes so useless; flashy but defeating the purpose of enhancing communication skills. Very much like the presence of teachers who failed to make an impact, because there are English, Filipino and Sinugbuano educators who are incompetent to motivate students to appreciate the subject. 

Language has to evolve alright so that we have allowed a staccato of online chatting lingo, text (short message service) lingo, and a variation of swardspeak (third gender talk) to intrude our vocabulary.

So we hear from one part of the crowd say "Aas wakz nakidch? Naglafangga an imakz. Fang na waki? From chatters, we read on our private message box "WHUB? WV 810 OLRD. HVUHUM?" to mean Where have you been? We've eaten already. Have you had your meal? And from texters, we receive the message "wer man u fr? 8 na we. 8 na u?"

With the advent of techspeak, new words have been coined most especially in the field of electronics and computer science; also from the media and even slang. Say e-book or e-zine for a book or magazine in electronic format viewed on a desktop computer, laptop, or portable electronic reader; and there's chad for small bits of paper or cardboard that are made when you punch holes, especially in ballots.

Also, there's three-peat to mean the third championship in a row; snail mail for letter delivered by the postal system rather than by electronic mail. Add up to that blog for web log and the blogosphere for web log atmosphere. Flavor that with spam with its unsolicited bulk messages and you will certainly string them all in one thread. 

To save time or space, we use SASE for self-addressed stamped envelope and other abbreviations ATM, ESP, IQ/EQ, MPH, PS and could even be endless with new entries such as HTTP, URL, GPS, and FEAR referring to a computer shooting game, among others. Even the roster of acronyms, which includes radar for radio detecting and ran-ging, sitcom for situation comedy, ZIP, PIN and scuba, has already listed most recently SIM for subscriber identity module. But has the message been put across loud and clear?

Vicky, an account manager, in soliciting an advertisement wrote the chief executive officer of a company. "Hope u will consider… pls reply thru… thank u very much for ur time." Take note that this is business correspondence!

"Bitaw uy, naanad naman ko sa text maong madala gyod nako kun magsuwat ko'g proposal," she said.

"Sobra ra sad ka-abbreviated nang inyong i-print from texters nga di naman nato hinoon ma-sabtan," complains Frenchie, a reader of our advice column in our sister tabloid.

So if we would want to be "fashionable" about our oral and written communication skills to penetrate all industries possible, would that entail donning all the five bling-blings?

Manuel Lino Faelnar, director of DILA Phils. Foundation, Inc. and LUDABI said, "alang nako, ang gamiton sa pagtudlo diha sa mga tulunghaan labi na ning gitawag sa Komisyon sa Filipino og Mother Language Education kadto gyong tarong nga Binisaya aron lig-on ang pundasyon sa mga bata."

He pointed out that it is best to inculcate the value of appreciating our mother tongue among the young because "without our language, we have no culture; we have no identity, therefore, we are nothing."