The language issue: The readers respond

As I expected, my recent piece on GMA’s new English policy provoked a stream of responses from readers. I’m going to reprint some of them, and leave it at that for the time being. I strongly suspect, anyway, that more than half a century after Quezon, we’re far from having said or heard the last word in this debate.

Ricardo Banzon took what might be called the far-right position on the issue: "Let me express my support for your proposal to ‘Abolish the teaching of Filipino altogether, as this will only dissipate our time and resources….’ God knows how many billions we’ve already spent in trying to teach our people an artificial national language that the Tagalog imperialists have been trying to impose on the other regions of the country.

"Also, I fully agree to ‘…make it a crime to text in anything but letter-perfect English….’ While the practice of text shortcuts makes it easier for the sender to send his message in just a few strokes, the end result is sometimes so garbled as to be beyond comprehension. In such cases, I just ignore the message. I usually text using the full English words, with the help of the built-in dictionary. It takes me a shorter time to type in that way. I also find that such text shortcuts tend to creep into correspondence, such as inter-office memos, as people tend to unconsciously use such shortcuts when they write. I’m not an English teacher, but I’ve sent back such memos for correction.

"I understand that you were being sarcastic… when you wrote the above quotes, but I still think that they are quite valid proposals and should merit serious consideration.

"You also point out that ‘Our most critical problem area in primary education isn’t English: It’s science and math….’ But trying to teach science and math in Filipino seems to make it more tedious and harder to understand. Translating the concepts into words nobody really knows or uses makes the simplest concepts practically incomprehensible. Science and math are already hard enough as it is.

"Maybe it’s only me; I remember that while I was taking up ROTC, I found the Filipino commands ridiculous, such as ‘SAMPAGITANTUNTONGSAKANAN, NA!’ instead of the simpler ‘RIGHT FACE!’

"Nationalism has its place. But imposing an artificial national language on other regions that would prefer their own dialects only breeds resentment and divisiveness. English, at least, is impartial and does not belong to any one region. And it does not cost us billions of pesos to develop as a language."

Raymond Acosta took a more conciliatory view: "Mr. Dalisay, your hypothesis for continuing to teach in Filipino is very persuasive. I will not argue with you that Filipino should be taught in the vernacular and that we should dispense with teaching that formal and seldom used language that is hardly understood by anybody. I also agree with your assertion that the performance of contemporary Filipino students in math and science has been abysmal at best.

"My argument for at least attempting to try to impart some level of proficiency in the English language to our students is that the knowledge of English opens several doors that are closed to those who speak only Tagalog/Cebuano/Tausug/et cetera. Almost all of the jobs in the Makati business district require a working knowledge of English. Even if jobs in the call centers, and performing back-door computer and financial operations for the multinational companies are the sweatshops of the digital age, they still pay much higher wages than are being received by the average Filipino with little knowledge of English. A professional in the sciences could not even conduct a discourse with his colleagues or advance professionally without at least being able to read and write in English. For better or worse, even in the provinces, most companies that pay a decent wage conduct job interviews in English.

"Finally, and for myself at least, the most compelling reason to teach our children in English is the paucity of teaching materials in Filipino or any other of the native languages spoken in the Philippines. When I have seen textbooks in Tagalog, the results are highly variable with some being good for little more than tinder while others are acceptable or even quite good even if they are printed on cheap paper. There is a wealth of material printed in English on almost any subject imaginable, not to mention the Internet.

"I agree that in the future, Filipinos need to concentrate on math and the sciences in order to progress to the next level, yet they also need English or some other medium that will allow them to be exposed to a different view of the world and humanity. One of the critical observations that I have made about most contemporary middle-class Filipino families is that there are almost no books to speak of in any household. When I compare that to my own childhood, the difference is astonishing. Too many Filipinos are selling themselves short – content to take short cuts, work at two or three menial jobs paying a minimal wage, when, with just a little more study and proficiency in math, science, and English, they could be a lot higher up on the food chain."

From magazine writer Corazon Ong came one of the few voices raised in support of Filipino: "Read your column today and you were so right about the government making the Filipino language a scapegoat for all our economic woes. How come the French and the Japanese are so progressive? Hay naku, as a people, we’re good at blaming things or other people. Basta lang may masisi, ayos na. Kawawa naman ang ating sariling wika, di na makausad-usad."

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I can’t remember now who it was, but one reader asked me what I meant by "the King’s English." My on-board dictionary defines it as "standard written or spoken English, especially in British English, described as the most correct form of the language."

Let me put on my professor’s cap (not a very good fit, I’m afraid – it keeps slipping!) and add that the "King" in question here was King James I, successor to Queen Elizabeth, who caused the so-called Authorized Version of the Bible (or the "King James Version") to be produced and published in England in 1611. The English of this Bible was of such fine quality, so sublime and magnificent was the prose, that it became a kind of standard for writers to aspire to. And at a time when dictionaries and encyclopedias had yet to be written and popularized, the King James Bible also did much not just to spread the Anglican faith, but also to standardize the English language itself in terms of spelling and usage.

And that, for you, is "the King’s English."

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From Pete Rahon in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, came this e-mail inviting readers to join an on-line reading club. While not directly related to the language issue, it offers one solution to the equally basic lack of cultural literacy among our people:

"I read your article on reading and would like to take this opportunity to write you this e-mail. I enjoy reading a great deal, and am investing part of my income in buying books, especially classics and contemporary novels. I’ve also read Anna Quindlen on reading (and reading lists) and another book on lifetime reading plans, so I was inspired to create a Yahoogroup for reading, and my own lifetime reading plan. I hope to have a more lively discussion and exchange soon. For this reason I would like to ask you to help popularize it. Send e-mail to Pinasbibliophiles@ yahoogroups.com."

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Isn’t the Internet a wonderful thing? Most of the time, anyway. My "penmanila" e-mail address below has been compromised again, hijacked by some cyberjerk who’s been using it to sell diet pills – I know, because I get "message undeliverable" warnings all the time from addresses that the spammer apparently harvested somewhere and dumped his diet pills on. If you get one of these messages, I swear I didn’t send them – I don’t have a single diet pill in the house, have never been on a diet, and am not about to get on one.

I’ve thought of dropping the "penmanila" address, but I’ve already paid extra for a super-sized mailbox (yes, you can do that on Yahoo), and I have a feeling that any new address I get will be just as vulnerable to the determined hacker. So some of you and I are just going to have to deal with diet-pill spiels for a while. (Hmmm, maybe these things really work!)

At least I’m not peddling animal-tested Viagra, and at least this hacker didn’t do what a previous, more malicious one did – which was to read my mail and send out offensive letters to my friends. (Well, okay, I’ll admit it now, that was really me, suffering from the effects of an overdose of diet pills).

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Send e-mail to Butch Dalisay at penmanila@ yahoo.com.