Will Taglish stay forever in the Philippines?

[maudionisio]

HILL ROBERTS: I believe the use of English among Filipino students started to decline in the late 1960s when the government gave in to  so-called nationalists to give more emphasis on Pilipino (actually Tagalog) in schools. Students spoke and wrote English in school and talked with friends and releatives in Tagalog and other Philippine languages. Therefore, the government should have strengthened English in schools to enable the students to become bilingual. That's why the generation that used the John and Jean series in the elementary grades were able to communicate fluently in both English and Tagalog or other Philippine language.

[renzphotography]

What's wrong Maudionisio, afraid of the inconvenient truth are we?

"And you have exposed this through the internet  for the whole world to judge", you say, well guess what, it cuts both ways because so have you!

You bring shame to the millions of Filipinos who have toiled and suffered in the deserts of the Middle East. I have told many of my OFW friends about our exchange and we all say the same thing, we wish you were there to see what we have seen and to experience what we have experienced. We would love to see you endure our ordeals for there is no better teacher than actual experience.

If you are not wearing rose colored glasses then you must be looking through a stained window.

[apiong]

Well, nobody really offered an opinion on whether Taglish will stay forever in the Philippines. Are Filipinos in love with Taglish? If so then let the status quo remain. Let English, a foreign language, rule Filipino cultural life as adulterated Taglish.

If not, why not remove English from the educational system so that gradually only unavoidable English terms without native equivalents will ever surface into our native languages? After all we don't have to have English as one of our national languages to fit in this shrinking globe. The Chinese, the Japanese, the Europeans are proof of this. Their government, their newspapers, their daily lives are conducted in their own language. Those who need English study it voluntarily.

I hope I don't get bats and bricks for thinking of the latter option.

[madgirl09]

Taglish will remain forever in the Philippines because no language exists "pure" to stand the test of times. Languages will absorb whatever trends and happenings occur in the cultures where they are being used. Education of the population affects the way a language is used, but there are some other elements that could adversely mar the strict compliance to the standard use of a language. Even educated English speakers in the Philippines regularly shift from Tagalog to English in many instances in their daily conversations. Broadcast and written media can just contribute in slowing down the speed of a language's demise (just like what is happening to many of our provincial and tribal dialects not attractive to researchers and media attention) or control the impacts of other languages co-existing with the language (say, Tagalog...media allowing Taglish on TV, etc), or help in the improvement of language education (corrupted English with vulgar Tagalog expressions must be avoided, teachers must suggest standards on good coinage)...lots of solutions to do..But remember, CHANGES are not always bad but often more productive. If English would have hundreds of variations as it will be spoken by the whole world soon, so let it be, as it is inevitable. It is the schools, the educated and media people's responsibility to maintain the quality of changes that may be inflicted on the languages we speak.

[maudionisio]

RENZPHOTOGRAPHY: I have lived and worked in a Middle East country for 10 years, and ln those years I have met a lot of Filipinos with the same parochial attitude and prejudice as you. In Arabic, you and your bunch are aptly described as “mafi muk.” The ordeal that you say you and other OFWs have gone through in the Middle East are all in your mind. That's like having a psychosomatic illness. It's just the mind making you think that other nationalities are out to get you. Freud calls that state of mind paranoia and the person with that mind set paranoid. That word was the origin of the Tagalog (Filipino to the government) slang “praning.”

[maudionisio]

APIONG: After the Norman conquest, English language became subvservient to  Norman-French. Many French words were adopted into English, and the English started to inject French phrases into their speech. That's how French phrases like deja vu (Your have seen it) entered the English language. So the English began to speak English peppered with French words and phrases. These are now found in the English dictionary because they are now part of the English vocabulary. Just like the English of the Norman period, Filipinos of today speak Tagalog mixed with English words and phrases. This is known as Taglish. So your question whether Taglish will remain, the answer is “yes.” in the same way that French words and phrases have remained in English and are now part of English vocabulary. Gradually Tagalog  will absorb these English words and phrases and they will become part of the language that the government has started to call “Filipino.” Taglish and Filipino will then merge and would become simply known as “Filipino.”

[maudionisio]

MADGIRL: You're right. Changes are not always bad, and changes brought about by foreign words adopted into Tagalog could help in the evolution and improvement of the language. Tagalog has no terms for many modern technological equipment like the computer and its ubiquitous appendage, the mouse. Should we call it a “daga?” In naming a boat that travels under the sea, English, a Germanic language, turned to Latin to coin the word “submarine.” German aptly calls a submarine an “untersee boot” or undersea boat. As for English, it could evolve into various languages as Latin had broken up into the Romance languages. However, this could take time because modern means of communications like the internet keep people in touch. You're right broadcasters have contributed to the spread of Taglish and the demise of the quality of English and Tagalog in the Philippines. But a language is a living thing that must keep up with the times. Browse through an English dictionary and you will find some of the definitions marked “archaic.” That means the word has assumed a new meaning different from what it orginally meant. Look at Chavacano. It appears to have a Spanish structure, but its grammar is actually a cross between Bisaya and Spanish and the words are a hodge podge of the two languages. That's in Zamboanga City. In Ternate, Cavite, Chavacano is a mixture of Tagalog and Spanish. Chavacano started out as a form of pidgin Spanish, but it has now evolved into a full pledged language.

[renzphotography]

So, you add salt to open wound and call millions of Filipinos who have undergone repression in the hands of South Asians in the Arabian desert as psychosomatic pranings and MOK MAFI ("brainless" in Arabic). 

Well Maudionisio, you must be so MOK CARBAN ("crazy" in Arabic) to think that your charmed life in the desert is the common experience of the majority of Filipinos who have worked or are working there. Among Filipinos, your kind is what is commonly referred to as balingbing. 

You must have really sucked it up with your South Asian bosses to get promoted. You must be one of those who would compromise and betray his fellow Filipinos just to look good before his bosses, a traitor no less.

Your true color is really showing. You stink more than a rotten fish.

[jciadmin]

Please keep the discussion civil. No name calling, no inflammatory statements.

I don't want to have to resort to editing posts.

[maudionisio]

RENZPHOTOGRAPHY: You cannot defend your position through insults. If you were a lawyer arguing in court, the judge would yell at you and declare you in contempt for being out of order. Argue on the merits.

[renzphotography]

Look who is talking.

[maxsims]

Ladies!    Ladies!     

[madgirl09]

Rescue operation... calling? Aye, aye Sir!

Hey Max, have you ever spoken any Taglish before? I know, you've been speaking ti too  . Give us a sample...

madgirl...at another "sake" time.

[Cruise]

I quote, "centuries before I have developed fear of Indianisms?" Where did that come from? "Many of them who had gone to college are rude.." you say, look who is afraid now. I have worked and lived with many of them, that is why I know what I am saying. Lower class or upper class, to me they are just the same.

I agree with Renzphotography compeletely, here in China most of the Indian students and teachers are very rude. They think as if they are the Kings of the world. They act as if they are omniscient.   

[maxsims]

Stone the crows and starve the bandicoots!    Youse sheilas having a blue is enough to put the wind up a man.    Fair dinkum!