Will Taglish stay forever in the Philippines?

[Sky]

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


What did you say Max Sims? Are you from Mars?

[maxsims]

I said, "My!  You women arguing is sufficient to frighten me.  Really!"

[maudionisio]

RENZPHOTOGRAPHY AND CRUISE: I rest my case. Let the world judge.

[renzphotography]

This is for everyone.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/06/0602_030602_untouchables_2.html

http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14969084

[hill roberts]

My goodness,  I've just been reading all the banter taking place in this forum. I had no idea Joe allowed it. Still, reading the heated discussion has made the forum much more interesting although I'm still startled how the light banter ended into a heated discussion, including name-calling. Hmmm. What is there for me to say now that you guys have covered every aspect of this particular topic? All of you guys have a point. I must admit that I did have a few cross words with some South Asians over there and in Gibraltar. One Indian shopowner was overpoweringly rude when I bought a few postcards from him. Why he was rude God only knows. I think it's because in the UK, they are one of the most disliked people because there are just too many of them. Another reason would be their cultural decision to stay together, breed like rabbits and not learn to integrate. I have no quarrel with other immigrants in Europe. In fact, I get along nicely with the Moroccans, South Americans, the Chinese. I must confess that I feel more comfortable being with the Brits and Scandinavians, as well as the Germans and the Dutch.

[Joe Carillo]

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


What did you say Max Sims? Are you from Mars?

Sorry for the momentary over-the-top mayhem in the Forum! I was away on the day it happened and couldn't directly intervene. It's a good thing that my webmaster had made that warning about the need to keep discussions civil here, and that those concerned listened and agreed to a ceasefire.

Anyway, although I thought I understood what Max Sims said in a general sense, I looked up the direct meaning of the more intriguing words in his otherworldly English rant simply for my own enlightenment. All definitions below are from my digital Merriam-Webster’s 11th Collegiate Dictionary:

bandicoot
Function: noun
Etymology: Telugu pandikokku*
Date: 1813

1: any of several very large rats (genera Bandicota and Nesokia) of southern Asia destructive to crops
2: any of various small chiefly insectivorous and herbivorous marsupial mammals (family Peramelidae or family Peroryctidae) of Australia, Tasmania, and New Guinea

sheila
Function: noun
Etymology: probably from Sheila, female given name
Date: circa 1914

Australian & New Zealand   : a girl or young woman

1dinkum
Function: adjective
Etymology: English dialect dinkum, noun, work, share of work
Date: 1905

Australian & New Zealand   : AUTHENTIC, GENUINE —  often used with fair  <I was fair dinkum about my interest in their culture — Percy Trezise>

2dinkum
Function: adverb
Date: 1915

Australian & New Zealand   : TRULY, HONESTLY —  often used with fair;   often used interjectionally

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*Something funnily odd here: The Telugu pandikokku sounds like the Spanish term pan de coco and its Tagalog corruption, pandikoko, which means bread with sweet, grated coconut stuffing—one of my favorites when I was a teenager. Could there be a common root for all three terms sometime in the distant past? Is it possible that the connection is that the Telugu pandikokku is edible and that the natives--by some quirk of history--had somehow used the Spanish term pan de coco for that rodent? Talk about perfect coincidences in phonemes among languages that are oceans and thousands of miles apart!
 

[hill roberts]

Buenos dias, Joe,
Don't get me wrong. I quite enjoyed the heated discussion!  There were some very witty replies and comments. Cheers!

[Fred Natividad]

Maudionisio:

I agree that foreign words are needed into Tagalog when there are no Tagalog equivalents. That is fine for Tagalog - this may even lead to the desired evolution of a national language based on Tagalog. Examples of foreign words we need are bacteria, golf, algebra, etc...

But mastudyhan, naginkres, naginkwire, are examples of inexcusable substitutions of mapagaralan, dumami, nagtanong...

And what about the future of English in the Philippines? I feel - and this, of course, is subject to open discussion - that English should be VOLUNTARY so that anyone who desires it will have a high motivation to study proper English.

The status quo is a shameful scenario of characters with high visibility talking Taglish and very poor English. This is because they were FORCED to study English "pram gred wan to koleds." This may be the reason why Filipinos generally speak and write poorly in English since their minds constantly grope for words that come to mind from both Tagalog and English.

"Naginkres ang inkwayries tungkol sa ertkwik sa Chile..." That expression is funny. If the speaker was not poorly exposed to forced English he would have easily said "dumami and tanong tungkol sa lindol sa Chile..."

The point? To improve the use of a native language we must eliminate the FORCED use of English.

Also, voluntary study of English may lead to a better expression of that language because of higher voluntary motivation.