Buwan ng Wika (The Month of Language)

For quite some time now, I’ve been really interested in re-learning my native tongue. I feel that it’s good to learn new things from my own language. I’ve been deeply interested in learning other languages but then again I feel as if I’m still a foreigner to my own language.

I’ve even listed some words in Filipino with its English counterparts. And what I found really amusing while doing this was, there were times when I get a hard time thinking of the Filipino equivalents of the said words. Some examples were: wallet, purse, boy, girl, etc.

As to what I can remember during my estudyante (student) days, wallet in Filipino was walet. Purse, on the otherhand, was like walet also. I don’t really use something deeper than that. I don’t want to make my nose bleed.

Then I asked my sister, “Ano sa tagalog yung wallet?” (What is the tagalog for wallet?) She was quiet for some time then said, “wallet din.” (wallet.)

But then she kept on thinking of a deeper term. “Meron pang ibang term para sa wallet e.” (There’s still another term for wallet.)

“Nalimutan ko na.” (I forgot.)

I’m really disappointed with myself because I haven’t enriched my talasalitaan (vocabulary) in Filipino. I’ve studied for 16 years. And what I mostlly learn was English. Philippines should also focus on Filipino. I really wouldn’t want to hear Filipinos speaking a foreign language instead of their own.

It’s a pity that what we got from our Filipino subjects were only the shallow terms. Most of which are borrowed from other countries. Just like that wallet I mentioned a while ago. We just tagalized the pronunciation and that’s it.

I hope I can remember the term though.

Sayang ang labing-anim na taon ko sa paaralan kung hindi ko yun maaalala. Sayang talaga.

Also posted @ oh.bEe