Religious Fanatics

Fried in our own lard

Starry, starry night

How Safe is the Pinoy?

Corruption: Shooting for Solutions

Ang Salumpuwit ni Aputiktik

M. L. Tan

The other day I was browsing in one of Old Manila’s bookstores and found a copy of a small magazine called Katas, dating back to May 1965. What caught my attention was this blurb on the back cover: "Patronize Filipino (not Tagalog), the national language based on the lingua franca of Cosmpolitan Manila!"

The editor and publisher, Atty. Geruncio Lacuesta, clearly had an ax to grind against what he called the "Frankenstein of Tagalog purism". Inside his digest (which is what Katas is supposed to mean), Lacuesta elaborates on this Frankenstein, railing against new names for different ranks in Manila’s police department.

A patrolman was to be called Kabatas with appropriate gradations such as Pangunahing Kabatas for patrolman first class, Kapununmbatas for corporal and Apubatas for sergeant. A detective was to be called Katiktik with similar permutations in the names as they go further up, so that a detective sergeant would have the rank of Aputiktik.

The higher ranks were Kalantaw for lieutenant, Kabasal for captain, Karangal for major, Kagiting for lieutenant colonel, Kabunyi for full colonel. If those names had been retained, Ping Lacson, as brigadier general, would be Gatbatas.

Lacuesta lashed out at these new names, and what he called "outlandish military commands" in Tagalog that been introduced in the Armed Forces of the Philippines. Lacuesta accused "the high priests of Tagalog purism" of going overboard and warned that these "zealots" were building up a linguistic crisis that could be as explosive as that of India, where people had rioted over the imposition of Hindi as a national language.

Lacuesta was lobbying for a Filipino language that incorporated terms from Spanish and English as well as other Philippine languages. He complained that "alchemists" at the Institute of National Language had reduced the Filipino alphabet to 20 letters, and were trying to fit borrowed words into this reduced alphabet, or to "invent" completely new terms.

Lacuesta was reacting to a "purist" trend that started in the 1950s, a quest for a "pure" national language, culminating with the decision in 1959 to call the national language "Pilipino" rather than "Filipino" and to adopt a Tagalog-based grammar and orthography or spelling system. New words were coined, including the now legendary salumpuwit (very loose English translation: ass-catcher ) to mean a chair.

While the debates and coined words seem amusing now, we have to remember that the furor over language took place amid a tide of post-war nationalism, reflecting our often painful search for a national identity.

Reading through Katas reminded me of another older publication I had in my library, this one dating to 1969, on the eve of still another nationalist wave. Entitled "Ang Demokratikong Pilipinong Ulnong", this booklet was produced by a nationalist group called MAN, whose leaders included the historian Renato Constantino and Senator Lorenzo Tanada.

If the title seems strange it is because "ulnong" is an Ilokano word, borrowed by MAN to mean "society". MAN calls on readers to study hard, not just the booklet’s contents but the new words they were trying to introduce, which they said would contribute to a more relevant (maugnaying) national language. It’s an amazing document with all kinds of coined words from different sources: Cebuano, Ilokano and old Tagalog. The attempt at linguistic nationalism extends all the way up to a list of the organization’s officers, where you find names like "Ramon Mitra, Anak", yes, that means "Ramon Mitra, Junior".

Thirty five years later, we can look back and say Lacuesta was right when he wrote about the need to base our national language on what is already spoken. Lacuesta noted, for example, that people do not usually say, "Pupunta ako sa paliparan" and would opt instead for, "Pupunta ako sa airport."

But this does not mean MAN was wrong. MAN saw a national language built out of more conscious efforts to coin and use certain words. Lacuesta scoffed at Tagalog-based military commands but those are still in use today. And while most Filipinos do say, "Pupunta ako sa airport," we also see the emergence of a more formal Filipino where "paliparan" is just as acceptable, as in the flight attendants’ announcements before take-off and landing. Government can play a role, helping to shape and promote a national language that brings in elements from all sources, including local languages, without the process turning into a contrived exercise.

It’s never easy to predict why some words catch on and others don’t, but it’s pretty obvious why "upuan ni sarhento" glides in so much more easily than "salumpuwit ni Aputiktik" or why everyone uses "kindergarten" while "laruang-paaralan", a term proposed by MAN, quickly slipped into oblivion. "Salumpuwit" and "aputiktik" have coarse connotations while "laruang-paaralan" over-emphasizes the play aspects of kindergarten.

There is, too, the matter of being economical in our vocabulary, grammar and syntax. Note how people are always abbreviating words and taking short-cuts with sentences. Even the French and Germans, noted for their pompous linguistic rules, are now trying to simplify spelling and are dropping kilometric words.

Slowly, the academicians and bureaucrats are realizing something the man and woman on the street have always known: languages are there for communication. With or without government intervention, we will modify, borrow and coin words that best express our feelings and meanings, and we will do this striving to be simple without becoming simplistic.