Communicating in English: The Filipino Way

The Filipinos' knack for coining new words has resulted to our country's diverse and rich vocabulary. The result is often amusing, if not hilarious. It usually starts with our borrowing of words from another language. We borrow them, we transform them to become our own. But not at all times we accept them. They become ours if they are useful; they become adopted if they make our lives more convenient - they, therefore, become our servants. We fashion them according to our own convenience.

Take for example the term ispoting- the term may sound like a gerund or an adjective and hence can be mistaken for an English word. Yet, it exists in the Warays' vocabulary, the Cebuanos', the Boholanos' and the Ilonggos.' Ispoting, in all these languages, means well-dressed or well-groomed.

“Ispoting man si Noy Pipit!” (Noy Pipit is well-dressed!) Since the remark is addressed to Noy Pipit, it carries a subtext: that of the speaker's curiosity of why Noy Pipit is well-dressed. It is equivalent to the Filipinos' annoying habit of asking where one is headed for:

“Where are you going?”

“Ormoc.”

“What will you do in Ormoc.?”

“I'll see my dentist.”

“Dental check-up?”

Ispotingmust have come from the English word sporty or sporting, e.g., “The administration issued a memorandum informing the public that male students sporting long hair shall no longer be allowed to enroll in this institution effective this school year.”

It makes sense why the Visayans adopted sporting and transformed it into ispoting: It is shorter than “nindot ug sinina si Noy Pipit” (“Noy Pipit is wearing nice clothes”) or “hinlo tan-awon si Noy Pipit” (“Noy Pipit looks neat and clean”). Ispoting is easier and more compact.

It is the people's culture that shapes the language: it was culture (and the need) that shaped ispoting.

Indigenized English terms. Cultural researcher and writer Edilberto N. Alegre calls a foreign element's transformation to fit into the Filipinos' culture, indigenization or Filipinization, just like what happened to the word sporting.

Another word that has been recently included in the Filipinos' vocabulary is the noun “text.” Its transformation from being a noun into becoming a verb has not caused a stir even among the scholars. In fact, nobody minds it because everyone uses it for his/her own convenience. Text is associated with new technology, particularly with cellular phones.

Below are some terms which made their way to our vocabulary:

To a Filipino, the word hitch means to hitchhike and is therefore associated with transportation, say, “I don't have enough money for transportation. Manghitch ko.” This one is acceptable following the standard usage of the English language. This, however, can mislead those who are still not familiar with this style - of borrowing and of combining words - when this same word is used to refer to free lunch, for instance, “Hitch ko sa imong balon ha?” instead of saying “Can I have some of your packed lunch?”

The word hitch is incongruent with the rest of the sentence because as I what have said, it is associated with transportation, and not with food. The latter statement (request) though is not the exact translation of the former, for it (former) has a certain quality, a subtext, which the latter cannot capture. While the former implies the speaker's nothingness, the latter suggests forwardness. This one will be a more appropriate translation though, “Would you mind sharing your packed lunch with me? I forgot mine.” As it is, hitch as used in this context succeeds in conveying the intended message. Like ispoting, it is used to substitute a not very “cool” term, i.e., tagai ko (give me). Like ispoting, hitch is transformed to fit into our culture; it is indigenized to make our lives convenient.

Wordiness. When we speak, we tend to be emphatic. In an attempt not to offend somebody, we refuse to be honest. To stress a point, we embellish our sentences; to show our sincerity, we use elaborate language. “I'll be the one” is a phrase that we, Filipinos, often use especially when we want to convince somebody. For example,