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orthography2
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| KAPAMPANGANS - THE CASTILIANS OF THEIR OWN RACE |
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| or, why we should hold on to the "c-qu" orthography |
    
A die-hard conservative, I have always been prone
to saving relics and antics that hold a special
place in our culture as Kapampangans, and these
include the so-called traditional orthography of
our language. For one thing we ought to save this
style of writing in order to keep the bond we have
with the Spanish language - something which has
always been a part of our present heritage. This
orthography which we adopted from the Spanish
system is important to us and should be retained
and not cast aside. After all, we Kapampangans,
throughout the 327 years Spain ruled our country,
except for just a few occasions, maintained rapport
and friendly relations with the Spaniards who looked
upon us as their loyal partners in the unification
and governance of our country. Only twice, between
the 1571 Battle of Bangkusay (between the Macabebes
under Bambalito or Taric Soliman, and the Spaniards
under Martin de Goiti) did the Pampanguenos revolt
against the Spaniards - something that should be
reckoned with. And even those two occurred during the
first century of the Spanish regime - the first one
in 1650, the second one, in 1662 led by Francisco
Maniago. The governor-general then quickly gave in
to the demands of the Pampangans, after realizing
how stupid it was to abuse their trusted fieres and
how dangerous it could be to arouse enmity with the
same group they had trained in Ternate as fighters
against the Moros and foreign invaders. Such revolts
also infuriated the King of Spain himself who, upon
hearing about the news, castigated the Spanish
officials in the Philippines for abusing the people
he referred to as "the Castilians of the Indios".
For there was even a saying then that "three Pampangans
plus one Spaniard equals four Spaniards".
The old (or classic) orthography is easy as pie,
as far as learning it is concerned. But its
detractors maintain that it is not being used as
often as it should because it is so hard to spell!
That's baloney! The real reason is because
Kapampangan is not in the school curriculum and is
not the medium of instruction on its own turf.
Speakers of the language are intimated into feeling
that their own language is just for the illiterates
and is relegated to the background because it is
inferior, that is why they always resort to English
and Tagalog, the languages they formally learn in
school. English, with all the complexities and
intricacies in its spelling is much more difficult
to learn. Yet, we Filipinos have been able to cope
with that and learned it easily. What more with
Kapampangan which just follows the simple Spanish
style of writing? And yet, some say that Kapampangan
students are intimidated by the presence of the
letter Q. It wouldn't even take an hour to learn
how to use the C and the Qu which are but the noble
cousins of the letter K. The significance of the
presence of the C and the Qu, and in effect, the
absence of K, is that in so doing, we are able to
retain our identity as a people by projecting our
distinct trademark. Cailangan, talacad taya ing
quecatang bandera, itang Capampangan!
Pampangans are a proud race who just can't afford
to be copycats after all the emblazoning glory they
had during their heyday. When in need of an
inspiration, just remember what the Spanish King
wrote in his letters about our forefathers: "They
are the Castilians of their own race."
- Ernest C.Turla, Portland, Oregon
P.S.
Our ancestors' writing was in another form - akin to
what they still use in Thailand and in Arab countries
where they don't use the Roman style. It is not just
in orthography where they are different since if it is
just so, any educated person can just easily switch
using certain letters of the same alphabet. With the
exceptions of some scholars in archaelogy, nobody else
can really read our forefather's writing. And of
course, just because it was our original writing
system we should go back to it, perhaps preserve it
and use it with pride. No matter how loyal we may be
to Kapampangan we don't want to go back that far. For
we should also respect our latter-day forefathers in
their evolving culture. Maybe what we want to do is to
just bring a continuation of our adapted way of writing
instead of undergoing an unnecessary change which to
certain die-hards like Federico Pascual is hard to
accept. There should be no turning back. We should be
happy over what the Spaniards introduced to us: the
Roman system. Before the coming of the Spaniards,
Filipinos never knew this system of writing. But
Filipinos are given to making changes. Instead of
going back to their ancient form of writing, the
Tagalogs kept the Roman system but changed the
orthography. As lately as half a century ago,
Kapampangans, copycats as most Filipinos are,
tried to follow suit and are still trying.
As a proof, some even spell the Kapampangan word
"nang" as "ng" - just like how the Tagalogs spell it!
But they are still enamored to the same elegance
Soto and his contemporaries used in their classic
writing: they spell "qng" as "kng" - ridiculously
still abbreviating what is already short enough!
Like what I insinuated in my article, How To Save
The Tiger That Is Pampanga, the farther away we keep
our language from Tagalog, the safer it will be
from total destruction. We have to protect our
language from the clutches of its would-be nemesis.
Now going back to orthography, this column from the
Philippine News would probably change the minds of
language philosophers:
Leo Paz's column:
The original Romanized Philippine alphabet had 20
letters. It included the digraph "ng".
The new Philippine alphabet, however , has
expanded to 28 letters, with 5 vowels (a,e,i,o,u)
and 23 consonants (b,c,d,f,g,h,j,k,l,m,n,n ng,p,r,
s,t,v,w,x,y,z) (Finally, are they waking up to
their senses? So now, let's quit "bastardizing",
to use Federico Pascual's term, our language in its
orthography, since the abakada is now an abacad - ET)
This has meant the addition of the letters, c,f,j,
the Spanish n~, q,v,s,z. This will be noted in
textbooks used in the Philippines today, such as the
"Bagong Alpabeto: Mga Unang Hakbang sa Pagbasa (The
New Alphabet: First Steps in Reading) published by
the National Bookstore Editorial Board in 1994 for
the elementary grades and "Filipino for Everyone",
a textbook for adult learners by Prof. Paquito B.
Dayos (1995) This new Filipino alphabet has many
practical implications particularly in vocabulary
adapted from the Spanish and English languages.
Even Filipino names such as Jocson, etc. indicate
this influence. This change may also revive the
questions about the spelling of certain borrowed
words such as "taksi", "silya", "tsokolate", etc.
(With the return of the c, q, ch, etc., in the
Tagalog alphabet and in the new books being used,
what would be the point in not sticking to what
we still have? While Tagalog is busy returning the
letters it got rid of, we are able to save time in
that we don't even have to do the same thing since
we still have them. In fact this Spanish style of
writing is preserved in the Classic Kapampangan
Dictionary written by yours truly - ECT)
Deng aliwa agad da mong sabian ing pre-colonial
orthography. Balamu mo, atin. Ala! Orthography has
something to do with spelling only and not phonetics
or sound. Inyang in-"introduce" de reng Castila
ing Roman system of writing, tambing neng "c-q" at
alang "k" ing atyu. Uling ala yang "K" ing Castila.
Bayu canita, deng Pilipino aliwang sistema ing
gagamitan da, at macananu ra mong balu nung "c" ya
o "k" ya pin ing letra, neng pareu la mu pangayagcas.
E ta dapat isacwil o tiwalag ing quecatamung culturang
amana ta careng Castila. Ing cultura tamu ya pin ing
acamulatan tamu queng bie, itang acaguisingan tamu,
aliwa ing quetang panaun da pa ri nunung Balagtas
o Rajah Soliman. Ing apulut tamu careng Castila queng
malwat-alwat tang relacion, dapat tamung simpan cambe
na ning macatagan tamung orihinal a salita, puera queng
dagdagan ta la pa reng amanu tamu calupa ning gagawan
da reng angang lenguahi queti qng yatu, anti mo ing
English, queng capamilatan na ning pamanandam
(borrowing) banting upayang we will end up having
an enriched vocabulary. E caya masanting ita?
Deng "purists" careng Tagalug mesambut nala, sabi
cu na ata quecayu, eh. Tabalu nung atatandan ye pa
itang sinulat cu quetang aldo. Ing sinulat cu carin
ya pin ing paparapat na ning DE at ning gobiernu careng
escuela, a e masanting uling milalaco ya paintungulan
ing Amanung Sisuan queng mismung lugal na. 'Manan mung
e re canu buring pagamit ing Kapampangan bilang medium
of instruction! Ining bage aini yang mumuna ta mung
cailangan lingunan, bilang maprisigui (priority),
aliwa ing demontris a "orthography" o ing pangalaco ra
reng amanung Castila a total e naman macaperwisyu
mo sana queng quecatamung sabi at calinangan. Sinabi
cu carin, nung e pamu malingap ini, masayang mu ing
aliwa tang capagalan, uling mengari tamu queng sasaclu,
nung ing latang lalamnan tang danum maragul ya busbus
que lalam, e na acuang cumatmu.
Ing quecong talasuyu para queng casulung na ning
culturang Capampangan, ERNIE C. TURLA
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