language
 symposium3
martinez
DILABIRTH
akademya
defenders
sally
dugong aso
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| KAPAMPANGAN - A LANGUAGE IN PERIL |
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| Capampangan, mipacde ca! |
A Letter To Josie D. Henson, the president of the Akademyang
Kapampangan based in Angeles City:
Dear Josie,
I will try to hold a symposium through e-mail, the topic of which will be:
What main factor is largely responsible for the decline of Kapampangan?
My own opinion:
Kapampangan territory, according to historian, Mariano Henson, used to
encompass much of what is now Central Luzon, from the southern tip of
Bataan in the south to the Caraballo Mountains in the north. As time
passed by more and more towns that used to be Kapampangan towns lost
their language and were ceded to other provinces.
No less than the author, Renato Tayag, noted that Kapampangan would eventually disappear along with its province, Pampanga, which could have become a nation or principality were it not for the unification of the archipelago under Spain. This, he says, at an even faster pace with the advancement of technology in communication. In his article "The Vanishing Pampango Nation",
he said that the language will vanish judging upon his keen observation especially on members of the new generation - the students, that is.
Why is this the trend? Why is the eventual disappearance of Kapampangan
blowing in the wind? There are many factors (see, How To Save TheTiger That Is Pampanga by Ernie Turla at http://maxpages.com/pampanga) involved, but society has the finger of accusation on that institution we call school . It is a well-known fact that schools are killing Kapampangan softly with the inculcation and emphasis on other languages right in their own domain. Tagalog, especially.
Before delving further into that, let us first study the child himself and a little lesson on child development. Yes, the child who is going to be the future of the country, the child who will grow up into a man and who, during his youth, studies in a child-centered institution of learning. While it may be that his first language is Kapampangan, especially if he is a "first born", it wouldn't be quite that way too for his younger and upcoming siblings. Let me substantiate that by
following him in his pathway of life:
At six, the child starts in his formal schooling. At that tender age when he has not even attained a full vocabulary of his mother language, much less developed
love and pride for it, Tagalog-learning is already imposed on him. Unlike during the fifties and sixties when the medium of instruction in the lower grades was
Kapampangan, the medium they use now is Tagalog. Think of the adverse effect this will have on the yet flexible child! Think of how it would be for the child whenever he comes home from school. Besides the Tagalog he hears in school, he hears Tagalog too on the radio as well as on television and video. If the family subscribes to Tagalog magazines too like Liwayway, buys Tagalog komics and Tagalog records and takes the child to Tagalog movies, it won't be long before the child would realize that keeping his language is not worth doing and would eventually get rid of it and just stick to Tagalog. Add to this the fact that some teachers even encourage them to speak and practice Tagalog at home and fines
those caught speaking Kapampangan. So at home when he tries to speak to his parents in Tagalog, very likely his parents who also anyway know Tagalog would just answer him in Tagalog. And then there is the maid too who usually could
speak Tagalog only. He is so exposed to too much Tagalog right on his own turf that he starts to formulate the assumption that Kapampangan is not an important language at all! His younger siblings would experience the same thing, and seeing their oldest brother speaking Tagalog, they would just follow suit, leaving just the parents the only speakers of their own language in their home. Now would these children ever care to lose their native language? Of course, not! Why? At six or seven, love and pride of the native tongue has not yet taken roots. Love of native language develops very much later in life. And so at that tender age all they care for is learning how to speak Tagalog. Right in their own territory, they are made to feel that their language is inferior and that there is no future in it. Right on its own turf, Kapampangan is not only downplayed in importance but humiliated and treated like dirt before the eyes of its own speakers!
In fact Kapampangan appears to be just like a second language to them especially when they see it being taught in local colleges as a 3-unit elective course! At that stage in life when they should be experts in their own language, they are just starting to study its grammar and all that! This remedial measure is helpful
all right, but the language situation is still pathetic! The underlying cause of Kapampangan decadence is not being nipped in the bud! It's outrageous! Don't they know that a person learns faster during the springtime of his life? Just read any book on Child Development .
So, as we see, it is the innocent teacher in a school in Pampanga who unknowingly and inadvertently causes the disappearance of his own native tongue and hence, an accomplice!
Yes, along with the media, and along with the parents
as well! Kapampangan children, it seems, are being fashioned to become Tagalog speakers when at home, while using English in business and governmental affairs. Still fluent in Kapampangan when they go to college in Manila, upon their return home four years later, they become ridiculously "balid" in their Amanung Siswan. They can't even make one complete Kapampangan sentence. Everytime they can't
express some mere basic stuff in Kapampangan, they resort to Tagalog which has become easier for them - to the disgust and frustration of true-blue Kapampangans around. Kapampangans living abroad can speak the language with more fluency!
Ain't that a shame? Those young people
should be treated as outcasts - for they lost a great deal of their
identity as Kapampangan.
Actually, Kapampangan can be wiped away from the face of the earth in
just one day, if all Kapampangans would agree to do just that!
It wouldn't take a century or even years like what Renato Tayag
predicted. It can be done in just one day, or maybe in just one minute!
It can happen overnight! All Kapampangans have to do is to quit
speaking Kapampangan altogether at the same time, and switch to
speaking just Tagalog which they can all speak anyway! And behold,
there won't be any Kapampangan-speaker anymore in Pampanga! Everybody
is now Tagalog-speaking! But should we let that nightmare happen?
Should we let that unspeakable situation befall upon us? Huh, should we?!!
For all I know, all true-blue Kapampangans would rather fight than switch!
They so love their language that they won't ever give it up! They have
a dream like Martin Luther King! They dream that someday (before it's
too late) some red-blooded Kapampangan congressman would shout in the
halls of Congress that Kapampangans can't take it anymore! They dream
that someday those congressmen would demand the replacement of Tagalog
with Kapampangan as a medium of instruction at least in their own turf.
They dream that someday their language can be freed from the clutches of
Tagalog - the language that poses as the number one threat to Kapampangan
and perhaps eventually its nemesis! Yes, the Tagalog language, my dear
friends, is the enemy within! Mark my word! 
Josie, I have written the above letter as soon as I finished reading
yours. The idea behind it is like this: We may keep on pumping water
into a can, but if it just leaks because of a hole in it, of what use
would our efforts be? We'll have projects that will, in the future,
only be gone with wind! So that that won't happen, we should get to
the bottom of the problem, pull out its roots. Tagalog is the real
culprit in the on-going deterioration of our language!
Mayap ayaldo queca,
Ernie C. Turla
president, Akademyang Kapampangan U.S.A.
Sept. 5, 2001
Dear Josie,
.... that is why if and when the Constitution is rewritten again in a
couple of years, one of the amendments should be on our national
language. As long as Tagalog, or Filipino based in Tagalog (to put it mildly),
is the national language, there is no way the other native languages,
notably Kapampangan, would survive. We can prevent ethnic cleansing
only if we have a language that is neutral like English to become our national language. Filipino (actually, Tagalog) is being propagated at the expense of
the other native languages which are being shelved or shoved into the
background even in their own territory. What a disgrace it is for Kapampangan
to be a "hostage" and a "servant" in his own house! But like what Rizal said,
"There are no tyrants where there are no slaves." But didn't he himself say,
"Ang hindi magmahal sa sariling wika ay higit pa sa hayop at malansang isda."?
That's why we can't forsake Kapampangan even when we are already living here
in the U.S. We have to protect it from the jaws of decadence and from the
claws of dominant state-sponsored languages.
I read in the papers that August was declared National Language Month there.
And the Philippines paid tribute to Rizal, Quezon, Francisco Balagtas,
Lope K. Santos and Jose Corazon de Jesus. All are Tagalog. How are we
represented here? They did not even mention Aurelio Tolentino, but even if they had mentioned him, they will just probably emphasize his Tagalog writing. And if
it is really Filipino that is being celebrated, why include Balagtas whose language
was pure Tagalog instead of "based on Tagalog" as we are misled to believe?
It was really Tagalog that they celebrated, otherwise, they would have included
instead newer writers.
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Sept. 17, 2001
You told me you were going to
be busy and will have a radio program in the City of San Fernando, that's
wonderful! Now we would be in a better position to promote Kapampangan
culture. It's a first step. We'll have our presence felt in the community and
we can voice our opinions and address the issues on language that concern us.
For instance, how come a Kapampangan finds it easier to write (and sometimes,
to speak even) in Tagalog than in Kapampangan? Are our schools the culprit,
or is it the Constitution? They say that our national language is not Tagalog
itself, but some lingo "based on Tagalog" and which is called Filipino. If that is the
case, how come last month, August, when National Language Month was
observed, Lope K. Santos, Jose Corazon de Jesus and Francisco Balagtas
were honored, instead of some new generation writers? These were writers of pure
Tagalog, and not writers in Filipino! Is it because, there really is no marked difference between the two? Rizal intimated that we should love our native tongue. We all concur with him on that. The only problem is that Tagalog or Filipino is not
our native tongue. Kapampangan is. And should forever be. At least in our beloved
province of Pampanga, that is! Josie, I think we should join forces with other
Kapampangan groups and start a movement before it's too late. Language activism
maybe something new but can spread like wildfire if we arouse the nationalistic
(or should we say, regionalistic) feelings of our brothers in the south and in the
north. Maybe that article on Ethnic Cleansing could be as effective to us all in the
same way as the book "The French Revolution" was to Bonifacio and his ilk.
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Date: 01-10-01 16:19:29 EDT
From: Nijel.Granda@West.Boeing.com (Granda, Nijel)
To: EITURLA@aol.com
Dear Mr. Turla,
Mr. Camiling informed me that I would be able to obtain the Kapampangan
Dictionary from you directly. Can you please let me know how I may
correspond with you and obtain the ordering information? I look forward to
reading your book since as a child growing up in Bacolor, I was not formally
taught Kapampangan (we were taught English and Tagalog at school) and have
forgotten many of the words. I often mix up Tagalog and Kapampangan (and
English) in one sentence.
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A Letter to Leo Paz, PN columnist
Dear Leo,
In the July 11 PN issue, you wrote: In 1987, the revered historian Renato Constantino said ..... "All of these groups are hardly articulate in their
native tongues because of the neglect of our native dialects (sic), if not
the deliberate attempts to prevent their growth."
How true this is! At the age of six, a child who has not even developed a
full vocabulary in his own language, is already made to learn a foreign one.
As a result, he never learns to write in his own language, much less
develop love for it, which to me is pathetic. Regarding "deliberate attempts
to prevent their growth", please read the following website entitled Ethnic
Cleansing. Here is its url: http://www.philippines.com.ph/ColonialRP/ethnic.htm
You also wrote: " In the mid-80's, Dr. Virgilio Enriquez (of U.C. Berkeley), together with several young psychologists at the University of the Philippines started teaching and writing their works in Filipino. Slowly, but surely and painfully,
a national language that is being used more and more in classrooms is evolving."
This is something new to me though somewhat heartening. I hope this would really
happen during this century. As of now, when I say, "mekeni" to a friend, he gives
me a perplexed look and then does not seem to understand. Which clearly shows
that no Kapampangan word has yet been incorporated into Filipino. What have
been included are just perhaps the words that are the same in Tagalog such
as 'bucas", "babae", "ulam", "lagnat", "pera", "malacas", etc. I think there really
is no difference between Tagalog and Filipino, except in mere definition. While
Tagalog means pure Tagalog as is spoken in Bulacan, Filipino is a lingo "based on
Tagalog" and which is supposedly used in classrooms today. If that is the case,
why is it , I thought, that last August which was observed as National Language Month, the Philippines paid tribute to Francisco Balagtas, Lope K. Santos and
Jose Corazon de Jesus, instead of to, like let us say, Dr. Virgilio Enriquez, an
advocate of Filipino? Balagtas, Santos, De Jesus, as well as Quezon and Rizal,
did not speak Filipino, did they? They spoke pure Tagalog. And that made me
realize and conclude that when we say Filipino, we just actually mean Tagalog.
Rizal said: "Ang hindi magmahal sa sariling wika ay higit pa sa hayop at malansang isda." That's right! It means that the people in Calamba, Laguna should love Tagalog. And it also means that the people in Vigan, Ilocos Sur
should love Ilocano, people in Camalig, Albay should love Bikol, and the people
in Sulu should love Badjao. I don't think they can love another language more
than their own without being compared to a "malansang isda". Just my thoughts.
For related topics:
Languages In Danger Of Getting Extinct
http://maxpages.com/symposium2/symposium3
How To Save The Tiger That Is Pampanga
http://maxpages.com/pampanga
Ethnic Cleansing
http://www.philippines.com.ph/ColonialRP/ethnic.htm
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