Like clockwork it goes, the never-ending battle for what language to use, to teach Filipino children, Math and Science and whatever. The debate on language is as volatile as the debate on Religion. What’s your opinion?
Once upon a time, I would have said, go English— simply because I learn better using English and simply because just about every reference material and new discovery in the world is in English. There are expressions from English that lose itself in the translation, the same goes for Filipino to English and just about every other language in the world.
On one hand, Math is a language unto itself. It has its own expressions and it is the language that Science use. Mathematics does not care whether or not you speak English, Filipino, Japanese, French, Yiddish or l33t, or if you know all of those languages like a native does. For example, PI is still 3.14 yada yada no matter what spoken language you use.
Perhaps, the questions worth considering is how does a teacher convey the lesson and how well does the student learns it. Does it matter if the teacher expresses herself in a combination of English and Tagalog? Does it matter if the teacher expresses herself in Cebuano or gibberish?
Whatever works, you know?
E=mc^2 is still mass-energy equivalence in any language and understanding that still would depend on the teacher’s understanding of Einstein before he or she can properly convey it to the student.
Then again, as @lord_dracula on twitter pointed out, like English v. Filipino, people have been debating computer languages for like forever. There are even song parodies about it, as Julia Ecklar’s song goes:
“For God wrote in Lisp code
When he filled the leaves with green.
The fractal flowers and recursive roots:
The most lovely hack I’ve seen.
And when I ponder snowflakes, never finding two the same,
I know God likes a language with its own four-letter name.”
The debate on the never-ending battle for language continues and will continue on and on. Like many before and would continue to persist. I join others in saying, “Cocoa is awesome,” but should ‘hello, world’ be written twice, I think I know enough of “Python,” to say that it is also great and would suffice. The same goes for English, which I prefer, but Filipino works too or vice-versa. “Whatever works,” you know?
Popularity: 5% [?]
Honestly, I really am fine with both. My preference is biased since I’ve used English since I was a kid. Now, in other parts of The Philippines, it may be different, and I’m okey with that.
If learning is the goal, at least they’re learning, right?
The fact that teachers, professors, and all these education experts are so caught up on this debate, saddens the hell out of me. Is it really language, or actually developing an environment conducive to learning, and trying to work with all aspects of a child’s environment, like their living standards, health, sleep, nutrition, community development…
As far as I’m concerned, this debate should be made in the context of an overall educational program that puts students first, not to highlight the brain capacity of these educational experts to debate among themselves.
I believe that language is a way for learning and education, therefore, we should use the language that best provides better learning. Be that as it may, I would not have been able to avail of the same opportunities in my past, if I had not learned the English language.
Language is a tool.
And like every tool, you need the right tool to get something done.
And as far as language is concerned, the job that needs to get done is to access USEFUL information and knowledge – the kind that gets entire societies weaned from low-added-value activities into high-yield, high-tech, high-brand-equity capital-intensive kind of work.
And guess what: ENGLISH does the job undisputably better than Tagalog.
How many engineering, scientific, and financial ideas are articulated in Tagalog? Hmmmm… (scratches head…).
I wrote about this and cited statistics here to show how futile it is to try to Tagalog-eer our way out of our collective intellectual bankruptcy.
As we speak, the VOLUME of knowledge being churned out and published in ENGLISH in a week utterly DWARFS the volume of USEFUL information being churned out in TAGALOG in a year.
To continue instilling in the masses the ridiculous notion that Tagalog will get them anywhere is borderline criminal. It is essentially depriving them of an essential KEY to all the knowledge floating out there in unprecedented volumes and in unprecedented levels of accessibility.
The truth is that there are many countries worldwide that teach students to be fluent in more than one language, and so the question isn’t really valid. Most of Scandinavia is fluent in both English and their local language. The Swiss can speak as many as four languages. South Africa has 11 “official languages”, though in practice people generally only learn English and the dialect of their particular tribe.
I think the question of “which language is better for education” avoids the real question: why is our educational system so bad? That has its roots in far more visible and measurable problems, like a lack of schools and classrooms, fewer total school years than the international standard (Filipinos graduate from high school at around 16 years old whereas the international standard is 18), low standards for teachers, corruption in the Department of Education, etc. Fixing these problems simply isn’t a government priority, and it should be.
“I think the question of “which language is better for education” avoids the real question: why is our educational system so bad?”
exactly.
“Fixing these problems simply isn’t a government priority, and it should be.”
the customary response, “government has other things in mind like making deals and such to worry about details like delivering good services” must be said.
now that’s out of the way, like most things in the Philippines I think, to rely on the national government to actually be doing something for the people is… like Juan Tamad (John Lazy) waiting for the Apple to fall down the tree, straight to your waiting mouth. I think education in the Philippines can benefit much more through radical rethinking by the private endeavor and I think, perhaps one of those rare instances when local government can focus on.
Allan,
Natumbok mo!
Hindi lamang wika ang isyu dito — napakaliit na bahagi lang ng buong usapin na ito ang wika. Kahit napakagaling mag-Inggles ng isang guro, kung walang laman ang kanyang utak, o walang maayos na sistema at kurikulum ang paaralang kanyang pinagtuturuan, wala din tayong mararating.
Damn, excellent comment there Allan. I’m definitely in agreement..
I do wonder, Cocoy, why despite the age-old acknowledgement that the National Government is useless, we still make these calls for the NG to do something.
At the end of the day, it is up to the person and his/her immediate circle or community. Each one has to take personal responsibility for their own success. Local Government indeed is a better place to start. Definitely better than always blaming a sitting president.
Btw, I still believe language reflects the intellectual horizons of its speakers.
As I keep emphasizing:
There is no Tagalog word for efficiency. ;)
haah, I love it Benign0, the first time I encountered a comment from you, that was one of your arguments (efficiency).. honestly, sometimes, you just make me smile..
ha ha! Nick, one thing certain about me is that I’m consistent (or at least I try to be). :D
benign0,
1st, lol @ efficiency.
2nd, everyone blames a sitting president in a democracy, i think when things go wrong and everyone credits him or her when things do go right even if he didn’t do a think to make either case happen. bill clinton and george w., are examples.
but in Manila, we take it a bit further than that.
i think people subconsciously think the President is an elected king/queen and every other elected official is royalty. And I think subconsciously, the president (no matter who he or she is) thinks the same way. i mean, every bit of problem, even garbage collection in Manila is the President’s problem (which shouldn’t be the case).
nobody moves without blessing from the palace. piss the speaker off or the palace, no funds to do anything for your people. everyone is beholden to manila in spite of decades long effort to change that.
I think Manolo already addressed the ‘no tagalog word for efficiency’ last year:
http://www.quezon.ph/1426/mama-mary-moved-the-muslims/#comment-510151
cvj, it’s easy to quote and link, dude. But what separates the men from the boys in forums like ours is the ability to actually take apart the content itself.
You then proceed to fail to mention that I took that comment of MLQ’s you linked to and actually took it apart in this subsequent comment.
For your convenience, here it is (excerpts from MLQ3′s original comment are in italics and enclosed in quotes):
For someone who’s made a blogging career out of citing trivial statistics, you seem to have left out quite a lot in this instance, dude. :D
Ang isang bagay na sa tingin ko’y ayaw tanggapin ng ilan sa atin ay ang katangian ng lahat ng “buhay” na wika — ang kakayahang baguhin ito upang maipagbuti, ang kakayahang madagdagan ang mga salita, ang kakayahang ipag-ibayo ang sakop at lalim ng wikang iyon.
Marahil totoong walang wastong pagsasalin ang makapagpapaliwanag ng salitang “efficiency”, ngunit hindi nangangahulugan na hindi natin pwedeng ayusin at iwasto ang wika upang, sa hinaharap, ay mabigyan ito ng wastong konteksto sa wika natin.
Sa kabilang banda, tanggap ko rin naman na para sa ating mga hangarin sa kasalukuyan, maaring mas mabuting gamitin na muna ang Inggles. Subalit hindi ito balang pilak na lulutas ng lahat ng mga kaukulang suliranin sa edukasyon.
Ang naalala ko Jon sa Filipino class sa dlsu, kung walang word or direct translation, pupuwede mo adopt yung word.
maybe my memory has some drive sectors missing, but does that still hold true?
The point I was making is how the lack of a Tagalog word for efficiency reflects the LACK of importance our society places on this concept.
I’m saying that if efficiency were an important aspect of Pinoy culture, a priori then the language (in this case, Tagalog) would have evolved to reflect this importance — the same way that we have an abundance of words to describe rice (compared to non-rice-eating societies who have only the word “rice” to work with).
Note that this no-Tagalog-word-for-efficiency thing continues to be something I am able to raise a stink about. That’s because no one has been able to come up with a convincing Tagalog word for it (or a phrase that naturally jumps out at the mere mention of the concept).
Yet there is this undercurrent of denial that such a word in fact does not exist and that the fact is that Pinoys DO NOT have a strong culture of efficiency.
Hmmm, I beg to ask:
Does the presence of the word “schadenfreude” in the German language necessarily mean that the Germans are the only people capable of deriving pleasure at the misery of others?
What makes people here think assimilating the word efficient won’t work?
efficient
efisyent
episyent
efficiency
efisyensi
episyensi
Whichever, whatever, if there is a need to adopt the word, why does it matter that we don’t have an indigenous word for it?
You’ve made your point benign0. Anything and everything Filipino is crap, and if you can resequence your genes you would. How many times will you have to restate that point?
You don’t want to help us solve the problems of the Filipino, you want us to disown it wholesale the way you did.
Far from it Jon. My point is that we need to recognise that efficiency is not one of our inherent virtues as a people (of which a symptom of this is the lack of the word in Tagalog).
Once we recognise the problem, we can then take appropriate action.
It’s not about “assimilating” the word. As you pointed out, that can easily be done (just as we tried to Tagalogise silya into “salumpwit” a short eternity back) — to digress a bit, we can argue that the lack of a Tagalog word for “chair” could be interpreted as an inclination of Pinoys to sit on the ground rather than invent a better place to plant their bums (that old pwede-na-yan mentality always at work!). :D
If you intepret our lack of inclination to be efficient as something “crap” about our society, I have no problems with that. All I’m saying is that efficiency is a strong component in our aspirations to achieve global standards of economic and quality-of-life levels.
We have two options in this regard. We either:
(1) become efficient to achieve those aspirations sometime in the future;
OR
(2) ditch global standards and use Lola Basyang’s Standards of Excellence to make us look like winners today.
It’s simple, really.
There is a Tagalog word for chair. UPUAN. Funny how that was missed by those “linguists”. But hey, they’re the same bunch who started coining “pesante” when “magsasaka” would suffice.
Unfortunately I do not understand how “becoming efficient” can be coined as simple. Everything is so simple for you, benign0, but you don’t ever have any concrete proposals to bank on. And for that, instead of helping stir genuine solutions, you just end up being benign.
Going back to a previous discussion of ours: it’s this HUGE paradigm shift. Filipinos, for some dastardly reason, are happy to “just get by”. They stop complaining once needs are met.
And this why a morbid part of me is absolutely *pleased* that this rice crisis is happening the way it is. Without it the questions with regard to efficiency in harvesting the very food that our people rely on for survival would not crop up.
So back to the issue of language: I do not think that the lack of an indigenous word for a certain virtue means that the culture in question is not capable of learning that virtue. Perhaps when that virtue takes root in the Filipino culture, it might start taking root in the language itself. And right now it seems awfully more important to instill those values into the culture rather than to nitpick on the weaknesses of a language that has been treated and turned into inferior for the past 500 years.
I’m in fact 100% of the view that efficiency and other virtues of the rappidly advancing world (which at the moment Pinoys aren’t a part of) CAN be learned. Which is the reason behind my relentless assault on our dysfunctional culture — because it CAN be ditched and/or changed. When that change occurs, the language will evolve to reflect this change.
But to change it requires that we first recognise the dysfunction itself.
Also agree with the bitter-pleasure I do admittedly also feel about the rice crisis. It’s the same principle as the need for drug addicts and alcoholics to hit rock bottom FIRST before they actually acquire the wherewithal to get off their asses and SERIOUSLY evaluate the bunghole they’ve dug themselves into. If it weren’t for this crisis, eyeballs would still be fixated on the relatively unimportant circuses stirred up by the Jun Lozadas of this world and our usual posse of tired “heroes” (with the usual publicity boost provided by my favourite news program Bandila).
What’s come out of this crisis is good — a focus on the important things about what it means to be a strong nation:
- The ability to feed itself
- A population seen more as assets than liabilities
- Our place in the global scheme of things (pathetic consumers rather than powerful producers)
I still do maintain that the solutions, when viewed from the proper perspective (stripping away the noise and convolusion created by politicians, lawyers, and the Media) are simple, if not obvious.
Well then, maybe we can start talking about those solutions again?
I’m sick and tired of everyone yakking about how the government is this and that and how the Filipino is this and that and then making their complaints self-fulfilling prophecies.
I’ve had enough of the types of my father who has been pandering about everything wrong with being Filipino for more than half of my life so far.
I need to hear more solutions than problems now. The problems have been recognized. Let’s talk about what can be done. Let’s talk about your simple, obvious solutions benign0.
This time in a concrete rather than rhetorical manner, perhaps?
well put jon! we need solutions!
benign0′s also got a point re: “efficiency”. i think it stems from something like this:
government repairs a road. a week later someone… be it pldt, or the water company or even the government itself digs it up again to put something in it. waste of taxpayer’s money! in six months, cracks would start to form on that perfectly good road and boom! in a year’s time that road would be full of potholes yet again.
waste of perfectly good money. since all these things get approval from the same office… for the life of me, i can’t figure out why these things can’t be coordinated!
that’s government…
when i was going to school… i used to pass by taft avenue and espania going to and from the house. under the Light Rail Transit, government would be painting it every couple of months. And after that some nitwit leftist movement or even the local neighborhood bastard would paint all sort of stuff on that newly painted post. That’s the taxpayer’s money. people bitch that the government sucks but that’s a perfectly good example that we Filipinos suck too!
we also contribute to graft. every time we need something fast tracked, we grease the palm. i know a lot of people who say no to this and it is great. we contribute to the inefficiencies of government.
there are other perfectly good examples of this.
well put jon! we need solutions! hard and fast solutions.
benign0′s also got a point re: “efficiency”. correct me if i’m wrong, i think it stems from something like this:
government repairs a road. a week later someone… be it pldt, or the water company or even the government itself digs it up again to put something in it. waste of taxpayer’s money! in six months, cracks would start to form on that perfectly good road and boom! in a year’s time that road would be full of potholes yet again.
waste of perfectly good money. since all these things get approval from the same office… for the life of me, i can’t figure out why these things can’t be coordinated!
that’s government…
when i was going to school… i used to pass by taft avenue and espania going to and from the house. under the Light Rail Transit, government would be painting it every couple of months. And after that some nitwit leftist movement or even the local neighborhood bastard would paint all sort of stuff on that newly painted post. That’s the taxpayer’s money. people bitch that the government sucks but that’s a perfectly good example that we Filipinos suck too!
we also contribute to graft. every time we need something fast tracked, we grease the palm. i know a lot of people who say no to this and it is great. and the times we don’t? we contribute to the inefficiencies of government.
there are other perfectly good examples of this.
Benign0 (at 7:59 am), i referenced the link instead of quoting its contents in full in the interest of efficiency. ;-) BTW, being ‘efficient’ is not necessarily always positive in the sense that it could also mean ‘gawaing tamad’.
Jon, excellent counterexample on “schadenfreude”. Interesting that you mentioned your father because i also got those Benign0-type comments from my Dad. (That’s why i was surprised when Benign0 revealed that he was only in his late 20′s.)
I am new to this site, but I have had a good time reading all the comments.
We do have a lot of flaws as a people. And I agree with most of Benign0′s observations about us as a people today. However, what we are now, is not necessarily what we used to be.
Our development as a society was broken by several colonial powers over a span of hundreds of years.
Foreign traditions, values and beliefs were thrust upon us, rather than us developing them out of our own experiences.
While some influences were positive, I think most were detrimental to us. Most notably, the ever-pervading mentality that caucasian people are superior to us.
In order to fix our broken society, I think it is necessary that we remember our pre-colonial history. It is there that we will find our true identity.
Which brings me to the main topic of this thread, which language to use?
English, however we might despise it, is already the universal language. Having a good grasp of the language will enable us to be heard and listened to by the global community. It will enable us to communicate our thoughts and ideas to a global audience. The question is, do we have thoughts and ideas to share?
What if we insist on using only English to teach our present high-school and college-level students, and then find out that they did not comprehend the lessons because they were spending too much time actually translating English to Tagalog in their minds?
In the end, we might end up with an English-speaking country with really nothing to say. (or are we in that situation already?)
supersepoy, i agree with the translation overhead which we can readily see when our beauty contestants during Q&A attempt an answer at English. A lot of the inadvertent humor can be avoided if they just answered in the language that they are comfortable with. I suppose the same sort of thing happens in the classroom.
We should be more like the Japanese and the Koreans in terms of being comfortable in our own language but i think the Filipino language purists must also learn to accommodate everyday words (e.g. ‘upuan’ instead of ‘salumpuwit’ as referred to above).
There should be also an effort to translate Math and Science concepts and word problems.
cvj, supersepoy,
Well, I have a compromise in mind.
One major flaw of Tagalog-based Filipino is that, while it is native to the Philippines, it presents the same challenges to speakers of other dialects. Visayans are very apprehensive in using Tagalog, because of all the stigma about their mispronunciations of e vs. i, o vs. u.
I have a brother-in-law who is not confident in expressing his ideas in Tagalog as well, because he’s more used to his hometown vernacular of Ilokano, although I think he’ll be forced into Tagalog once he starts going to university here in Manila by June.
Then there are the children of English-speaking households, e.g., the children of the local upper society and children of expatriates which you also have to take into account.
So while pure translation of educational materials to one language might not work (whether it’s in English or in Filipino), translation of educational material to multiple dialects is itself impractical and, as a hat-tip to benign0′s favorite word lately, it’s likewise grossly inefficient.
My mother (who does Math education research, and whose conclusions I echo most of the time) once told me about how the Israelis found a compromise to this situation in the 60s/70s, though I’m not sure they still do this today. While their educational material remain in English, their medium of discussion (not necessarily of instruction) remains in Hebrew.
The key point here is that the teachers will facilitate the translations of the concepts themselves to whichever language is most effective for their intended target audience (which is what students really are).
She also posits that if we really want to use English for the whole country, the effective steps should be rather drastic: that is, minimize or eliminate all use of indigenous languages in the media (print, TV, radio) and use English through and through. This was a step taken by Singapore to unite their Tamil, Malay and Chinese citizens, as well as educate them in English, and I believe there are similar policies carried out in other countries (I forgot which European country had all their TV programs in English with subtitles written in the local language).
I wonder if Filipinos are receptive enough of such a drastic change, because I think language purists *will* bewail such steps as autocratic and will only serve to kill the local languages. I agree with them.
Jon, I do have to ask the obvious question:
What do we have to lose if we allow these local languages to die?
Are they gonna be missed? Are there great wonderous works of scholarship and literature written in these dialects that the world will miss?
Maybe they should be put out of their and their speakers’ misery thereby eliminating the costly middleman that fatally separates Filipinos’ minds from the vast knowledgebase articulate in English that is accessible in vast and unprecedented quantities today.
benign0,
What are we to lose? God, what kind of question is that?
Language is a part of a person’s race, a person’s culture, a person’s identity. You lose your language, you lose your culture. You lose your culture, you lose your identity.
It might not be an issue to absolutely logical uberlogical Vulcans like you but, I’m human, I take issue with a loss of racial identity.
Granted that a huge part of that culture is flawed, anybody else forget the “throwing out the baby with the bathwater” analogy?
Ironically, our most prosperous Southeast Asian neighbor, Singapore — that cultureless, rootless country of migrants that use an official language that didn’t even come from the same continent, requires its students to learn either Tamil, Bahasa, or Mandarin. I guess they recognize the importance of preserving such “costly” aberrations?
I now believe that you REALLY want your genes resequenced.
Wow, even I wasn’t expecting that.. Benigno, there are tribes around the world, that will lose their native tongue, due to the modernizations of its current generation.. It saddens me that this takes place.. What are we as a nation, to not know our past, or to lose our language altogether?
I am a proponent for strengthening our command of the english language, but not at the expense of losing our own heritage.. We are not going to be Americans one day.. We will still be Filipinos.
What is a culture, without its language? I am proud of our language, it’s music to my ears. We can do much to preserve and retain our language, and we can do much when we strengthen our English proficiency as well.
Both are not exclusive, and can be done simultaneously. The beauty of our own need not be sacrificed..
Wait a minute guys…
Genes re-sequenced?
Culture = identity?
I think I am ME first before I am Filipino. As Popeye said: “I yam what I yam”.
A lot of my “detractors” tell me that no matter how long I live in Australia or wherever place, I will always be Filipino. No matter how much I speak English, I will always be Pinoy. In those instances, I certainly agree with them.
Kung baga, you can NEVER lost your identity even if you wanted to (only if you ALLOW someone to convince you that you’ve lost it).
This culture thing is a man-made construct that — like religion — was associated with us even before we even knew what those were all about.
Do you remember your baptism? Do you remember being signed up as a Filipino citizen when you were born? I certainly don’t.
Step back from the belief systems you were born with and regard culture (and for that matter religion) from a different lens.
You may be surprised with what you see. ;)
benign,
Yeah I was right. The ability to dismiss language as “just another tool” or “just another religion” really means you’re not human.
The irony being, if you asked a person from any of your models for efficiency — say, the Japanese, the Germans, or the Chinese — were asked to forsake their language for English, they would probably say the same thing and react the same way that I did.
Or let’s take the argument farther. Why is it that, despite 100+ years of using the English language in our official dealings in business and government, it has failed to bring Filipinos the prosperity that its proponents play it up as a means to? Does language really have that big, big effect?
Why is it that, even as the Germans are esteemed to create the most efficient, finely engineered technology on the planet (even before the 3rd Reich), the Deutsch word for efficiency is “effizienz”, clearly borrowed from English? The concept was clearly present in their culture, why the absence of an indigenous word?
Let’s go to Arab world and play the irony further. It is clear that the citizens of the emirate of Saudi and Dubai share the same language, religion and culture as that of their nearest neighbors, Oman and Yemen. Why the disparity in wealth and vision, despite the similarity in both language AND culture.
Clearly, there are a LOT of other forces at play other than language, and concluding that it as so intrinsic to our failure doesn’t appear to be valid nor logical. Likewise, for the sake of efficiency, wouldn’t it be wise to take advantage of tools that are readily available, enhancing them with the necessary improvements borrowed elsewhere, rather than forcing the use of an tool that needs specialized instruction and takes years to perfect and master for effectual, meaningful use?
I have done my stepping back benign, but I do not believe stepping back so far as to become out of touch of reality in the same way an astronaut mulling the fate of the planet from orbit is helpful.
Reality check benign. Put your feet back on the ground. Stop being a cultural astronaut.
^^crapiness: I mistook Oman as having the same conditions as Yemen, and I am clearly misinformed. But the argument holds: why the disparity in the Arab speaking world, despite the same culture and values AND language?
Excellent point about Visayans being uncomfortable with Tagalog Jon. I agree with your proposal of using the vernacular as the medium of discussion. It’s a more organic approach. I can see that as time goes by, the transition to written media can take place.
For example, in his blog, Jeg has undertaken a project to translate ‘The Screwtape Letters’ in Filipino. Probably one form of volunteer work will be to translate some materials, from Science or Math to Filipino. Eventually, we can build enough material to supplement or replace those low quality textbooks. I imagine some sort of collaborative effort similar to the Open Source Movement in IT.
Here in Singapore, a local told me that the manner in which English was imposed resulted in Singaporeans translating their local dialect word for word to English which resulted in the now distinctive Singlish.
On the implication of languages going extinct, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, among others, asserts that language affects a person’s worldview so a language going extinct means that we lose a particular pattern of thought which we may need in the future. The risk of lessening the variety of languages in the world is therefore similar to the danger of engaging in crop monoculture. Also aesthetically speaking, some messages are better expressed in local languages. Specifically, i notice that some songs (whether Filipino, Bahasa Malaysia, J-Pop or K-pop) lose their appeal when translated to English.
Jon, sorry that you had to waste your time typing out your response to my earlier comment but I never said that language was the only factor that determines whether a society will proceed at churning out wondrous featsachievement or be consigned to humanitiy’s dustbins for mediocrity.
What I am saying is that English compared to Tagalog opens doors.
cvj, in a rare instance of insightfulness reiterated my point. Languages reflect its speakers thought patterns. Do we really want to propagate thought patterns that got an entire society nowhere?
Benign0 (at 4:29am), there is some distance between the claim that languages shape thought patterns and your conclusion that the Filipino language generates dysfunctional thought patterns and that these thought patterns are the cause of our problems as a nation. (Even James Fallows who coined the term ‘Damaged Culture’ did not attribute such ‘damage’ to the language that we use. He instead points to our lack of love for country.)
You will therefore have to establish the chain of cause and effect linking your premises to your conclusions if only because correlation does not imply causation.
For example, you yourself acknowledged in your preceding response to Jon that language is ‘not the only factor’. I think it is disingenuous for you to accept that part of Jon’s assertion above that 100 years of using English in business and government has not led to prosperity without considering its implications to your own thesis.
benign,
There’s another word I found that does not exist in our culture but clearly has implications on our culture: trash.
Translate it to Spanish: “basura”. But clearly there is no Tagalog construct for that word, even if the consequences of wastefulness has clearly been felt and effected. One only has to remember Payatas.
“Dumi” isn’t nearly appropriate, since it translates to either “dirt” or “feces”, both of which are present in all cultures.
Language is not the only reason, but it is obvious that you see it as a symptom that has to be eliminated, simply because it has no logical value for you.
Certainly, I do NOT care if you grew up in an English speaking household, or if you simply choose to blame language being one of the cornerstones of your perceived enlightenment. But if it has no value to you, it clearly has value to other people.
Leave their language alone.
cvj, I didn’t say that language shapes thought patterns. Rather, it works both ways, thought patterns shape language AND language in turn shapes the thought patterns of those who acquire it (e.g. subsquent generations of speakers). And also I am focusing on language (being a factor that either opens or closes doors for us) here because, guess what, it’s the topic of this thread.
Jon, maybe the the lack of a specific word for waste or trash reflects the same lack of a concept of efficiency. Efficiency is productive output per input. The additive inverse of efficiency is waste.
If you are 90% efficient, then you are 10% wasteful.
Catch my drift?
Therefore, a lack of a concept of waste in Pinoy society may be a direct consequence of our lack of a concept of efficiency.
I do not deny that language has value to other people (kind of like an old sock you wore when you had your first bonk may have some kind of sentimental value to you). Then again a refrigerator may not be something one tends to find sentimental value in (unless you had your first bonk on top of one). Yet between an old sock and a refrigerator, which one keeps your food edible (and spares you the agony of making-palengke on a daily basis like a lot of poor schmoes)?
No, benign, you simply have no hindsight:
The lack of concept for waste and trash meant that there was no such thing in the context by which the language was created. In the small pre-Hispanic sultanates that pervaded the islands, they apparently exhibited zero-waste (or at least, minimum waste) societies such that trash did not become an issue, at least not until the Spanish came in.
The flip side is, if you do not have a concept of waste, as you have so clearly stated, then there is no concept of efficiency. The explanation might be, that there was no waste to speak about to ignite the need for the concept: I mean, if a culture never had trash, I don’t think they’d ever formulate ideas like garbage cans, garbage trucks, trash compactors and landfills, (all of which facilitate an “efficient” urban society) don’t you think?
I can see that you have not thought through much about a language that you barely know, and propose to dispose of, beyond cursory fault-finding.
Truly impressive that you can conclude that we should dispose of it with that kind of shallow understanding.
Which brings us back to my original assertion then, doesn’t it? :D
Sweet.
I’ll point out the gist then:
What if there was no waste to speak about to ignite the need for the concept: I mean, if a culture never had trash, I don’t think they’d ever formulate ideas like garbage cans, garbage trucks, trash compactors and landfills, (all of which facilitate an “efficient” urban society) don’t you think?
Jon, you seem to be implying that our pre-European society did not waste anything and thus never added a word for waste in the language.
That’s a quaintly noble way to see it — a subset of the thinking that we were such a grand in-harmony-with-nature society before the Big Bad White Man came around and introduced the wasteful industrial economics that we measure our progress by today.
That simply begs the question. Why then do we continue measuring our achievement as a nation using Western economics? If we want to be in harmony in nature, then why not go back to a scheme of things when nature did the job of culling our numbers whenever this harmony is threatened? Maybe efficient industrial production of food wasn’t the good idea that it was pitched to be at all?
Maybe we should stop importing rice from efficient producers and use our mom-and-pop heritage-of-smallness approach to doing things (and let our population self-correct by natural attrition).
By the way, if you hadn’t noticed yet, we as a people never did subscribe to the use of garbage cans, trucks, and garbage compactors. For that matter we don’t seem to see an immediate need for sewage treatment as well (preferring instead to dump our shit raw into our esteros). Hang around Manila for a few days, look around you and smell the aroma. ;)
No, I seem to be implying that:
a) The presence of the word “schadenfreud” in German never meant that Germans always take pleasure a the expense of the misery of others, nor does it mean that they are the only people capable of it
b) That the absence of a native word for efficiency in Deutsch didn’t mean the absence of efficiency in their culture
c) That the “Das Kapital” was written in German never meant that Marxism defined who they were.
And thus challenges your contention that the mere presence or absence of a concept or a word in a language provides ample evidence of the usefulness and ill-effect of a language to an specific culture, and thus becomes a determinant as to which language should just be “get rid of” for the sake of perceived convenience or benefit.
Careful, careful Jon, I never mentioned that “the mere presence or absence of a concept or a word in a language provides ample evidence of the usefulness and ill-effect of a language to an specific culture”.
All I say is the lack of a word in a language is indicative of a lack or lack of importance of a concept in a society. Adoption of a word from another language may come as a result of the development of traits underpinned by a progressive embrace of a concept in said society (as Deutch did). The fact that Tagalog does not seem to be inclined to adpopt a Tagalogised version of efficiency indicates that its speakers have no inclination to embrace the concept now or anytime in the near future.
While the Greeks were developing what was to become Western Philosophy (and coming up with the words to articulate it), primitive Germanic, Nordic, and Celtic tribes pillaged Northern Europe (and probably spoke none of these new words much less grasp the groundbreaking concepts they represented).
But guess what, these formerly barbarian tribes have since picked up the torch from the Greeks, adopted the relevant words and are now walking the talk.
Europe did the hard work, all we need to do is partake in fruits of the long journey they took. Why take the long way when we can do it the fast and easy way as the Singaporeans did?
It’s simple, really.
Which ‘relevant’ Greek words would these be?
I see you becoming tentative here: “does not seem”
But you are so sure that getting rid of these languages would help, despite the fact that you’re not sure.
Seems to imply that even as you’re not sure on whether either Filipino or Tagalog or the other dialects can or may evolve into much better languages, you’re convinced that we can pattern our act after a significantly smaller nation state with no diverse or even inherent single indigenous culture and with a fraction of our population and isn’t even archipelagic. Quite simple, indeed.
Jon. Sorry for the confusion. Let’s re-strengthen the assertion then and make it:
“[...] is not inclined to adpopt a Tagalogised version of efficiency indicates that its speakers have no inclination to embrace the concept now or anytime in the near future [...]”
I had a gay moment there for a minute, but i got the ol’ testosterone pumped up again (not that there’s anything wrong with being gay, borrowing the old Seinfeld disclaimer ;) ).
Maybe you need a bit of a fix yourself, Jon. Your style is going a bit cvj-esque on us. I mean three words is a bit small to quibble on, don’t you think?
cvj, maybe you ought to hit the old textbooks you seem to keep handy beside you and do a bit of research on the Greek and Latin roots that permeate the English language.
Benign0 (at 2:38 pm), so by “adopted the relevant words“, you meant importing foreign words into a local language. As your last paragraph acknowledged, the English language has a lot of Greek and Latin imports. This means the English speakers did not discard English wholesale and switch to Greek or Latin. Why can’t we do the same? What is so special about Filipino that you don’t believe it feasible to similarly make use (and localization) of loan words?
cvj, I see nothing wrong or infeasible about Tagalog acquiring loan words.
My original position was to note the current lack of precise words for certain concepts and infer certain things about the nature of our society based on that.