More on Philippine English vocabulary

TWO weeks ago, just before my Valentine’s Day column on the language of love letters slightly interrupted my series of columns on world Englishes and Philippine English, I briefly talked about the Philippine

English vocabulary. Today, I shall add a few more words to what I already gave then and also mention the processes or strategies employed in adding to this vocabulary.

A common strategy is the extension or adaptation of meaning. One example of this is the use of the word “province” to refer to a place, or even anything that is not urban. The urban-rural or city-countryside distinction is usually made using the words city and province, and this is likely an influence of Tagalog, where the distinction is such.

In Philippine English, there is also a blurring distinction between “bring” and “take,” and Filipinos might often interchange their uses. In American English, “bring” is used when the direction is toward the speaker and “take” when the direction is from the speaker to another location. I note that, in Tagalog, there is only one word for this, and it is “dalahin,” “dalhin” or “dalin.”

Then there is also the peculiar use of the word “traffic,” not in the sense that I mentioned two weeks ago — i.e., heavy traffic — but when it is used as a modifier and most commonly for the term “traffic enforcer.” A traffic enforcer is one who manages the traffic on streets, often standing in the middle of an intersection of two busy streets to manage the flow of vehicles. They also hand penalty tickets to traffic law offenders. However, no one really enforces traffic, as traffic flows without anyone enforcing it. A more logical wording could be “traffic law enforcer” or “traffic control officer.” However, Filipinos now use “traffic enforcer.”

Also peculiar to Philippine English is “wherein,” which serves as an all-purpose connector replacing “where,” “when,” “in which,” “by which” and “through which.” Philippine English also uses regular word-formation strategies to produce new words. These words, which are described as characteristically Philippine English, are “awardee,” “presidentiable,” “reelectionist,” “holdupper” and “(test)taker.” I also want to mention a few verb-preposition combinations also thought to be putative features of Philippine English: “based from” instead of “based on,” “result to” in place of “result in,” and “fill up (a form)” instead of “fill in.”

These words are only a few of the ways Filipinos own English. In my next columns, I will also discuss grammar, pronunciation, and other language structures where Philippine English has distinctive usages.

Ariane Macalinga Borlongan is one of the leading scholars on English in the Philippines who is also doing pioneering work on language in the context of migration. He is the youngest to earn a doctorate in linguistics, at 23, from De La Salle University. He has had several teaching and research positions in Germany, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Poland, Singapore and Taiwan. He is currently an associate professor of sociolinguistics at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies in Japan.