IS THERE REALLY A PHILIPPINE-ENGLISH LANGUAGE?

English is considered as one of the global languages in the world. It is commonly used worldwide. If there are American-English and British-English, here in the Philippines there is an arising term which linguist called Philippine-English language. To cite some examples, here are some of the expressions commonly used like “Don’t me” which we literally translated from Filipino expression huwag ako, “Small thing” which means maliit na bagay and “I don’t know to you” which means ‘di ko alam sa iyo. These translated forms were made possible because the English translations were patterned from the way we express them in our national language-Filipino. From those instances, can we consider those expressions as Philippine-English? Yes, maybe. Is this a sign of colonialism? I don’t think so.

In my own point of view, those English expressions are part or intellectualization of Filipino language. Linguists believed that there is no “pure” language. Any language should go through embracing changes and borrow words and terms to any other language for it to remain alive aside from the fact that it should be used by its native speakers of course. We borrowed words in foreign languages such as French fries, hotdog, pasta, cellphone, spaghetti, aircon, shampoo and many to mentions. These words cannot be translated in Filipino so we borrowed the term as they were. Change is always inevitable in all aspects of life; even language cannot escape from it.

As we celebrate Pambansang Wika this month of August, may we find time to reflect how Filipino language evolved over a period of time, how it changed and influenced our thoughts and the way we express ourselves in a meaningful and useful way. May we always recognize its worth not only during the month of August.

--oOo— The author is Teacher III at Mancatian Balik-Barangay Elementary School