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Ilokano & Waray Wikipedias / Tayabas Tagalog / Why?

Well, howdy strangers!

[insert apology for justifying my neglect of this blog]

I thought I'd take a break from working on my anthropology mid-term project to give this blog a much-needed update. Anthropology is really fascinating, I tell you. It is on my short list of possible double majors or minors that I can add in addition to my planned linguistics major.

There are two items of interest that I would like to get out there. On Wikipedia, there were two proposals to get Wikipedias for two Philippine languages, namely Waray-Waray and Ilokano.

The proposal was approved; there are now 5 Philippine-language Wikis (Tagalog, Cebuano, and Kapampangan in addition to the aforementioned two). I was quite surprised and quite puzzled about Ilokano - there is a huge Ilokano presence on the internet as well as being the 2nd-most spoken Philippine language in the United States (with university courses to boot). But yet, it's last one.

In any case, both Wikipedias have been very active; the Waray one has 482 articles and the Ilokano one has 105 (the owner of Mannurat.Com, Roy Aragon, being very active). Very impressive!

The URL's for the encyclopedias are:

Ilokano Wikipedia - http://ilo.wikipedia.org
Waray Wikipedia - http://war.wikipedia.org

So, congratulations.

In other news, I have borrowed a book called A Lexicographic Study of Tayabas Tagalog written in 1971 by E. Arsenio Manuel of the University of the Philippines.

This interested me a lot. I speak Manila Tagalog, but I have some roots to Quezon Province. My great-grandmother Estelita Fermin Sundita was born there in 1903. Where exactly, I don't know. I have contradictory information on the town where she was born. Her passport from the 1970's and her Social Security Application say Atimonan, but the birth records of her children born in the 1920's say Lucena City. Anyway, Lola Estelita died in California when I was 5 and she was the only great-grandmother I ever knew.

The author relies on dozens of informants from all over Lucena City - he elicited information starting in the 1940's until 1953. The author mentions some sociolinguistic factors as to when the non-standard dialect is used - and the reactions (i.e., laughter and ridicule) it gets.

He considers the dialect to be "Central Tagalog" (what about south?) which is based on geography. He also makes mention of what appears to be subdialect areas such as Tayabas-Pagbilao-Sariaya, Unisan-Gumaka-Pitogo, and San Narciso-Katan-awan.

He also briefly mentions some phonological features particularly the preservation of the glottal stop when it occurs between a consonant and a vowel (called malaw-aw) - tam-is, ngay-on, dinug-an, but-o, and big-at. There is also the tendency to pronounce oo as uu and noo as nuu.

The rest of the book is basically a one-way dictionary from Tayabas Tagalog to Manila Tagalog and English. It wasn't quite as I expected, but I guess it's useful in a way.

Here are some sample entries:

gá. (Kat[an-awan].) Ba, baga. Ano ga. Kumusta!
An interrogative postpositional article

náay. 1. Naiyon, naayon, ayon. HIndi mo ba makita? Naay! Naay mandin sa sahig!2. Naay pa (gin. sa pagsusumbong ng mga bata sa magulang kung inuulitan o inaatig ng iba, at nagpapatuloy ng pag-uulit pagkatpos sawayin o pagsabihan).
1. There it is. Same as náiyon, náayon, ayón. 2. Náay pa, to call attention to the fact that someone is still bothering him after the other boy has been told not to (an expression often used by children addressing their plaint to their parents).

sabád. Sagot ng di kausap, ng di tinatanong. Sumabad, magsalita nang di kinakausap. Sa dalawang magkapulong, ang humalo sa usapan nang di inaanyayahan ay sumasabad sa usapan. Pasabadsabad, pásalitsalit o pasangit-sangit sa usapan. Sabát, o abát, din.
Reply of a person not asked or spoken to. Sumabád, to take part in a conversation without being invited; to speak or talk without being called to participate; to intercept the talk of two or more persons. Pasabád-sábad, to interrupt the conversation frequently. Sábat or abat also.

suwís (from Spanish. juez, judge). Magsusuwis, dadalaw ang pinunong-bayan sa bukid, linang, o nayon; ang pinunong-lalawigan sa bayon o nayon. Suwisan, ang ganiyang pagdalaw o pagsisiyasat na tinutugunan ng piging at kasayahn ng mga tagalinang o tagabayan. Wika ng isang makata:

Sa mga soisan, ibang pagtatao
kasalan, binyagan, ....
pag walang achara'y pati taga Centro
di lubhang ganahan sa piging na ito.
- Aurelio Obispo, "Tulang Paligsahan" (1929)

Term derived from juez (de ganado), judge of pastures, who during the Spanish regime inspected livestock of the farm and outlying barriors for the purpose of taking a census of animals, etc. Suwís has now a political significance, being an official visit or inspection of the barrio, by a municipal authority, or the town by the provincial governor or other high officials. Suwisan, the official visitand the popular reception combined used to be the biggest event in the lives of barrio folks.

Perhaps the most interesting entry was this:

tanó (at and + ano what). Bakit?
Why? What for? And so why? And so what?

The reason why I find this interesting is that in Naga Bikol, they use taano or ta-no for "why." In Legazpi, it is ngata - other Bikol dialects have hadaw, nata and ta-daw.

I also learned that in Tagalog, bakit is composed of bakin at. I wondered, then, if there was such a phrase as bakin at ano. I looked at the University Michigan's site, and found no such phrase.

However, I did find both of them mentioned side by side. In Joaquín de Coria's 1872 Nueva gramática tagalog, teórico-práctica, I found that, curiously, bakin meant because and at ano meant why.

On another page, it defined bakin to mean "why, and it is also an unusual verb. It is used in the negative. Examples. Forgive the enemies, don't you guys see that God forgives sinners, his enemies? Patauaring ninyo ang manga caauay, ¿di baquinang panginoong Dios ay nagpapatauar sa manga macasalanang tauong caauay niya? You reprimand me for my sins, but why do you do the same? Aco,i inaauyang mo nang casalanan co ay, baquin icao ay gayon naman ang gaua mo? -- And why you too? Baquin icao? Why you all? Baquin cayo?

In Constantino Lendoyro's 1902 Tagalog language, bakin, bakit, and at ano are listed as words for "why."

So, very interesting stuff. I wish I could find the answer to all this, but so far, it's still a mystery. Why were there two why's?