The War of Translation: Colonial Education, American English and Tagalog Slang in the Philippines

The War of Translation: Colonial Education, American English and Tagalog Slang in the Philippines by Vicente Rafael

A Once Written Report

Let's say, I have two friends; However, the years that I have known them separately varies in span of years. For example, this Friend Number One, has been my friend for three years already; Whereupon, this Friend Number Two is my "childhood" friend.

When we become friends to someone, in a way, we acquire the way they talk, their gestures, mannerism, even the way they look at things in perspective. So, basically, it is more natural to assume that between these two friends I have, I am much closer to Friend Number Two. From a stranger's perspective, they would possibly connect the fact that, since she is my childhood friend, I have a longer history of friendship with her compared to the former. That’s, most of the time, how it is: The longer you know the person, the bigger the chance for anyone to jump into conclusion that we are much closer. Thus, we have a stronger bond, and might have a bigger tendency to be alike. In conclusion, I am assumed to be much closer to the one whom I have a long history with.

BUT in the case of American and Spanish occupation here in the Philippines, it’s the opposite. We have been hearing it a lot as we were growing up. The Americans ruled our country for 41-year span of time. It was long, but not that much with the Spaniard's, whose occupation here lasted for 333 years. (And goodness, if it rather extended double its years, Judas must have been over the moon once the Spaniards are prepping already for their 666th day in the Philippines.) With these years of domination, no one could have actually thought that it was ironically the Americans who successfully invaded our country. Looking at their numbers, Spaniards won obviously, however, Filipinos might have some kind of allergy to any kind that reminds them of Mathematics, that's why, it was the American's fist that was seen balled up towards the air. With the analogy above, we could say, it's not always about the long years but also the effectivity of one's influence over something. And one easy example that was already mentioned is the America's long-standing domination--even up to now --particularly their "master stroke" of colonial education here in the Philippines. The article that I am using for this blogpost is Vicente Rafael’s The War of Translation: Colonial Education, American English and Tagalog Slang in the Philippines. 

Vicente Rafael is a professor of Southeast Asian history at the University of Washington, Seattle. He was trained in Southeast Asian History of which much of his writings were concentrated on the colonial and post-colonial state of the Philippines and the United States. Before I graduated in college, there was once a written report that we were asked to do for our final requirement on this subject. Initially, I wanted to simply talked about Pinoy slangs, however, there were few among us who already used the topic and I wanted to take a detour from that commonality. While browsing, and I remember that exhaustion I had that day, I finally came across this article which I could not recall where I saw it. It was long but I kept reading it hoping that at least I could just find ideas that could help me decide for my topic. In the article of The War of Translation: Colonial Education, American English and Tagalog Slang in the Philippines, I stumbled upon this word "Filipinization" from its subtopics. When I heard it, I searched it online immediately. 

Upon learning what Filipinization was, a recent memory from my freshman year popped out of my mind. It brought me back to that book entitled "Komunikasyon sa Wikang Filipino" which we had to purchase since our Filipino professor was one of the authors of that book. From our early exercises, I was caught off by this strange Filipino word that was not really not a Filipino word to begin with. They are actually English words, however, it is spelled in the way we, Filipinos, pronounce it.

Let me provide few examples:

"Computer" is the word, but in the book, it is spelled as Kompyuter;

"Science" as Sayans; "Picture" as Piktyur and etc. 

At first, it was strange reading it. I even questioned why the authors write those words that way as if those words don't have their respective equivalent Tagalog words. I am not sure about computer, but I know "science" is translated into "Agham" and "Picture" is "Larawan". So, what's the motive or intention of the book?

I even sneered at my professor for thinking that she was teaching us something weird and thus wrong. But then I also realized while I was doing this that they were not the one who invented that process of spelling out English words and this deliberation has a significant telling to us. And with the article I used, Mr. Rafael termed it as Filipinization of English.

According to the article itself, created as a counterinsurgent response to the Philippine-American War, colonial education seeks to train colonized subjects in a different sort of war and we might think of this as the war of translation.

The pursuit of this war aimed at the conquest and colonization of languages, both the vernaculars and English.  So the cycle started with the Thomasites who would train the Filipino teachers to speak English so they could pass it on to their students. Contrary to this cycle, only practically half percent of the population learned English and could also read and write using this language. The destruction that came caused by the wrath of war has changed many things which destroyed also the cycle that the Americans initially wanted to pursue.

Most of the native English teachers and non-native English teachers died during the war. Some of them lost their professions because they did not return to their classrooms when the war came to an end. Since the spoken language is learned through imitation by native speakers of the language, the lack of native speaker models has affected certain sounds as enunciated by English-speaking Filipinos today. Our English now is becoming vernacularized which we are now called the Filipinization of English. 

The very attempt to teach English simply in-flamed the resistance of native languages. Hearing the teacher's English, students followed. And doing so, they were misled, perhaps according to the sensitive ears of the Americans-- that instead of ending up on the road to phonetically correct American English, they were misdirecting to the "strange" and "unintelligible" zone of its Filipinized version. 

So, "Filipinized English" is like dressing English in the clothes of "Malay" sound pattern. They see the in foreign the recurrence of vernacular, not its demise. To translate in this case required not the suppression of the first (our language) for the second language (English language), but an alertness to the sound of the first retracing itself around the appearance of the second.  Thus, the mother language insinuated itself into the foreign one. 

I know that one important linguistic phenomenon in Filipino is the rule: Kung ano ang bigkas, siyang sulat. And I think it is a lot easier to write a word the exact way we pronounce it. I mean, no sweat at all. However, there are some exceptions that we have to consider. 

So, why the authors of that book I mentioned used “sayans”, “piktyur” and other Filipinized words if they can be translated in the first place.

After some deliberation. I came up with possible but not really strong reason behind their usage of Filipinization on English words.

Is it because of the so-called “resistance”? That despite, according to the article, in the hands and on the mouths of Filipino, English can be a language for accommodating, or at least, signaling the insistent presence of what is supposed to be excluded and overcome.

Is it because we are physically attuned and mentally habituated to our mother tongue's intonations, referents, and rhythm?

Conserving the foreignness of English also meant making room for the recurring traces of the vernacular.  For an example, there are some Filipinos who are great in English however they still struggling with pronunciations. Of course, people who was raised and grew up in an English-speaking household or abroad are excluded. The people I have in my mind are those whose English command is just introduced in an educational setting with minimal exposure from the language. You can notice how one can really be good in the nature of English but will struggle at first with the pronunciation of the words. Instead of speaking it like the Natives, even with years already of exposure, they pronounce it like how they do in their vernacular. It is like they are wearing an English clothing in a Filipinized material. (Am I making sense?)

If we see it on a deeper sense, perhaps this could be a silent revolt of the dominating English language. They could dress our language with theirs, but our nativeness will remain on itself and it will not be just changed because of some ornaments and foreign weavings of strangers' hands. Its essence remain as it is.

Or because Filipinos believe that there is never an end in creativity especially in the use and structure of language?

Or is it because we have a symptom of the dismal limits of colonial policy and evidence of the racial incapabilities? Which, I would definitely disagree with.

PS

To be honest, I was lucky to came across this kind of topic. It was unfortunate that I was not able to discuss this with my classmates in my best form (I think I had a fever that time but due to lack of reporters, I volunteered.) It was hard spouting your ideas in front of people while you were fighting off that dusty feeling in your throat. Anyways, it was already done.

This blogpost sounds unfinished and I admit it. I just don't know at this moment what I should write more, which ideas qualified enough to be inserted after that last paragraph. I could not think of any decent conclusion. Maybe, I just wanted this to sound like it is meant to be re-write or at least to expand more. But not today, I guess, I am feeling like that I should post this now so I don't have to screech my brain anymore.