Philippine Tambayan

Language, learning, identity, privilege

 

If you are reading this then it is a possibility that you are looking for James Soriano’s essay about the Filipino language. It made quite a stir in the internet for it has been very disrespectful to our national language.

Here is some quote from the essay:

“We used to think learning Filipino was important because it was practical: Filipino was the language of the world outside the classroom. It was the language of the streets: it was how you spoke to the tindera when you went to the tindahan, what you used to tell your katulong that you had an utos, and how you texted manong when you needed “sundo na.”

These skills were required to survive in the outside world, because we are forced to relate with the tinderas and the manongs and the katulongs of this world. If we wanted to communicate to these people — or otherwise avoid being mugged on the jeepney — we needed to learn Filipino.

For while Filipino may be the language of identity, it is the language of the streets. It might have the capacity to be the language of learning, but it is not the language of the learned.”

 

In the whole essay you will find a lot of reason to burn this person alive for being such arrogant. I just chosen the above parts because I would like to answer back…

One… you need to learn Filipino language because you are a Filipino!!!

Two .. it is not the language of the street but the whole archipelago  / the Philippines per se.

Three…There is no such thing as the language of the learned , it is so racist. Does it mean the Japanese are not learned people, most of them don’t know English..???