A MANSION OF MANY LANGUAGES
By: Danton Remote (2017)
(1) In 1977, my mentor, the National Artist for Literature and Theater Rolando S. Tinio, said:
"It is too simple-minded to suppose that enthusiasm for Filipino as lingua franca a national
language of the country necessarily involves the elimination of English usage or training for
it in schools. Proficiency in English provides us with all the advantages that champions of
English say it does--access to the vast fund of culture expressed in it, mobility in various
spheres of the international scene, especially those dominated by the English-speaking
Americans, and participation in a quality of modern life of which some features may be
assimilated by us with great advantage."
(2) Professor Tinio continues: "Linguistic nationalism does not imply cultural chauvinism.
Nobody wants to go back too. The mountains. The essential Filipino is not the center of an
onion one gets at by peeling off layer after layer of vegetable kin. One's experience with
onions is quite telling: Peel off everything and you end up with an in pinch of air."
(3) Written 40 years ago, these words still echo especially now, when by some quirk of
history and economics, enrollment in English courses are rising because (a) there are many
vacant positions for teachers of English and literature in the private and public schools, and
(b) there are many vacancies, still, for jobs in call centers with entry- level pay of P18,000
plus signing bonus, and a career that will make you earn twice your present salary in just a
few years. With the opening of the doors of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN) to everyone in the region, more and more Filipinos are being hired to teach English
in Indonesia, Thailand, and, yes, even our best our friend, China.
(4) Why? First, Filipino teachers will accept a pay scale lower than that of their Western
counterparts. Second, they are conversant with American popular culture, a happy (or
unhappy) result of decades of American colonialism and neo-colonialism. Third, they are still
Southeast Asians beneath their skin, and are thus familiar with Asian cultural practices,
whether said or unsaid. One is the importance of saving race, the meaning of "maybe" or "I
will try" to an invitation means he or she does not want to hurt you, be he or she will not
show up. Another is the primacy given to family. Already in his 50s, one is still called Totoy
or Baby or Blue Boy, and still lives with one's parents and extended
family. You can see that as well in the other Southeast Asian food is communal and not
eaten in siloed cubicles. Countries, where families are nuclear and not split, where
(5) Three long decades of teaching English and Journalısm students (together with four
years of teaching Filipino) have shown me that the best students in English are also the best
students in Filipino. And how did they master the two languages?
(6) One, they had very good teachers in both languages. Two, they inhabited the worlds of
both languages. Three, they have gone beyond the false either-or mentality that hobbled their
parents.
(7) Let me explain.
(8) My best students in English and Filipino were tutored by the crème de la crème, many of
them teaching in private schools. The enrollees in the university where I taught are mostly
intelligent students from the public schools and the provinces. Lack of books and untrained
teachers prevent them from having a level playing field with the other freshmen. A year of
catchıng up is necessary for them to have the skills to have a mano-a-mano with the other
students.
(10) And the third is that today's generation of students is no longer burdened by the guilt
of learning English and mastering it .I still remember those writing workshops I took in the
1980s, when I was asked why I wrote bourgeois stories in the colonizer's language. The
panelists said I should write about workers and peasants-and that I should write in Filipino.
Without batting an eyelash
, I answered that I don't know anything about workers and peasants, and to write about
something I don't know would be to misrepresent them. To the charge that I write only in
English, I showed them my poems in Filipino, because the modern Filipino writer is not only
a writer in either English or Filipino, but a writer in both languages, or in Bisaya or Bikolano
or Ilocano or Waray, languages that are like colorful balls he or she juggles with the dexterity
of a seasoned circus performer.
(11) So it's not a choice between English and Filipino, but rather, English and Filipino, plus
the language of one's grandmother, be it Bikolano, Waray, or Tausug. And in college, another
language of one's choice, be it Bahasa Indonesia, German, or French-the better to view the
world from many windows, since to learn a new language is to see the world from another
angle or vision. In short, one no longer has to live between two languages, but to live in a
mansion of many languages.
(12) Too end in a full circle, we must return to Rolando S. Tinio, who said: "Only the mastery
of a first language enables one to master a second and a third. For one can think and feel
only in one's first language, then encode those thoughts and feelings into a second and a
third."
(13) In short, as a friend and fellow professor has put it. The Philippines is a multi-lingual
paradise." The earlier we know we live in a paradise of many languages, the better we
can savor its fruits ripened by the sun.
Unlocking words
1. Lingua franca - is any language used for communication between people who do not
share a native language
2. Linguistic nationalism - the linguistic approach is a teaching method that ensures
that the school going children must have a strong command over their mother
tongue or native language. Such knowing helps teachers to make their students
better prepared for words and spelling patterns.
3. Cultural chauvinism - the belief in the inherent superiority of one's own ethnic group or
culture.
4. Conversant - having knowledge or experience
5. Siloed cubicles - is defined as to have put something into a silo, a structure often used
on farms for grain storage and used by the military to store missiles.
6. crème de la crème -the best people in a group or the best type of a particular thing
7. mano-a-mano - in direct competition or conflict especially between two people
8. Bourgeois stories - 1Belonging to or characteristic of the middle class, typically with
reference to its perceived materialistic values or conventional attitudes.
9. batting an eyelash - to not show any shock or surprise
