4. Conclusion Contemporary Kapampangan and Tagalog have continued to exist side by side for centuries with the split between the Central Philippine Languages (one of them being Tagalog) and the Northern languages (one of them being Kapampangan) probably at the beginning of the current era (Zorc, pers. comm.). What makes the case of these two languages in contact interesting is that while they have been existing side by side and while Kapampangan has been losing territory to the dominant Tagalogs, Kapampangans and Tagalogs living in bilingual areas have managed to keep the identity of each one separate, with no evidence of language mixing, although the territory of Kapampangan has become smaller. The sound systems are distinct, and the grammar intact except for a few morphological items; the only area where extensive borrowing takes place is in the lexicon. The amount of borrowings from a small sample, using sound correspondences as guides, is that the range of the borrowing is from .0081 to .0094 with more borrowing of Tagalog into Kampampangan. In actual words, however, based on the sample, 37 words have been borrowed from Tagalog to Kapampangan and 32 words from Kapampangan to Tagalog. One would expect more given the dominance of Tagalog at present. However, Zorc (pers. comm.) states: ‘The distinctive impression I have gotten throughout my work is that there was initially an enormous number of borrowing from Kapampangan into Tagalog. More recently, of course, with the rise of Tagalog via Pilipino and Filipino as the national language and the flood of media newspaper and comics publications, radio, and broadcasts) into nearby Tarlac and other Kapampangan provinces, borrowing has been almost exclusively from Tagalog into Kapampangan’. Zorc is careful to state that the loanwords discovered by his collection of etyma are partial as there are many more borrowings: ‘Suffice it to say there are hundreds (not just dozens) in both directions’. CONTEMPORARY FILIPINO 103 Gonzalez Tuesday, November 29, 2005 2:33:46 PM 2005. Hsiu-chuan Liao and Carl R. Galvez Rubino, eds. Current issues in Philippine linguistics and anthropology: Parangal kay Lawrence A. Reid. Manila: LSP and SIL. pp. 93-114.Zorc concludes: ‘The replacement of PSP *hulas ‘sweat, perspiration’ by an earlier loan *pawes (Kapampangan pawas, Tagalog pawis), indicates the way Kapampangan once had penetrated into the basic vocabulary of Tagalog. Many other loans indicate the dominance of professions by Kapampangan speakers (karáyom ‘needle’ from *ka-daRum for ‘tailoring’, dayami ‘rice straw’ from *daRami for ‘agriculture’, katám from *keTen for ‘carpenter’s plainer’, darak from *de(dak ‘powdered food from husk of rice’ for ‘agriculture’). Hence, Tagalogs have been enormously dependent upon the Kapampangans until they established themselves in Southern Luzon; this only makes sense for an incoming social group. In case study of the two languages in contact may be looked upon theoretically as a case study of stable coexisting language systems with no mixture or signs of pidginization, with boundaries of the languages intact even if the geographical areas for resident speakers are changing. The bilingual areas should be monitored to see how long the stability will last even as Kapampangans learn Tagalog and even as their territory decreases. The numbers are not dwindling but the number of Kapampangans likewise learning Tagalog is increasing
Posted on: Thu, 08 Aug 2013 12:52:21 +0000
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