POST-SABBATICAL NOTES. 17 AUG 2014. SUNDAY. N3. Fact Number 2: Filipino is only Tagalog. IT IS TRUE THAT Filipino is only Tagalog. San Juan, in that opinion piece--read: this is his opinion--is saying that it is true that the vocabulary of Filipino is still Tagalog and that there is a need to enrich that vocabulary to make the Tagalog language Filipino. He cites, of course, Almarios Diksionario of synonyms -- a synonyms comes from within a language, but not outside that language, unless nativized--and his argument fails in this area big time. He cites the position of Deriada on the assimilation of more non-Tagalog words into the Tagalog language to make it more Filipino. Both Almarios and Deriadas positions are wrong theoretically and practically. One cannot make a new language by a sleight-of-hand technique and tactic, which San Juan wants us to do dishonestly. He talks of vocabularies. An enriched vocabulary of a language is an enriched language, and NOT a new one. To distinguish one language from another, there is one primary rule: mutual intelligibility. If San Juan is really a language teacher, advocate, and scholar as he claims in his being an associate professor, he should know these rudimentary things. There is more honesty in Rolando Tinio than in him. Oh, by the way, his exhibiting of the Ilokano term, dawa, is wrong. Dawa is the edible seed? Come on, San Juan! WPH/
Posted on: Sun, 17 Aug 2014 18:25:14 +0000
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