SABBATICAL NOTES. BETWEENING.

SABBATICAL NOTES. 30 JAN 2014 N1. BETWEENING. 

PART OF LIVING liminal lives is to live, by circuitous definition, in the interstices of the in-between.

I called this a long time ago the phenomenon of 'betweening.' 

Of course, I was trying to destroy the English language by inventing my own lexicon, my own word, in much the same way that I pushed for the popularization of 'one-ing' and 'languaging' by turning these two into verbs, which the dictionary grants, and then from there, turning them into gerunds, to make them legitimate nouns.

Or, I was trying to enrich it.

Either way, I have used this in a number of essays, and one day soon, lexicographers might catch up.

Simply put, the living human beings living liminal lives are exiles, strangers, aliens, visitors, peregrines, pilgrims.

Funny that in the United States, the term the immigration people and their law use 'alien' to refer to all non-US citizens.

Even immigrants of permanent residency status are by default 'aliens'

The aliens are liminoids, people living in between, people living two lives, lives that are here and not here, there and not there.

In other words, the 'betweening' people.

Even when we have become citizens of the US ourselves, we retain that liminality, even after swearing oath of allegiance to the stars-and-stripes, which we should in the first place as our civic duty.

Then again, we remain pining for home, for the homeland, for the old country, and for the Ilokanos, for the Ilokano language which is our home.

Now, this: we must look into seriously: the Ilokano language as home, as a home.

It should be.

The home of the four Ilokano souls, which many Ilokanos do not know anyway in the first place.

Now, let us all test for Ilokano cultural literacy, all of us.

We will see who is culturally illiterate among us, and who have the temerity to rule over us.