SABBATICAL NOTES. 17 JUNE 2014. TUESDAY.
De-nationalizing a language.
THERE IS one thing so many people, boisterous academics included, do not understand.
Not at all.
What they do not understand is that the imposition of that schizophrenic language, Tagalog/Pilipino/Filipino as the country's questionable national language is the direct cause of the slow but sure death of the other, becauseOTHERED, Philippine languages.
There is this continuing peacock stride for that statist position of the need for a 'national language' even if that need is not there but simply assumed from out of that fantastic, illusory template of a 19th century Philippine nation-state.
That nation-state that started with the Quezonian dream, has been modeled after the great colonizers to wit, Germany, England, Spain, France.
Now, put in Italy and you have with you the five dancing sisters of that great 'nation-state' project.
We can go the route of that fascist Adolf Hitler in his desire to purify his country and make it the country of the great by removing all those that pollute it, and we realize that the battle cry for that purgation was 'nationalism and patriotism.'
The Philippines has been doing the same since 1934-1935.
So many people talk about the need for this schizophrenic language and there is never--not at all--an iota of care for the othered languages, as if this 'national language' rammed into the throat of every Filipino is that word from the Philippine heavens, the word that spells redemption for all.
Every year, monies are allocated to develop this schizophrenic language.
No money--is there a cent at all except to pay those useless services of commissioners?--is ever allocated to develop the othered languages.
If there is, it is a token, some kind of a bribe to assuage the wounded feeling of these minoritized languages.
The peripheralization of these languages is real even if there is NO empirical proof that says that there is economic value of this schizophrenic Tagalog/Pilipino/Filipino.
An observer of our linguistic condition, Renante Tomas, has written apty of this schizophrenic language defended all the time by unenlightened academics, many of them from our state universities: "Embellished by the skulls, hide, horns and teeth of her sister-languages – like the high-fashion ethnic chic, embellished by the fabrics woven by tribal women, whose own people cannot afford to buy the excised pieces of their own culture on display."
Not a chance for our othered languages, indeed.
De-nationalizing a language.
THERE IS one thing so many people, boisterous academics included, do not understand.
Not at all.
What they do not understand is that the imposition of that schizophrenic language, Tagalog/Pilipino/Filipino as the country's questionable national language is the direct cause of the slow but sure death of the other, becauseOTHERED, Philippine languages.
There is this continuing peacock stride for that statist position of the need for a 'national language' even if that need is not there but simply assumed from out of that fantastic, illusory template of a 19th century Philippine nation-state.
That nation-state that started with the Quezonian dream, has been modeled after the great colonizers to wit, Germany, England, Spain, France.
Now, put in Italy and you have with you the five dancing sisters of that great 'nation-state' project.
We can go the route of that fascist Adolf Hitler in his desire to purify his country and make it the country of the great by removing all those that pollute it, and we realize that the battle cry for that purgation was 'nationalism and patriotism.'
The Philippines has been doing the same since 1934-1935.
So many people talk about the need for this schizophrenic language and there is never--not at all--an iota of care for the othered languages, as if this 'national language' rammed into the throat of every Filipino is that word from the Philippine heavens, the word that spells redemption for all.
Every year, monies are allocated to develop this schizophrenic language.
No money--is there a cent at all except to pay those useless services of commissioners?--is ever allocated to develop the othered languages.
If there is, it is a token, some kind of a bribe to assuage the wounded feeling of these minoritized languages.
The peripheralization of these languages is real even if there is NO empirical proof that says that there is economic value of this schizophrenic Tagalog/Pilipino/Filipino.
An observer of our linguistic condition, Renante Tomas, has written apty of this schizophrenic language defended all the time by unenlightened academics, many of them from our state universities: "Embellished by the skulls, hide, horns and teeth of her sister-languages – like the high-fashion ethnic chic, embellished by the fabrics woven by tribal women, whose own people cannot afford to buy the excised pieces of their own culture on display."
Not a chance for our othered languages, indeed.
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