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PILIPINO EXPRESS
JUNE 16 - 30, 2015
Jose Rizal’s language legacy Jose Rizal wrote most of his famous works in Spanish. Even his final farewell poem, Mi Ultimo Adios, was written in the language of his executioners. He was, after all, a man of his times when most educated Filipinos rarely wrote formally in their mother tongue. Over a century later, not much has changed except that the foreign language of choice is now English. But Rizal was not a malansang isda (stinking fish) who neglected his own language. Throughout his short life he worked to enrich Tagalog literature and to make it more accessible to ordinary people. He translated European stories into Tagalog such as Friedrich Schiller’s Wilhelm Tell and the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen. He wrote a short Tagalog grammar and he also attempted to write his third novel in Tagalog, known today as Makamisa, but it was left unfinished when he was executed in 1896. While Rizal promoted indigenous literature, he also recognized the need to spread literacy among ordinary Filipinos. The first obstacle that Filipino children faced when learning to read and write, if they had the chance, was mastering the confusing method of spelling native words with the Spanish alphabet. Rizal got the idea to formulate better ways to spell Tagalog words using the modern alphabet after he read an 1884 essay by Trinidad Pardo de Tavera about the ancient baybayin script. In an article published in La Solidaridad in April of 1890, Rizal wrote: “... it occurred to me to do something to lighten the work and make easy the first attempts of children to learn by simplifying the orthography [spelling], introducing another more rational and more logical [method], which will be in harmony with the spirit of the language itself and of its
CANADIAN... From page 1 to deportation to countries that practise torture. In his letter to Governor General David Johnston and parliament members, Galati argued that the federal
sister languages …” Tagalog spelling at that time followed the rules of the Spanish alphabet, which does not use the letters k and w except in borrowed foreign words. To spell all the k syllables before Rizal’s time was not as straightforward as it is today – ka, ke, ki, ko, ku were spelled ca, que, qui, co, cu. This made learning Tagalog grammar much more difficult. One example in Rizal’s 1890 article was the word katay (to butcher). This was normally spelled catai but when the past tense was needed (butchered), the spelling changed radically to quinatai. By adopting the letter k, Tagalog spelling immediately became more consistent and logical. The past tense of katay was predictably kinatay. The g syllables had similar difficulties. Ga, ge gi, go and gu were spelled ga, gue, gui, go and gu. Rizal favoured dropping the letter u and using the letter h for the aspirated Spanish g; as in words like heneral. Rizal’s proposal to drop the letters c and q in favour of k did not please everybody, though. Some people accused him of being unpatriotic because the letter k was supposedly a German letter and at that time Germany and Spain were involved in a dispute over the ownership of the Caroline group of islands, east of the Philippines. But Rizal was not alone in his struggle. At the same time that he was developing his ideas for Tagalog spelling, two of his contemporaries were doing the same thing independently and they even went further in their reforms. Trinidad Pardo de Tavera was the first to use the English form of the w in Tagalog writing in his 1887 essay Sanskrit in the Tagalog Language and Pedro Serrano Laktaw might have been the first to use the k, according to Rizal biographer, Austin Craig. Laktaw
published his Hispano-Tagalog dictionary in 1889 using the new spelling, including the k and the w and he even changed the spelling of his own name from Lactao to Laktaw. As soon as Rizal saw the “more perfect orthography,” of Tavera and Laktaw, he became an enthusiastic supporter and gave them full credit for their ideas in his article of 1890. The addition of the letter w helped to simplify spelling, too. In the old spelling, the sound of w was represented by either o or u but in no particularly logical way. The word awa (mercy) was spelled aua but araw (sun or day) was spelled arao. The Pampanga town originally known as Wawa (river mouth) was spelled Guagua and like many place names and family names, the old Spanish spelling persists to this day. Not all the innovations were winners, though. In the 1880s the sound of ng was written as ng, with a tilde ˜ above the g. Rizal and Tavera agreed that this complex combination of characters had to be stripped down to only one letter as it was in the ancient baybayin alphabet N. They proposed that the ng sound should be represented by the letter g alone with a tilde above it. Words such as magulang (parents) and marunong (knowledgeable) would have been spelled magulag and marunog with a ˜ mark placed over the final g. As we can see today, this idea did not survive. Jose Rizal did not overhaul Tagalog spelling single-handedly but his prominence as a writer probably did the most to advance the reforms. Members of the Propaganda movement including Mariano Ponce and Marcelo H. del Pilar quickly adopted the new spelling. It was also integral to the identity of the revolutionary Katipunan society that was formed in 1892. The k was prominent in the group’s name, Kataas-taasang Kagalanggalangang Katipunan ng mga
Anak ng Bayan and in the name of their newspaper, Kalayaan, which lasted only one issue before the Spanish authorities shut down their printing press. The letter k was also featured in several Katipunan flags, both in its Latin form and as the ancient baybayin character k. Rizal’s writing, his exile and his execution inspired Filipinos to rebel against Spanish colonial rule but the most tangible part of his legacy that continues to affect the lives of Filipinos is the way we spell Filipino words today.
Sources: • Rizal, Jose. “Sobre la Nueva Ortografia de la Lengua Tagala” in La Solidardad, Vol II, 88-92. 15 April 1890. English translation from Miscellaneous Writing of Dr. Jose Rizal. NHI 1992. • Rizal, Jose. Letter to Ferdinand Blumentritt, April 5, 1896. The Rizal – Blumentritt Correspondence. Vol. II 1890 – 1896. NHI 1992 • Rosales, Antonio B.L. “Rizal, Father of Modern Tagalog” in Philippine Magazine. December 1936, January 1937.
government has “absolutely no constitutional authority” over the citizenship of Canadian-born citizens, but only over “aliens and naturalized” citizens. According to Galati, several countries, such as Egypt and Iran, recognize citizenship through several generations, meaning a
descendant born in Canada could be considered a citizen of Egypt or Iran if a great-grandfather was born there. Critics of the bill are concerned that the federal government will have the power to brand a Canadian-born citizen a traitor or terrorist and threaten deportation of that person to a country that he or she has no connection to, which could lead to arrest and torture in some countries. Others have also pointed out that foreign governments wishing to silence dissent could make similar false allegations against Canadian dual citizens, citing the case of the award-winning CanadianEgyptian journalist Mohamed Fahmy who is on trial in Egypt on allegations of spreading false news and belonging to a terrorist group. If convicted, he could
face revocation of his Canadian citizenship under Bill C-24. The Harper government, however, has denied that it would try to deport anyone based on convictions against Canadians by dictatorships. In April 2015, the Canadian Bar Association also expressed “serious concerns” to a parliamentary committee that the bill could impose “exile as an additional form of punishment.” Prior to the passing of C-24, the government could only revoke the citizenship of naturalized Canadians who acquired it through fraud or false pretences. Under the revised act, said the Bar Association, dual citizens now include “those born in Canada who are presumed to be able to claim citizenship in another state through one of their
parents, notwithstanding that the Canadian may have no ties with the other country at all.” Earlier this spring Immigration and Citizenship Minister Chris Alexander’s belittled the legal concerns of Bill C-24 critics saying, “It is shameful that activist immigration lawyers, who never miss an opportunity to criticize our government’s citizenship and immigration reforms, are attempting to drum up business by promoting the interests of convicted terrorists and serious criminals over the safety and security of Canadians.” The minister’s office said last week that Alexander stands by his remarks. For more details about the new requirements of Canadian citizenship, see Michael Scott’s article on page 6.
Jose Rizal, age 29, studio photo taken in Madrid in 1890