From: Noel M.
Category: Tagalog Grammar
Date: 10/4/01
Time: 7:01:45 PM
Remote Name: 209.100.177.252
Another interesting article on some Tagalog terms by Ambeth Ocampo, from Philippine Daily Inquirer, October 5, 2001. Enjoy reading. -- Noel M.
Anthropology of our vocabulary
TINKERING with my sister's easel, I surveyed the range of colors available to her from commercially produced tubes of paint. I often imagine ancient painters grinding pigment, mixing their own colors from natural sources, but now all it takes is finger pressure to squeeze paint from a tube. These paint tubes enlarged my vocabulary because they are not arranged according to the simple colors of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Rather there is "burnt siena" that is different from "raw siena." There is "yellow ochre" that I presumed was the color of sunflowers till my sister described it viscerally as "kulay tae." There is "chromium oxide green" that sounds as industrial as my all-time favorite "titanium white." Imagine various shades of blue: ultramarine blue, cobalt blue and cerulean blue. These things made me realize that each profession has its own specialized vocabulary and tools.
Aside from paint, the painter's main tool (aside from talent or training) is a brush that comes in various sizes and shapes. House painters use a large, rough one known as a brotsa that also happens to be a vulgar sexual term. Painters of pictures have more delicate instruments like "camel-hair" brushes that are actually made from squirrel tails. When the late E. Aguilar Cruz took a break from his easel, he would pick up a violin and annoyed the neighbors with a high-pitched screeching sound. I knew the bow was made from "cat gut," what I did not know was that this actually came from the intestines of sheep.
Before this column turns into something for Bong Barrameda, I must explain that our world grows richer if we take the trouble to see and notice.
Doing so will help us realize, for example, that India ink is actually from China and that the "blackboards" used in classrooms today are actually green. Roasted Beijing duck is not always from China. Pancit Canton and Lumpiang Shanghai are Philippine rather than Chinese culinary inventions.
As a "failed anthropologist," I remain curious, always observing my surroundings trying to connect one disjointed thing with another in the hope of finding the thread of a thought or a story. Walking around Ermita with my favorite antique dealer, Nora Ignacio of Casa Tesoro, I wondered aloud why everyone ignores the fact that the area which used to be our red-light district was formerly a "hermitage." The girlie bars have since moved from Ermita to Makati.
During the Spanish colonial period, two words referred to prostitutes and they both begin with "p." We are of course familiar with the four-letter word that I will not repeat here lest the INQUIRER's reader's advocate gets swamped with complaints for the words I use freely in this column.
The four-letter word that begins with "p" is too vulgar to be used in polite society yet remains in our vocabulary as an expletive that produces instant relief to those who use it. The euphemism for prostitute used to be paloma from the phrase paloma de bajo vuelo or in Tagalog, kalapating mababa ang lipad. These "doves" used to roost in a Tondo district aptly called Palomar or the "pigeon coup."
During the American period, the palomas flew from Palomar to a Sampaloc street called Gardenia (now renamed Licerio Geronimo after the Filipino general who killed enemy General Lawton). If I am not mistaken, there is still a Gardenia motel somewhere whose owner had a historical sense and used it to capitalize on Gardenia's racy allusions. Pre-war Manila Mayor Lukban rounded up the prostitutes propagating on Gardenia Street and deported them to Davao. That has become a landmark case I will discuss in another column.
Gardenia, according to my mother, is a shrub that grows in the tropics and has fragrant, white blossoms which in her time were popularly used as a corsage. In the Philippines, the gardenia is more popularly known as rosal. As I dug up material on the red-light district on Gardenia, some informants wanted to know why a red-light district could not be associated with a more fitting Philippine flower, one with a strong nocturnal fragrance known as dama de noche or "lady of the night."
Words change meanings according to time and usage and one of the things I dream of compiling is a historical dictionary for Tagalog (or Filipino) just to record all these changes. For example, I have memories of my mother directing the driver from the backseat using what I thought were Spanish terms but used in a distinctly Filipino way. Silla (chair) was an order to turn left while mano (right) meant right. Carga de mano and carga silla meant stop on the right and left respectively.
In the old days when Filipinos commuted in carriages, passengers took the backseat and the driver or cochero sat on a small stool in front. Cocheros guided the horse with reins on his right hand while resting the left hand on his seat, hence mano became the colloquial word for "right" and silla the word for "left." In Spanish, one uses izquierda (left) and derecho (right). Straight ahead is todo derecho which we corrupted into dire-direcho or plain direcho. Look up the dictionary word for "salvage" and you will see that Filipinos use it differently from standard English. The words we speak opens up our world if only we care to see and notice.
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