Filipino-1

[potet]

A good friend of mine has brought me a copy of

CONSTANTINO, Ernesto A. (1999)
_The contemporary English-Filipino dictionary_
Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines: EAC Center for Philippine Languages

so that I can use it as a document to talk about Filipino.

Let it be said once and for all that it is a good and useful dictionary that
represents a lot of work. In so far as the bulk of it was written in 1986
and the additions were made until 1999, we may assume it reflects the state
of Filipino during the corresponding period. Also the use of accents is a
definite improvement on

MANSER, Martin H. & ANGELES, Epifania G., ed. (1995)
_The new standard English-Filipino dictionary_
Makati, Metro-Manila, Philippines: Basic Media Systems

based on

HORNBY, A. S. (1948, 1974, 1987)
_Oxford advanced learner's dictionary of current English_
Oxford, England, UK: Oxford University Press

I wish now to concentrate on some puzzling features.

1) Leaving aside some spellings which to me sound doubtful, e.g. gadget >
gadjet (shouldn't it be _gajet_ ?), I don't see why CH and SH were not
included in the Filipino alphabet since the majority of Filipinos can utter
these two sounds without any difficulty while - as far as I could judge - a
great many of them do have serious problems articulating the included
phonemes /f/ and /v/.
Why not have
chairman > cherman              instead of chairman > tserman
teacher > ticher                     instead of teacher > titser
Span. chinelas > chinelas     instead of  chinelas > tsinelas
shampoo > shampu                instead of shampoo > syampu

2) Even if we do not take into account the replacement of useful Tagalog
terms by English ones, e.g. angkát "import" replaced by import > import and
recycled as "buy for resale or retail" (p. 62: buy), which for me is the
synonym of "(buy wholesale) pumakyáw/pakyawín" (p. 62: buy), Filipino
promotes other confusions here and there. For instance three Filipino
translations are given for "bee":
    1) (big and black) bubuyog
    2) (honeybee) pukyutan
    3) (small bee with a small hive) putaktí
Actually the _bubúyog_ is the bumblebee, and the _putaktí_ the wasp. The
dictionary contradicts itself  by translating bumblebee (p. 60) and wasp (p.
363) as I do here.
Conversely there are several terms in Tagalog, and presumably in other
Philippine languages, to refer to the actual species of bee, and the
dictionary doesn't mention them.
In brief, on such points, not only does Filipino bring confusion, but also
impoverishment to the lexicon.

3) Wherever Tagalog or another Philippine language cannot supply the term,
one would expect Filipino to borrow it from English or Spanish. Yet, in
quite a large number of cases no borrowing is suggested, and only a
periphrastic definition is entered. Let's take "forklift" as an example
since this was one of the problem terms we dealt with last month.

"forklift, n. sasakyáng mey parang malakíng tinidór na pambuhat, panlipat at
pantalaksán ng mga mabíbigát [sic for mabibigát] na bagay" (p. 150) =
carriage with a big, fork-like (part) for lifting, moving around, and piling
up heavy things.

Surely there are plenty of forklifts in Metro-Manila, and any of its drivers
would have been able to supply the lexicographer with the term they actually
used to refer to it.

4) I just don't believe people will say _kila_ instead of _kina_ (the form
of the preposition "to/from" before plural personal names) as suggested p.
vii. Even less probable is the adoption of _nila_ as the equivalent of
_nina_ (the form of the preposition "of" before plural personal names)
because _nila_ already exists as the "of" form of the third-person plural
pronoun. Even if such variations do exist in dialects of Tagalog, or are the
rule in some other Philippine languages, they certainly oughtn't to be
promoted at the national level.

Well that was an outsider's point of view, a lover of Tagalog, and I hope I
didn't offend.

Jean-Paul G. POTET. B. P. 46. 92114 CLICHY CEDEX. FRANCE.