Filipino-1 + portmanteau question

[Carl Rubino]

Dear John-Paul,
Thanks for the review of Constantino's new English-Tagalog dictionary. I was
told by one of his students/compilers that it would be highly controversial,
in that "street Tagalog" would be the norm used for defining English words.
  Seeing your definition of forklift, I see such is the case - to the dismay
of all the Filipino purists and Tagalog teachers, and to the delight of
language learners.
  I have to add that the form 3s.GEN-proper noun marker "nila" is actually
used for "nina" in the modern Manila dialect - even though it carries
another function (3s genitive pronoun). The substandard form "kila" must
have been invented by analogy - but I have no idea who uses it, as I have
never heard it. It is reported in some dictionaries as a colloquial form
(Vicassans) - does anyone here know where it is used?
  I see he has confusingly revolutionized Philippine spelling too (gadget =
gadjet instead of gadyet). I am assuming he only uses "j" in new foreign
words? How about palatalizations from foreign words that have been fully
incorporated into Tagalog? I hope he doesn't spell diyos "god, f. spanish"
as jos, and "diyeta" (diet) as "jeta".
***
  Now-- regarding your previous message about the creativity of Filipinos in
creating new lexical items, names, food, etc. I cannot speak for all
languages, but I can say that I don't think the Tagalogs are any more
creative than the Ilocanos when it comes to creating new items. There are
items that are created unofficially that are used. My favorite is pinakbaw
from pinakbet 'national Ilocano vegetable dish, from pa- caus, -in-
perfective, kebbet 'shrink when cooked' + sabaw 'Tagalog for broth' - watery
pinakbet. Official coinages (agreed upon by an academy) are less used by the
general public but appear here and there in literature (p. 114-115 of my
dissertation): batonlagip 'monument' (bato 'stone', lagip 'memory' - this is
actually a title of an Ilocano song); balandaniw 'theater' (balay 'house' +
daniw 'poetry/song'); sarindaniw 'epic' (sarita 'story' + daniw
'poetry/song'); silaw-it 'electricity' (from silaw 'light' + sal-it
'lightning'); sariugma 'ancient tale' (sarita 'story' + ugma 'former
times'), aribai 'queen' (ari 'king' + babai 'female'), balailaw 'lighthouse'
(balay 'house' + silaw 'light').
  Happy Mother's Day everyone,
  -Carl

-----Original Message-----
From: potet <POTETJP at wanadoo.fr>
To: AUSTRONESIAN LANGUAGES AND LINGUISTICS <AN-LANG at anu.edu.au>
Date: Sunday, May 13, 2001 6:14 AM
Subject: Filipino-1


>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.
>
>