Bisaya Blues

I'm in the buhaton right now, getting laay at the moment. Hehe.. Pasensya na sa mga di marunong mag-Bisaya. And I'm so sorry for those who don't understand any of the Filipino dialects. You can look up any Cebuano dictionary to know what I mean. (Hint: Type "Cebuano dictionary" in Google then click the first link. It's a very good dictionary)

Anyway, I've spent the past few hours trying to relearn my native dialect which is Cebuano or Bisaya. I grew up in Davao City, where Bisaya is widely spoken, although many people can be heard conversing in Tagalog. Davao is some sort of a melting pot of people of different ethnicities. And thus, with the mix of people in Davao, it's not uncommon to hear its residents, including former residents like me, speaking some sort of a hybrid of Bisaya and Tagalog. Most people have actually given this hybrid sort of language a rather unsophisticated name, the Davao Tagalog. Some people may simply call it BisTag. And having lived in the city for 15 years, I have mastered the art of screwing pure Bisaya and Tagalog and speaking the, shall I say, lingua franca of the city. Thus, although I understand Bisaya and Tagalog, I cannot speak nor understand clearly deep Bisaya and deep Tagalog. And unfortunately for me, after 15 years of living in Davao, my parents have decided to go back to their home province, Agusan del Norte, a place where Bisaya, and I mean deep Bisaya, is widely spoken. I can speak straight Bisaya, but my relatives just keep noticing how screwed my grammar is. Even my parents are surprised that I don't speak Bisaya the right way. And there are those words that I can't understand! I have to constantly ask my mom what this word or that word means. There was this one time when my grandma was telling me some story. She was enthusiastically telling me about what happened to her and her family during the war, and although I found it very interesting, she said a lot of words that were sooo deep that I also have to think deeply what they meant. I just couldn't stop her. It's rude to ask your grandma to suddenly stop while she's talking to you. So I ended up translating some words on my own, not sure whether I made the right translation. There was also one time (it was years ago) when I was talking to the phone with my uncle. I told him "Angkol, paadtoon na daw mo ni mama diri(Uncle, mama wants you to come here now)" Then he suddenly laughed. I was wondering why, so I asked him. Then he told me that my grammar was wrong. It should be paanhion instead of paadtoon. As he explained, the root word adto means go there, while anhi means come here. And since I was telling him to "come here", I was obviously wrong. But I didn't know it that time! I knew the words anhi and adto, but I didn't know how to properly use them. So as you see, I'm a total Bisaya screw up. :P

But over the years, I've managed to add some words to my Bisaya vocabulary. My friends from Davao are even commenting that I speak Bisaya too deeply. And I'm quite proud of it. It's my way of commemorating my ancestors, most of whom have come from Cebu and Bohol. Although I'm proud to be a Filipino, I'm even prouder to be a Bisaya.

But still, there are words that I haven't learned yet. Checking the dictionary, I came upon these words:

pailub - perseverance
ligdong - gentle, formal, honest
maharuson - violent
kinampay - violet
madalag - yellow
hibangkaagan - culture
bulong - medicine

Wow. I never encountered such words before. It's good that I know them now, though I doubt I can use them. They're just so new to me. Hehe

Anyway, I've been also trying to learn the Butuanon language. It's a dialect spoken by the natives of Agusan. It's similar to Bisaya, but much less common. Some linguists even say that it is a dying language. I've only heard it once in my life, and I never got to hear it again. Anyway, here's the link to the only sort-of-dictionary I found in the internet: www.butuanon.org. Have fun :P

That's all. My work time's almost over. Need to go now.

Adyos! Mabuhi ang mga Bisaya! :P