Before its permanent deletion in December 2020, a portion of our old Yahoo Group page...

On buzzsprout.com/1764030/8801237 is the podcast interview of Manny by Philip Fairbanks...

Manny explains DILA to a Tagalog TV reporter...

Farce is when the bayanihan "federal" constitution proposal sanctifies nationalism and national language (as if nothing on earth is more essential to life itself) but its drafters wrote it in English because they couldn't do it in unintellectual Tagalog. This piece by Manny Faelnar absolutely demolishes the myth that national language has even the slightest reason to exist anywhere.

 
Manuel Lino Faelnar > Defenders of the Indigenous Languages of the Archipelago (DILA) facebook.com 164577200267177 March 23, 2022 8:26 AM
National languages were vigorously promoted by Fascists like Benito Mussolini of Italy, Francisco Franco of Spain, in Imperial Japan. Spain now has no national language as the languages of the regional nations are the national languages. They are co-official languages with Spanish. India has no national languages. It has 22 official languages. South Africa has no national language, it has 11 official languages. Bolivia has no national language. The 83 or so indigenous languages are co-official with Spanish. Paraguay has no national language. Guarani and Spanish are co-official languages. Canada has no national language. It has three co-official languages, French and English for the whole country, Inuit for Nunavut Territory. Switzerland has no national language. It has four official languages. Belgium dropped French as the national language, federalized, and made Flemish, French and German official languages in the areas where they are spoken. While the Russian Constitution makes the languages of component states of the federation, Putin has Fascist tendencies and is pushing Russification. China is no longer a communist state. It is a Fascist state and is trying to eliminate Cantonese, Shanghainese, Hokien, Tibetan, Mongolian and other languages of China. The Filipino nation builders of the early 20th century were obviously influenced by Fascist language ideology as Fascism was the flavor of the pre war era just as Communism was the flavor of the post war era. In fact during the Japanese occupation Tagalog was imposed as the national and official language to wean Filipinos from English. That was the golden age of Tagalog literature promoted by collaborators like Claro Recto who cheated in the 1934-35 Constitutional Convention.

Monkayo
Ni Manuel Lino G. Faelnar

Tun-og ug bugnaw,
Gabi-ing malinaw,
Diri sa kalasangan,
Sa mga gangis ug baki giharanaan,
Aninipot nanagsayaw sa kangitngitan,
Katam-is unta sa pagbati,
Kun wala lay dag-om ang kinabuhi,
Kun sa boroka di lang unta magpitnatyanay,
Ka-angay gyod unta maghigugma-ay.
Ka-anugon sa kinabuhi,
Sa dili oras nawakli,
Ka-anugon sa kamingaw,
Sa lasang nga bugnaw.

Monkayo (Translation)
By Manuel Lino G. Faelnar

Cool and moist
Evening's rest,
Here in the forest,
Crickets and frogs in concert serenade,
Troops of fireflies in the darkness prance,
Sweet would have been life's feeling,
had there been no gloom in living,
If only there were no senseless killings,
If instead there would be neighbors' loving,
A life is wasted,
Death came before it crested,
How sad to lose the stillness
of the forested coolness.
FB DILA 07-24-2023

Manuel Lino Faelnar -- free.facebook.com/groups/164577200267177/permalink/7145534085504752

Atong Tinago
By Manuel Lino G. Faelnar

Ig-agi sa dugayng panahon,
Timan-an nato ang kagahapon,
Usa ka gabi-i gihatag nako,
Ngadto sa imong mga tudlo,
Ang akong kagamhanan,
Nga imong gidawat ug gigunitan.
Kini gyud ang atong tinago,
Kita ug way lain ang nahibalo,
Isulod sa kasingkasing aron hinumduman
Ang gibuhat nato sa kangitngitan,
Usa ka gabi-i sa kagahapon.

Our Secret
By Manuel Lino G. Faelnar

As time goes by,
Let us remember our yesterday,
The night I put
Into your hands my power,
And you took it and held it.
This is our secret,
Only meant for you and I.
Let us put this in our hearts
For us to remember by,
The things we did in the dark,
One night in the yesterday of our life.

Translated by Facebook: What We Hide

Pass by for a long time,
Let's take a look back at the past,
One night gave me,
Just right at your fingertips,
My strength, my strength,
That you accept and hold on to.
This is exactly what we have been hiding,
We see and nobody else knows,
Put it in the heart to remember
What we do in the dark,
A night from the past.

October 30, 2023

Walay Gimahayan
Ni Manuel Lino G. Faelnar

Walay gimahayan
Sa kamatuoran nga pagbati
Ning mubo tang kinabuhi.
Lawas ta ug kalag
Atong gihatag
Sa atoang gugma.
Bisan pa'g walay ugma,
Nagpasalamat ako
Nga nahigugma ka kanako.

No Regrets
By Manuel Lino G. Faelnar

There are no regrets
For what we truly feel
In this short life.
Body and soul
We have given
To our love.
Should there be no tomorrow
Still I am thankful
For your love.

Let me share with you the following Visayan poem and English translation, both of which I wrote. The poem and translation have been published in the Dalityapi- Makata internet poetry magazine, Vol 7, No. 3 (2006). Manny

Dalaga Sa Pila
ni Manuel Lino G. Faelnar
Dalaga sa Pila,
Wa pay tag-iya, Ayaw hilabti
Kay wa pa hinghagki.
Katam-is og pahiyom,
Kalami ilarawan
Sa paghinumdom.
Ning Dalaga sa Pila
Nga bag-ong kaila.

Girl from Pila
by Manuel Lino G. Faelnar
Girl from Pila.
Not yet possessed,
Don't touch her,
She's not yet been kissed.
Her sweet smile I capture,
in memory's rupture.
This sweet girl from Pila,
Whom I have just met.

Both Visayan and English versions Copyright 2006 by Manuel Lino G. Faelnar

 
https://m.facebook.com/groups/164577200267177/permalink/7264611430263683
Merlie M. Alunan
PART I
FINDING BISAYA: THE STATE OF THE FIELD OF VISAYAN LITERATURE
School defined what 'literature' was for us Filipino kids: Literature was the stories and poetry in English that were part of our classroom experience. Its counterpart in Filipino, the national language was Panitikan, and we also had to study that in school. Visayan literature was never part of my literary experiences in school. When I trained to become a literature teacher, Bisaya literature was never part of the curriculum. The Bisayan stories of Juan Tamad I heard from my mother, the riddles, cradle songs, game songs and songs of love and courtship were always there - but as far as I can remember, were never counted as literary. It took a while before I questioned this state of things. And much longer to realize the history that had erased Binisaya literature or reduced it to marginal status. This article explains broadly how or why this situation came to be. I look at the forces that have 'silenced' Bisaya literatures. These forces had been part of my lived experience, living and working in the Visayas. I discuss the growth of Bisaya literature and the elements guiding its progress, hence, the title, 'Finding Bisaya,' because Bisaya literature is an unfinished process, just as, in a way Philippine literature is.
In 2004, I was asked to teach Philippine Literature in the Languages. In earlier times this course was labelled Philippine Literature in the Vernacular (the mother tongue was called 'vernacular' when I was in grade school). The problem with this assignment was that there are 150 active languages in the Philippines. Each of these mother tongues harbours a body of literature all its own. Too many literatures to cover in a course scheduled for eighty classroom hours. As far as I knew, there were no comprehensive compilations of Philippine literature in the Philippine languages. I organized the course around Binisaya literatures, Binisaya or Bisaya referring to the languages spoken in the group of islands in the central part of the Philippine Archipelago known as the Visayas or Kabisay-an. The word Visaya was used by the Spaniards to distinguish the lighter-skinned inhabitants of Negros Island from the Ati, the smaller black-skinned people who also lived in the islands of Negros and Panay. The Visayas today is divided into three administrative regions: Region VI, Western Visayas, made up of the islands of Panay, Guimaras and the western half of Negros Island; Region VII, Central Visayas, consisting of the islands of Cebu, Bohol, Siquijor, and the eastern half of Negros; Eastern Visayas, to which belong Leyte, Samar and the Biliran group of islands. By limiting myself to the Visayas, I would have to deal only with the five major languages of the Visayas: Cebuano, Waray, and the Panayanon languages - Hiligaynon, Kinaray-a and Aklanon. Born in Iloilo, a province of Panay, I can speak Hiligaynon, understand Kinaray-a and read Aklanon. I have a decent command of Cebuano and Waray. Language was no longer a problem and I had a 'slice' of the Archipelago and its ethnolinguistic diversity covered.
I compiled a small collection of materials in the five Bisaya languages. Nothing in the teacher education program I went through in college prepared me for this assignment. I had to teach myself how to teach the materials as I went along. All in all, it was a journey of self-discovery, finding discussion points in familiar, oftentimes over-familiar, materials. I taught the course in Binisaya, of course, so there was no need to translate the thoughts in one's mind into the approved language of the classroom. I found my small compilation helpful in the classroom. When I retired, I augmented the materials and created a book to make them available to other teachers and students.
This is the humble provenance of Sa Atong Dila: Introduction to Visayan Literature (Alunan 2015). Sa Atong Dila means 'in our own tongue'. Surprisingly, Visayan literature as a unitary literary landscape seemed totally imaginable when the manuscript was finally assembled, the representative pieces arranged according to each respective language. But I do not have a theoretical anchor to back the claim. My concession to critical necessity was to translate all the materials into English to make them accessible to non-Visayan readers. There are five Visayan languages related to but distinct from one another. Eastern Visayas which consist of the big islands of Samar and Leyte speak Waray; Central Visayas which include Cebu, Bohol, Siquijor and half of Negros Island speak Cebuano; Panay and the other half of Negros Island speak three languages: Hiligaynon, Kinaray-a and Aklanon, The native speakers of these languages call themselves and their respective languages Bisaya. Binisaya means speaking in the Visayan language. Hence, everyone speaks Binisaya, but they would be referring to any one of the five Binisaya languages which are distinct from one another. Nagbibinisaya ako, the Waray would say; the Cebuano would say, Gabinisaya ko; Ilonggos (the people of Iloilo Province in Panay Island) would also say, Nagabinisaya ako. They all mean they are speaking in the Visayan tongue, but each one of these tongues is different from one another. When the Waray and the Cebuano meet, they would both be speaking Bisaya, but they would not understand each other. You might note the variations of prefixes used for the same root, underlining the similarities and differences among these languages. For clarity's sake, we refer to the variants of Binisaya by these labels: Waray Binisaya, Cebuano Binisaya, Hiligaynon Binisaya, Kinaray-a and Akeanon are also Binisaya.
The fact is that there are many similarities in grammar and lexis among the Bisaya languages. Yet the native speakers of any of these languages claim they do not understand any other Binisaya speech except the one they were born into. This diffidence may come more from habit and attitude than actual differences. No doubt there are variations among the languages, especially in accent, but the similarities are just as rife and obvious, and should not be an obstacle for understanding. I came to understand this in my childhood when I was forced to learn a new Binisaya at short notice, in school yards and in the market places where fluency in the native speech is absolutely necessary. Language, not place of origin, defines the Bisaya personae anywhere in the Visayas, and even in Mindanao, where Cebuano or Hiligaynon have become lingua franca. Despite their mobility in these modern times, the Bisaya still sort their respective identities by language.
My earliest knowledge of Visayan literature was the stories and songs my Ilongga mother sang as she worked around the house or put the babies to sleep. These were songs and stories in Kinaray-a or Hiligaynon. They kept me bonded to the place of my birth which I left when I was nine, to which I would never return for the rest of my life. Despite all the leave-takings and arrivals, and finding spaces in the fringes of settled communities, I consider myself a true Bisaya, albeit a confused one. I cannot be Bisaya of any one kind, but rather a sort of 'floater', nagalutaw-lutaw in the current usage. In short, I did not belong. I can speak a few Binisaya languages, but without the fluency and conviction of the native speakers, whose ears are quick to note the difference - one is marked as an outsider. I have grown old without the extended circle of family and friends that is typical of any member of the Bisaya community. No fiestas to celebrate, no graveyards to visit with flowers and candles. Nevertheless, I have never lived anywhere but in the Visayas. Notwithstanding the isolation, of being the constant 'outsider' looking in, or perhaps because of it, I can appreciate the various Binisaya languages - loving the feel of the words in the muscles of tongue and throat, the resonance of the tones and rhythms ears - and not feel disloyal to anyone or to myself. Finding Bisaya is a lived experience for me. Finding Bisaya: The state of the field for Visayan literature
Merlie M. Alunan
University of the Philippines Tacloban College, Tacloban City, Philippines

School defined what 'literature' was for us Filipino kids: Literature was the stories and poetry in English that were part of our classroom experience. Its counterpart in Filipino, the national language was Panitikan, and we also had to study that in school. Visayan literature was never part of my literary experiences in school. When I trained to become a literature teacher, Bisaya literature was never part of the curriculum. The Bisayan stories of Juan Tamad I heard from my mother, the riddles, cradle songs, game songs and songs of love and courtship were always there - but as far as I can remember, were never counted as literary. It took a while before I questioned this state of things. And much longer to realize the history that had erased Binisaya literature or reduced it to marginal status. This article explains broadly how or why this situation came to be. I look at the forces that have 'silenced' Bisaya literatures. These forces had been part of my lived experience, living and working in the Visayas. I discuss the growth of Bisaya literature and the elements guiding its progress, hence, the title, 'Finding Bisaya,' because Bisaya literature is an unfinished process, just as, in a way Philippine literature is.
In 2004, I was asked to teach Philippine Literature in the Languages. In earlier times this course was labelled Philippine Literature in the Vernacular (the mother tongue was called 'vernacular' when I was in grade school). The problem with this assignment was that there are 150 active languages in the Philippines. Each of these mother tongues harbours a body of literature all its own. Too many literatures to cover in a course scheduled for eighty classroom hours. As far as I knew, there were no comprehensive compilations of Philippine literature in the Philippine languages. I organized the course around Binisaya literatures, Binisaya or Bisaya referring to the languages spoken in the group of islands in the central part of the Philippine Archipelago known as the Visayas or Kabisay-an. The word Visaya was used by the Spaniards to distinguish the lighter-skinned inhabitants of Negros Island from the Ati, the smaller black-skinned people who also lived in the islands of Negros and Panay.
The Visayas today is divided into three administrative regions: Region VI, Western Visayas, made up of the islands of Panay, Guimaras and the western half of Negros Island; Region VII, Central Visayas, consisting of the islands of Cebu, Bohol, Siquijor, and the eastern half of Negros; Eastern Visayas, to which belong Leyte, Samar and the Biliran group of islands. By limiting myself to the Visayas, I would have to deal only with the five major languages of the Visayas: Cebuano, Waray, and the Panayanon languages - Hiligaynon, Kinaray-a and Aklanon. Born in Iloilo, a province of Panay, I can speak Hiligaynon, understand Kinaray-a and read Aklanon. I have a decent command of Cebuano and Waray. Language was no longer a problem and I had a 'slice' of the Archipelago and its ethnolinguistic diversity covered.
I compiled a small collection of materials in the five Bisaya languages. Nothing in the teacher education program I went through in college prepared me for this assignment. I had to teach myself how to teach the materials as I went along. All in all, it was a journey of self-discovery, finding discussion points in familiar, oftentimes over-familiar, materials. I taught the course in Binisaya, of course, so there was no need to translate the thoughts in one's mind into the approved language of the classroom. I found my small compilation helpful in the classroom. When I retired, I augmented the materials and created a book to make them available to other teachers and students.
This is the humble provenance of Sa Atong Dila: Introduction to Visayan Literature (Alunan 2015). Sa Atong Dila means 'in our own tongue'. Surprisingly, Visayan literature as a unitary literary landscape seemed totally imaginable when the manuscript was finally assembled, the representative pieces arranged according to each respective language. But I do not have a theoretical anchor to back the claim. My concession to critical necessity was to translate all the materials into English to make them accessible to non-Visayan readers. There are five Visayan languages related to but distinct from one another. Eastern Visayas which consist of the big islands of Samar and Leyte speak Waray; Central Visayas which include Cebu, Bohol, Siquijor and half of Negros Island speak Cebuano; Panay and the other half of Negros Island speak three languages: Hiligaynon, Kinaray-a and Aklanon, The native speakers of these languages call themselves and their respective languages Bisaya. Binisaya means speaking in the Visayan language. Hence, everyone speaks Binisaya, but they would be referring to any one of the five Binisaya languages which are distinct from one another. “Nagbibinisaya ako,” the Waray would say; the Cebuano would say, “Gabinisaya ko”; Ilonggos (the people of Iloilo Province in Panay Island) would also say, 'Nagabinisaya ako.” They all mean they are speaking in the Visayan tongue, but each one of these tongues is different from one another. When the Waray and the Cebuano meet, they would both be speaking Bisaya, but they would not understand each other. You might note the variations of prefixes used for the same root, underlining the similarities and differences among these languages. For clarity's sake, we refer to the variants of Binisaya by these labels: Waray Binisaya, Cebuano Binisaya, Hiligaynon Binisaya, Kinaray-a and Akeanon are also Binisaya.
The fact is that there are many similarities in grammar and lexis among the Bisaya languages. Yet the native speakers of any of these languages claim they do not understand any other Binisaya speech except the one they were born into. This diffidence may come more from habit and attitude than actual differences. No doubt there are variations among the languages, especially in accent, but the similarities are just as rife and obvious, and should not be an obstacle for understanding. I came to understand this in my childhood when I was forced to learn a new Binisaya at short notice, in school yards and in the market places where fluency in the native speech is absolutely necessary. Language, not place of origin, defines the Bisaya personae anywhere in the Visayas, and even in Mindanao, where Cebuano or Hiligaynon have become lingua franca. Despite their mobility in these modern times, the Bisaya still sort their respective identities by language.
My earliest knowledge of Visayan literature was the stories and songs my Ilongga mother sang as she worked around the house or put the babies to sleep. These were songs and stories in Kinaray-a or Hiligaynon. They kept me bonded to the place of my birth which I left when I was nine, to which I would never return for the rest of my life. Despite all the leave-takings and arrivals, and finding spaces in the fringes of settled communities, I consider myself a true Bisaya, albeit a confused one. I cannot be Bisaya of any one kind, but rather a sort of 'floater', nagalutaw-lutaw in the current usage. In short, I did not belong. I can speak a few Binisaya languages, but without the fluency and conviction of the native speakers, whose ears are quick to note the difference - one is marked as an outsider. I have grown old without the extended circle of family and friends that is typical of any member of the Bisaya community. No fiestas to celebrate, no graveyards to visit with flowers and candles. Nevertheless, I have never lived anywhere but in the Visayas. Notwithstanding the isolation, of being the constant 'outsider' looking in, or perhaps because of it, I can appreciate the various Binisaya languages - loving the feel of the words in the muscles of tongue and throat, the resonance of the tones and rhythms ears - and not feel disloyal to anyone or to myself. Finding Bisaya is a lived experience for me.
Merlie M. Alunan
-Voltaire Oyzon, Harold Mercurio, Jen Garcia, Manu Avenido, Pipay Ramos, Jona Branzuela Bering, Elio Garcia, Ian Casocot, Dulce Deriada, John Iremil Teodoro, Kristian Sendon Cordero, Carla Quimsing, Shane Carreon, Lil Tio, Erlinda Alburo, Katig Network, Carl Mantua, Omar Khalid, Daryll Delgado, Adonis Durado, Mykeo Leo, Michael Carlo Villas, Patricia Arinto, Harold Mercurio, Dennis Trillo Nierva, Aivee Badulid, Minda Cabrera. Elvie Razon, Hermie Sanchez, Lam Ceballos, Dom Pagliawan.

Manuel Lino G. Faelnar
January 13, 2024
Mandaya Partial Word List
The Mandaya' live in the Davao provinces and Compostela Valley Province in MIndanao. In Compostela Valley the Mandaya' do not live in villages of their own. They live among migrants from other parts of the Philippines, mostly Cebuano speaking. This Word List is a part of DILA's project of compiling word lists of endangered languages of cultural minorities in the Philippines, on the basis of a standard list of basic words developed by Dila. The list was managed for many years by Fernando (Danny) Gil when he was with DILA.
This word list is tri-lingual, English, Cebuano and Minandaya'. Many Minandaya' words have the swa sound known in linguistics. In this Word List the swa E sound is represented by EU, following French orthography as in the French Le or L'Europe. Due to computer problems, in this Word List diacritical marks are placed after the vowel, not on top of it. A double H (HH) indicates a prolonged vowel.
The list below is the first installment and comprises basic words from Adomen to Fat in the English equivalent. It was compiled intermittently over a period of about of about ten years by Atty Manuel Lino G. Faelnar in the farm of his in-laws in Monkayo, Compostela Valley Province.
Note: The people are called Mandaya'. The language is called Minandaya'.

English -- Binisayang Sinugbuanon -- Minandaya

abdomen     ginhawaan' ginana-an
above     ibabaw babou
across     at'bang di-ipag
adultery     nanapaw napaw
afraid     had'lok na-andeuk
air     ha'ngin kamag
and     ug aw
angry     suko^ nabua, nasukeu
ant     sum, sulom suhhm
appear     tungá, tim-aw' tunga
armpit     ilok ileuk
ash     abo' abo'
ashamed     naulaw, nauwaw nasikaw
ashes     abo', agiw abo'
at     sa ka
back (of a person)     bukobuko' talikuran
bad     daotan', ngil-ad mareu-eut
badly cooked, burned rice     dukot' dukot'
bamboo     kawayan kawayan
banana     saging saging
bathe     ligo karigos
beard     bungot peungoth
because     tungod kaling
beckon     tawag', pangamay' panagamoy
bee     buyog' buyog'
beetle     bakukang' bakukang', bisawo^
before     sa wala^ pa wakapad
behind     luyo' talikuran
belly     tiyan' geutu
below     ubos' daleugsad, awug
big     dako^ maaslag
big fly     lagum' lagong
bird     langgam manokmanok
bite     paak kagat
bitter     pait mapait
black     itom maitom
blind     buta' buta'
blood     dugo langasa
body hair     balahibo Buhhbo
bone     bukog bukog'
bone (fish)     bukog bukog'
bone (mammals, birds)     bukog bukog'
borrow     hulam buhhwos
bow & arrow     pana tapi-an
boy/man     lalaki lukos
branch     sanga sanga
brave     isog mabu-ut
breast     tutoy, susu duro^
breasts     tutoy duro^
breathe     ginhawa gin-awa
bright     sulaw , suwaw masilaw
brother     igso-ong laki igso-on na lukos
brown     tabonon tabonon
bulging     bugdo bugdo
bundle     pundok bakateun
burn, fire, conflagration     sunog sangab
bury     lubong leubong
but     apan andi-apuron
butterfly     alibangbang kabakaba^
buttocks     lubot indusan
buy     palit beuli
calf     biti-is biti-is
carabao     kabaw ka'rabaw
carry (vt)     bitbit bitbit
cat     iring piya^
catch (vt)     sal-on saro-a, tamuka
charcoal     uling uling
chest     dughan daga-a
chew     usap supa-a
chicken     manok' ma'nok
child     bata dugsak
chin     sulang, suwang keuhhkeu
choose     pili pili
choose (vt)     pili-on pili-a
cicada     gangis eunus
clay     yuta, kulonon pasak nga inangon tukuron
clean     tinlo malinis
climb     katkat,saka kohh-unon, peunik
climb (house)     saka (sa balay) peunik ka dini bahhy
climb (tree)     katkat pohman-ik sikayo
cloud     panganod gabon
cockroach     uk-uk, ipos ud-ud
coconut     lubi niyog
coitus     kayat, iyot, panghilawas abid
cold     tugnaw maagsi
come     umari andini ka
complexion     pamanit panit
cook     luto igiluto
cooked rice     kan-on kuonon
correct, true     tinuod tinu-eud
cough     ubo pigubo
count     ihap bilang
cousin     ig-agaw igtagsa
cover or lid     taklob, tabon taklob
cowardly     talawan talawan
crab     lambay, kasag kagang, uyabang
crawl     kamang kamang
crazy     bu-ang bu-ang
creep     kamang kamang
crippled     bakol bakol
crocodile     bu-aya bu-aya

Manuel Lino Faelnar > Defenders of the Indigenous Languages of the Archipelago February 7, 2024
Native languages of the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia have what are called inclusive and exclusive personal pronouns. For example, in the Cebuano language of the Philippines spoken by about 25 million people, we have
(1) We - Kita Nominative Inclusive, We- Kami Nominative Exclusive,
(2) Our - Atong Possessive Inclusive preposted, Our - Among Possessive Exclusive preposted,
(3) Our - Nato Possessive Inclusive post posted. Our - Namo Possessive Exclusive post posted,
(4) To, with, for Us - Kanato Oblique Inclusive, To, with, for Us - Kanamo Oblique Exclusive,
(5) Will be (verb) by Us Ergative Inclusive - Nato, Will be (verb) by Us Ergative Exclusive - Namo.

Manuel Lino Faelnar > Defenders of the Indigenous Languages of the Archipelago July 28, 2024
Senator Gatchalian (who is not a lumad. Gatchaliian ) is trying to kill our lumad languages and prohibit using them in schools. We got to do something before his bill becomes a law to be signed by the President.
El senador Gatchalian (que no es indigeno, Gatchaliian) esta intentando acabar con nuestras lenguas indigenas y prohibir su uso en las escuelas. Tenemos que hacer algo antes de que su proyecto de ley se convierta en ley y deba ser firmado por el presidente.
Sharing from Atty. Lope Lindio
Yes, there has got to be a coalition of legislators coming from the different regions, so that together they'll oppose this law. This effort may be not easy. Apparently, the ilocanos, the Pampsngos, and the Bicolanos will no longer mind as much as we do the loss of their mother tongues. They're so close to Manila that the easy coming and going of people in Luzon may have turned them into just at home in Tagalog as they are in their own language. So the responsibility to mount a fight to stop this local language genocide should be of greater concern to the binisaya speaking peoples.

Manuel Lino Faelnar > Defenders of the Indigenous Languages of the Archipelago DILA-fb September 2, 2024 _ facebook.com/share/p/wDiYkvT8pPqPosKu/?mibextid=WC7FNe

The Other Side Of Pentecost
By Dr. Jose Palu-ay Dacudao

  "All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues… When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language... We hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!" (Acts 2:4-11)
Taken literally, this passage has always been taken by Christians as a miracle. Some Christian groups have even been founded that focus on the attempted reenactment of this passage. Speaking in tongues, a miracle, a sign from God!
What is also clear from this passage, although often forgotten, is that the apostles evangelized, right at the beginning, in the languages of their listeners, as directed by God the Holy Spirit who descended upon them and filled them. And here is the clear implication that has often been left out in Christian theologies.
God encouraged the apostles, in the most direct of ways, to use the languages of the world. They had no choice, as the Spirit of God possessed them.
Now why would God do that? Just what are the languages of the world?
The languages of the world are His creations. Each language of the world in general also defines an ethnolingustic people, namely the people that speak that particular language. No man has created a naturally occurring language or the people that it defines. They are as naturally occurring as the birds and the beasts, and the flora that gives Creation goodness, meaning, and beauty.
God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. (Gen 1:31)
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not overcome it. (John 1:1-5)
To put it in another way, the diversity of the languages and peoples of the world, which only a creative spirit can cause to exist, pleases the Creator. Diversity gives Creation goodness, meaning, and beauty. Throughout history, any activity that tries to impose ideological uniformity is usually associated with nihilism and destruction.
Now what kind of a man or government would decree that the diversity of a country's peoples is bad? Who would dare to unmake what God has made? Who would dare put out His Light?
Yet this is exactly what is happening in our country, and also in many other countries! The central government of our country has in effect decreed that only one of our languages is 'national', supporting its imposition on all the peoples of the Philippines with millions pesos taken from the very peoples that this language is killing.
Since 'Filipino' was undemocratically enforced in all Philippine schools by the Japanese collaborationist Philippine government of World War II, all non-Tagalog languages and peoples of the Philippines have been dying fast. Definitely, the framers of the 1935 Constitution did not intend 'Filipino' to be a Tagalog dialect, yet what is being enforced in all Philippine schools since World War II is precisely that.
Take a look at the summary, based on NSO surveys, below.
THE DYING PEOPLES OF THE PHILIPPINES
(AS % OF THE PHILIPPINE POPULATION)
1948 1960 1975 1990 1995
Tagalog
19% 21% 23% 28% 29.29%
Cebuano
25% 24% 24% 24% 21.17%
Ilocano
12% 11% 11% 09% 09.31%
Ilonggo
12% 10% 09% 09% 09.11%
Bicol
08% 07% 06% 05% 05.69%
Waray
06% 05% 04% 04% 03.81%
Pampangan
03% 03% 03% 03% 02.90%
Pangasinan
03% 02% 02% 01% 01.01%
Others
12% 13% 12% 13%

In ever-increasing numbers each generation, parents are ceasing to teach their native language to their children right in their native areas, and migrants from the majority ethnic group do not learn the native language of the area that they migrate into. Such language niche grabbing, which is causing our native peoples to go extinct, can occur because of the majority privileged status that the Philippine State has given 'Filipino' speaking citizens. Yet we, the non-Tagalog peoples of the Philippines are as Filipino as the Tagalog people. Why are we being subjected to linguistic ethnic cleansing in our own country?
Recommendations:
We should implement a program to save our natural and ancient pre-Spanish languages and the ethnolinguistic peoples that they define:
1. Teach our languages in schools in their traditional areas, especially for history and literature, and many of the arts and humanities, while retaining English for the Sciences. This is the only sure way to save a language. Empirical evidences from Iceland (Icelandic), Ireland (Irish), Hawaii (the Hawaiian languages), mainland America (native American languages), Switzerland (Romance), and so on have repeatedly shown that minority languages can be consistently saved in this way.
2. Create a dictionary, syllabus, and eventually literature for all the languages. This is necessary if we are to teach our languages in schools. For the larger Philippine ethnolinguistic peoples and some of the smaller ones, this is no problem because foreign religious missionaries from various Christian denominations and foreign linguists have often taken the time and effort to create such dictionaries and syllabuses, and to save these languages it is a matter of mass producing them and introducing them into school curricula. (It is such irony that non-Filipino foreigners have done more for our languages than so called nationalistic Filipinos, and incredibly the national government has not funded the creation of even a single non-Tagalog dictionary or syllabus.)
3. Promote economic prosperity for all our ethnolinguistic peoples so that they take pride in preserving their language and identity.
4. Promote political freedom for our ethnolinguistic peoples so that they are free to move to save their language and identity.
5. Teach one or two Philippine language electives in the Tagalog regions so that Tagalogs in general will learn to tolerate and respect their fellow Filipinos as brethren and peers, and not as inferior races and provincianos. (Tagalistas will probably be howling in protest at this but this is fairer in the end for all our peoples.)
There is no legal barrier to this program, and in fact our Constitution says that our regional languages should be auxiliary media of instruction. Unlike present 'Filipino', the definition of which is subject to dispute or the creation of which from all Philippine languages while retaining each component language's uniqueness is linguistically impossible, our regional languages are clearly defined and have pre-dated the existence of the Philippines itself.
If God the Holy Spirit can choose to use the different tongues of the earth (which only God can create), why cannot our government and schools do so? SAVE OUR LANGUAGES THROUGH FEDERALISM, Foundation, INC. (SOLFED)

posted by Atty. Faelnar, October 2024: Declension Case of Cebuano Personal Pronouns

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