LOST IN TRANSLATION

[February 24, 2012 at 3:16pm]

Language is a living thing. As life goes on it does grow and change. Who knows, the word “hate” today could be meant “love” tomorrow, which could also transform into “bitter bliss” something considered “sweet sorrow.”

Just like how they call persons who are totally cloth-less “naked,” while chickens which are absolutely featherless are universally acknowledged “dressed.”

We read in the Bible history that discord and disunity caused misunderstanding among men after the fall and destruction of the Babel Tower. That moment was the birth of all languages in this world, Filipino or Tagalog included, whether you’ll dissent or concur.

The tower of Babel was a manifestation of one of the human race’s worst characteristics: dissatisfaction. It breeds greed and more hunger riches and power that’d compel men to commit mayhem and murder in wild abandon.

Mastery of languages could take us anywhere, from Aparri to Jolo, New York and California. Look at the linguistic Dr. Jose P. Rizal, he’d gone from Calamba to España and all Europe to Luneta. When I first read his “Mi Ultimo Adios” in college in my first year, I had then that burning desire to visit Spain to become a suicide bomber.

Is English honestly accepted as the international language eversince? Then how do we consider Chinese given that language omnipresence?

There was a time recently when I doubted English to be the international tongue. I was then waiting for a Cavite-bound bus across the church in Baclaran.

Suddenly, there was this Chinese mestizo, a Jeremy Lin look-alike, carrying a heavy backpack, who remorsefully apologized to me as he passed by after he stepped on my Nike.

I could sense genuine contrition on his face as he murmured something unintelligible to me but I heard the word “sowi.” I smiled in amusement as my thumb was waving before him as I declared, “No problemo, it’s alright, it’s okay.

He was speaking in tongues again as he bombarded me another litany with only the words “how” and “eh-poot” fully registered in my ears. I presumed he meant “airport” so I replied “bohd a cah, a taxi, tell drivah you go to eh-poot” in Bostonian accent after my English failed to converse.

But my efforts still proved futile as I saw further wonderment on his face as he pointed to his bloated backpack and repeatedly said, “Noo, eh-poot, noo.” Frustrated, I spontaneously answered, “Paparaha taxi kag kun-a dul-ong na kaw sa Naia, bayad lang kaw sakto kag indi sagad reklamo.”

To my surprise, he vowed his head twice, let out a sweeter smile, and said, “Ahh, okee, okee, tang you, tang you,” and flagged down a taxi marked “Pasada.” Ahh, sooner or later, the world will embrace the true international language, and it’s gonna be my dearly beloved native tongue: the one and only “Kinaray-a.”