Good taste

“Masama ang lasa ko,” I announced to one of my classes the other week.

A literal translation into English would be “I have bad taste,” which isn’t quite correct. But even when translated “correctly” into “My sense of taste is bad,” there may still be problems of communicating what’s meant. “Taste” here refers to the gustatory, the ability to taste flavors. Yet, many Tagalogs do not routinely use this phrase. It is, however, widely used in Batangas, and there, it does not refer at all to a problem with the sense of taste, but is a way of saying “I’m not feeling well.”

I am not Batangueño, but learned of this important meaning from Dr. Anthony Cordero, a faculty member of the University of the Philippines College of Medicine who is in one of my medical anthropology graduate classes. Ants’ field is community medicine, which includes supervising students in San Juan, Batangas, where he learned this phrase. He warns the medical students that if a Batangueño patient says “Masama ang lasa ko,” they should understand this means general malaise, which does not necessarily include decreased appetite and a distorted sense of taste.

I’m writing about this “bad taste” because August is Buwan ng Pambansang Wika, the month of the national language. Beyond the debates on Filipino, I wanted to emphasize how linguistically diverse we are, and some of the practical implications of recognizing this diversity.

The Summer Institute of Linguistics’ website (sil.org) lists 171 living languages in the Philippines. The ones with more than 1 million speakers each are Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilokano, Hiligaynon, Waray-Waray, Kapampangan, Central Bikolano, Albay Bikolano, Pangasinan, Maranao, Maguindanao, Kinaray-a, and Tausug.

These are all languages, not dialects. Even university professors still make this mistake of calling the languages dialects. Dialects are variations on languages. Thus, the “masama ang lasa ko” phrase is Batangueño Tagalog, the words understood by all Tagalogs, but only among Batangueños as “not feeling well.”

This linguistic diversity can be challenging. For government agencies, it means having to translate important information into the major languages, from the Constitution and our laws, down to instructions for responding to natural disasters and disease outbreaks. Unfortunately, this is rarely done, with many important documents produced in English without translations even into Tagalog-based Filipino.

Communicative competence

At my college of social sciences and philosophy in UP, there are two departments working on languages—the linguistics department, currently celebrating its 90th anniversary and which compiles dictionaries, glossaries, grammars and databases for Philippine languages, and the anthropology department, which looks at how people use the languages in daily life, and how we might develop communicative competence.

More than learning the different words in a language, communicative competence means picking up on the nuanced meanings of words, and the social contexts of these nuances. This becomes more challenging in societies like ours, with so many languages and dialects. An example is the way Tagalogs often misinterpret Cebuanos (and other speakers of Visayan languages) as being disrespectful because they do not use the honorific “po.” Cebuanos do try to use “po” when speaking Tagalog, but it doesn’t flow as easily as with Tagalogs; in fact, Cebuanos sometimes feel that Tagalogs overuse “po” to the point of trivializing politeness.

Even the general tone of a language can be a source of tension. The other day I found myself feeling rather irritated by a 7-11 clerk because of the tone of her voice as she answered my inquiries. Then I heard her speaking to the other cashier in Ilokano and I backed off, realizing that her Tagalog had incorporated some of the gruff-sounding sounds of Ilokano. It can be worse with speakers of Masbateño, or even local Hokkien Chinese and Cantonese Chinese speakers, who sound like they’re quarreling when they’re not. On the other extreme, the Ilonggos’ are known for their soft, almost musical, language, so even when they’re angry they sound like they’re flirting.

Linguistic diversity in the Philippines can lead to awkward situations because the languages are related, and so the same term will shift in meanings even when you move only a few kilometers. The most often cited example is “ibon” in Tagalog, which means bird, and “ebon” in Kapampangan, which means “egg.” There are many jokes about how a Kapampangan egg hatches into a chicken just by crossing a provincial boundary.

Then there’s the notorious “libog,” meaning “lust” in Tagalog and “confusion” in Cebuano. A Cebuano student should be extra careful when requesting a Tagalog teacher to repeat something that is not too clear.

‘Maligayang pagbati’

I had a personal encounter with communicative competence breaking down right in my own college. Since the beginning of August I’ve been getting “happy birthday” greetings from friends, even if my birthday is a long way off yet. The first greeters explained they had seen a tarpaulin in front of my college with large letters “Maligayang Bati” (Happy Greetings) and my photograph.

The breakdown was on two counts. First, “maligayang bati” does bring up the “happy birthday” tune. Sure, it can be used to congratulate someone, but in my case, my friends said they didn’t quite read the message below the “Maligayang bati,” which explained that I had been elected to the National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST). Some friends even asked what that academy was—a sad reflection of the low visibility of NAST—but I won’t go into that here since someone in the Inquirer is preparing an article about the academy and its academicians. Back to words, though: Some friends have said there’s a lack of fit between “maligaya,” happy in a jovial sense, with an academic achievement, but no one could suggest either what kind of greeting to use except, well, “Congratulations.”

Readers’ suggestions will be most welcome because I anticipate more tarps of this kind with so many accomplished faculty members in my college who may want to avoid getting untimely birthday greetings.

My dismay over the breakdown in communications came about because I’ve long advocated a downplaying of birthdays in the Philippines. We overdo birthdays with expensive parties and I think it’s inappropriate that Civil Service regulations actually allow a “birthday leave” for government employees. I’ve been told by some older Filipinos that a birthday celebration is a way of thanking God for another year; well, I think if you want to express gratitude, then work extra hard on that day, especially if you’re in public service.

The idea of a “happy birthday” tarp using taxpayers’ money—which is what UP’s money is—comes too close to corruption as far as I’m concerned. (I’m now seeing politicians greeting each other a happy birthday with these tarps, which only shifts the bill from one office to another, but still taxpayers’ money.)

Communicative competence is important for health professionals and their patients, for government and the citizenry, for private businesses and their customers. The most innocent lapses can mean more than bad taste.