Grammatical change in Philippine English over time manilatimes.net - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from manilatimes.net Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
SINCE Valentine s Day is on Wednesday, I shall take a break from talking about world Englishes and Philippine English and write something related to the day of romantic love. Today, I wish to discuss the language of love letters. Since I am a linguist and writer by profession, writing love letters has a special place in my (love) life. I am always fascinated by well-written love letters, those expressing affections and emotions in the most vivid and artistic way. I remember, when I was a teenager, I had a book that compiles love letters written by historical figures. I was too young to know what love was then (not that I know it too well now), but I did enjoy flipping through its pages, amused at how people in the past wrote about their feelings. I do not have the book now, but such letters can easily be searched on the internet. And so, in talking about the language of love letters, I shall use extracts from love letters of historical figures, too.
IN describing Philippine English, I begin with vocabulary and not typically with pronunciation, simply because vocabulary would have to be used in both speech and writing. I shall describe Philippine English pronunciation much later when I have already discussed language structures appearing in both speech and writing. Linguists have a more technical term for vocabulary, and that is lexicon. There would, indeed, be technical differences between the two, but I shall save you readers from that kind of puzzle since that is not the focus of today s column.
IN the last weeks and months, we have been talking about not only the spread of English worldwide and English in the Philippines but, more specifically, about Philippine English. In defining Philippine English, more than saying what it is, I guess it is better to begin by saying what it is not. First and foremost, and probably most importantly, Philippine English is not poorly learned English. It is not English spoken by a student who has not reached the proficiency level enough for him or her to pass his or her English language classes, to be admitted into his or her desired school, or to be hired by a company s/he applied for. It is not broken English nor what is sometimes called broken English, or even bamboo English or carabao English. It is not English with mispronunciations, grammatical errors and faulty expressions.
PHILIPPINE English is one of the earliest varieties to ever be investigated. The late Prof. Braj Kachru s first article on Indian English titled The Indianness of Indian English was published in 1965. The first publication on Philippine English is the 1969 book of the late Prof. Teodoro Llamzon titled Standard Filipino English. Professor Kachru s article is not referenced in Professor Llamzon s book, so it seems that Llamzon had not read Kachru s article when Llamzon wrote his.