Pinoy English (the sequel)

thanks, dear readers, for the comments on this post! special mention: DiscreetManila for pasting a Wiki Entry (sounds like wicked entry - hehehe) on the topic! that was a superb read! complete with the linguistic ek-ek as it described and analyzed the way we speak english.

this sequel, however, is prompted by a post by gibbs cadiz in his blog, a comment on the comments about poor janina. one particular comment on the post by rody veyra got me thinking:

to illustrate another point: In a reading of Nick Joaquin's A Portrait of the Artist As Filipino held in New York some years back, a number of Filipino American actors found the lines of the play too stilted and hackneyed. They found the construction of the sentences "kinda weird." Nick Joaquin, our beloved National Artist, was one of the best Filipino writers in English and yet, his brand of English couldn't stand up to par with those actors from New York. F. Sionil Jose's novels have been distributed by american Publishers and one of the reasons why these publishers love his works is that his English is "peculiarly Filipino." Something that many Filipino writers have disparaged Jose's exact same works here for not being written in English quite well.

this country has evolved a certain kind of English that people around the world would not probably relate to-- and that's not something you pick up in school entirely. The way we use English is unique to us Fiiipinos. The way we appropriate the syntax, and the diction and the idioms to suit our way of hearing, our way of thinking all contribute to develop an English language that's uniquely our own. and so even if English in this country is all around you as you claim. It's how people use it-- all around you. that's exactly what you'll pick up.

and this is also the point that DiscreetManila made in his comment, at least the way i understood it. that we need not be apologetic about the particular way we speak English. that it is a sub-dialect.

i guess my thinking on the matter is evolving.

i wrote the original post wanting to improve my way of speaking English, making it conform better to the way Americans speak it. My thought was if Americans (in general) found my English 'peculiar', then there must be something to improve on (or there must be something wrong with it).

but reading these comments is making me re-think my thoughts (?). as long as i am understood, as long as my English is not grossly incorrect in basic grammar, do i need to 'improve' it? even my chinese american friend was saying that technically, it is not our (pinoy) problem that we speak this way. it really is up to the our audience to understand us. because our English, no matter how 'peculiar' or how archaic our word choices are, is a product of how we, as a country, learned it, how we have used it up to this point in time.

up till somebody pointed it out to me (chinese american was not the first), i didnt think my English was 'peculiar'. and i was pretty much getting by wherever i went.

and if i continue to 'improve' my English to make it conform better to the way Americans speak it, then i start asking myself 'why am i choosing American English as my baseline?' why am I not using British English (where it came from anyway) or Australian English, etc? suddenly, there this moving reference point. and im not comfortable about reference points that move (or those that could be questioned).

so where am i at this point? hmmm. definitely, i will strive to speak English in conformity with basic grammatical rules (rules common to American, British english, that is). i will be continue to be curious about how my Pinoy English may sound peculiar to other speakers (Americans, British, Indians, etc.), noting differences in context. and that curiosity may lead me to be conscious of my Pinoy English when i am speaking to other speakers. And in the process, i may end up revising my English if only to be understood better. But i shouldnt have to be apologetic about it. I embrace my history, i embrace my being Pinoy and i continue to be proudly Pinoy, Pinoy English and all!