A Foreigners View on the Beauty of the Filipino National Language

by Will Ni
September 24, 2016
Makati City, Metro Manila, Philippines
During my time here in the Philippines (7 years so far), and trying to learn the Filipino language, I have come to
the realization that Filipino speakers are, in fact, incredibly and absolutely intelligent.
Filipino has such an unusually complicated system. They use words like "ang", "ng", "nang", "ay", "ba", and
countless other short, 2-4 letter words that are impossible to translate individually in English. They use so many
affixes in verbs, nouns, like "pa-", "-um-", and "-an" that somehow completely change their meaning. English doesn't
have that. Dutch (my first language) doesn't have that. Filipino also has different accents on words like "baSA", which
means "wet", and "BAsa", which means "read". Also, it has two words for "we", like "kami", and "tayo", which I don't
know the difference of either up to now.
Filipino speakers juggle around countless affixes, stress accents, and small random words, and yet they can
still understand it so intuitively, like it's second nature. They don't complain about how convoluted and intricate it is,
and they don't have to understand what the concrete difference between "ang" and "ng" is, they just... know it.
They even have a word called "po". Po means absolutely nothing, it just makes your sentence more polite. It
makes it more formal. Using the word "po" actually makes it so much more complicated, because if you don't use
"po", you're automatically being informal/impolite. But if you are using "po", and if you use it correctly, it makes you
sound kinder, more intelligent, and creates a sense of respect between you and the person you are talking to. One
word is the difference between formal, and informal speech. There's nothing like that in English! To be polite, we just
speak in a softer, nicer tone, we use hand gestures, and generally in English we don't make a big deal out of being
polite. But in Filipino, the word "po" is incredibly important, not just because it's more polite, but because it's a very
difficult word to use, and you have to memorize the grammatical rules for using "po".

And you know what? I think it's beautiful. Filipino truly is a language of beauty. All of you have a gift. Being able
to communicate to one another using such a complex and unusual language so fluently and confidently deserves so
much praise and applause. Please love your language, because it is so intricate and special, and you know how to
use it, and that is a sign of intelligence. Maybe you aren't good at math, or at science, or at activities, or at drawing,
but you can speak Filipino, a language of beauty, intelligence, and respect; and you should be very proud of that fact.
Inirekomendang artikulo para sa: Filipino 40 WFU1, 10:00 - 11:30 ng hapon, WF, PH 114,
Unang Semester, Taong Akademik 2016-2017