The Ilonggo-nization of MatMat

Of the more serious endeavors I have set my mind to, these days, one is of keeping my Ilonggo speaking son,  Ilonggo speaking. All the other Filipino kids around, whether US-born or immigrant, have either never learned, or amazingly forgotten the use of the native tongue.
When we migrated here, it was decided, from the onset, that my son will retain his Ilonggo dialect in our English-speaking new world, no matter what.

During his toddlerhood, my husband and I sang native lullabies to our son. He especially liked “Dandansoy”. He also listened as I crooned, “Tuburan”, a love song that my grandmother used to sing many an afternoon, when I was growing up.

At Filipino parties, people would marvel at our Ilonggo-speaking four- year-old. It was really a no-brainer: we spoke Ilonggo in the household, and Matthew learned to speak like his folks. We were proud parents of a native-speaking wonder.

As his social circle grew, however, with the coming of pre-school, the challenge of keeping him true to his tongue grew. We were forewarned about it. They told us that day will come, when he shall lose it. I said to myself, “We will see”.

With the advent of kindergarten and first grade, in a world droning with twangs and replete with nasal tones, my challenge intensified. Even his Filipino circle of friends and family spoke to him in the foreign tongue. He was beginning to speak more English and less Ilonggo. Exasperated, I set a rule, one time, that I would not answer Matthew should he speak to me in English. (Now I have an amendment to that rule: for every word that he speaks in English, I would supply the Ilonggo equivalent.)

Having been exposed to only his parents’ meager Ilonggo vocabulary and having lacked the practice of the Ilonggo dialect only living in the native city could afford, Matthew has difficulties with grammar and syntax. He would use the wrong pronouns. He would say “Naghampang kita” (“We played”), instead of “Naghampang kami”. He would say, “Ako naghampang” (I played), instead of the easier “Naghampang ko”. He would mix English words into his sentences. He would say, “Wala ko nag’do’ sang akon homework”, or “Na ‘break’ ang akon ‘toy’”. This, by the way, is the type of combo-English that some Filipinos back home are notorious for.  
In an effort to keep the Ilonggo flowing, his father used to hook him up on the phone with his Ilonggo speaking cousins, aunts and uncles. This went on for a while until these chats were replaced with the hours-long telephone conversations he has, presently, with his English-speaking cousin here. This, by far, is the biggest road block to the Ilonggonization of Matthew.

Nowadays, Matthew and I have our Ilonggo lessons in the bathroom, and at bedtime. I would rehearse to him the body parts in the dialect. He has a hard time remembering the siko (elbow), kilay (eyebrow), pusug-pusugan (calf) but the buli (buttock), the pusod (navel), dapa-dapa (sole) and ilok (armpit), he has no trouble with. I teach him how to count, and to say the days of the week in Ilonggo. He knows how to recite some silly rhymes that I learned as a child,

“Isa, duha, tatlo, nag-utot ang soldado;

Nag abot ang kapitan, nag utot sila tanan”;

which means,

“One, two three, the soldier farted;

The captain arrived; they all farted.”

Matthew absolutely loves toilet humor. Listening to him recite this rhyme in his American accented Ilonggo, tickles me to death.
I also taught him tongue twisters like, “Ang relo ni Leroy Rolex” (Leroy’s watch is a Rolex).

I teach Sunday school songs like “Si Noe Naghimo Sang Arka” (Noah Made the ark) or “Balay Ko Sa Langit” (My House in Heaven).

These sessions are important to the familiarization of language and culture: to the Ilonggonization of my son.

I fear the alienation of Matthew with his own people. I dread the day when, at the punch line of a funny joke, among his kindred Ilonggo, he would be unable to laugh because he could not comprehend; or, in the relating of a family memory, he could not bond with his own blood because he would lose the gist of the story; or at a party of Ilonggo folks, he could not enjoy a particular anecdote, because the nuances of the language would be lost in translation.

One of the struggles of new immigrant Filipino parents like me is keeping our heritage alive in our children, as they grow up in a land that is totally alien to the one we grew up in. That is why, we keep going back home, in the hopes of realigning our roots, where they have been misaligned in a society that does not know where we have come from, and what we have been through; in a society that is blind to our cherished identity.

We bring our children back in the hopes of reawakening the passions of the blood running through their veins. And if, by some reason or other we cannot bring them back, we bring HOME into their lives, in the form of the native tongue.

I believe that to be truly Ilonggo, to be able to dig at the very roots of us, to be bound to the generations that went before, our son must speak like one of us.

MatMat's use, if not mastery of his native tongue, is crucial to his ability to communicate with his people, and this ability to communicate is vital to his Ilonggonization--the forging of his kinship with the tribe.