The Contoversial Mother Language

This post was kinda long over due. A couple of weeks ago, a facebook friend had posted a link about a young Filipino columnist who post about his being fluent in speaking English rather than Filipino, which is his country's language. I told about this to my brother who also blogs. And he told me that he already made a post about this.

Basically, if you will check my blog, you'll never see any personal post nor any post about what I have read or watched from the news somply because not all of my readers are Filipino and I think, they wouldn't understan what I was blogging then. But I realize that this is MY blog. And I can post whatever I want to my heart's content, right? So here it goes..

picture source from his multiply account

The columnist I wish to talk about, is James Soriano. He has a blog, a facebook account and a multiply account. And I'm guessing that he also have a twitter account. Soriano mentioned on his column that eversince he was a kid, the language he learned to know was English. And for me personally, lived to the idea that English is the universal language. To communicate with other countries, you must know the basic English words. Soriano also mentioned that he's fluent in speaking and thinking in English rather that Filipino. Don't get me wrong here. It's not his declaration that English is his mother language. It's when he said that Filipino is a street language. That coming from a Filipino, who looked so Filipino, really annoying. His article can be read here.

Here in the Philippines, we have a saying about Filipinos who happened to be like James Soriano, by our National Hero, Dr. Jose P. Rizal, "And Hindi magmahal sa sariling wika'y higit pa ang amoy sa malansang isda." To translate this, He who does not love his own language, is worse than animal and smelly fish (translation from GoodQuotes.com.com).

I may have a different upbringing as to Soriano, I may have dreamed of experiencing the white Christmas, and I may also have learned to Speak English by necessity, but I am also a Filipino. And Filipino language reflects me. It is me. It is who I am.

For the likes of Soriano, it's your opinion, it's your thoughts. But you could keep it to yourself or don't blog about it. Soriano may have posted this for good reason that us who have read it don't know, but I hope he will realize that half Filipino or not, you're still a Filipino. He may have admitted that he is worse than that of a rotten fish for good reason or point, he's still an indio for the rest of the Filipino.