dialect tics

This weekend, while discussing our recent personal projects, among others, i happened to mention the "workshop-workshop " that I've participated in these past few months. Liby (he doesn't have a site i could link his name to but i think  THIS will do) grinned. And mentioned something about people repeating words. I was confused there a bit (in short, nag-mango ng 5 seconds) until he mentioned "theater-theater" and the thing i just uttered: "workshop-workshop". Apparently, he found this practice rather weird and i was compelled to explain, despite my obvious lack of expertise in linguistics.

It's not only Liby who's pointed this out to me-- the tendency of Filipinos, if not just Ilonggos, to repeat words( and even names – my nickname is Bimbim, my brother, Dindin). I've been asked by my Japanese boss about this before. Take (ang) saya saya (tagalog phrase meaning "very happy/utmost happiness"), for example. Doubling saya here does not entirely change the meaning of the word--the context maybe? -- and saya can certainly stand on its own. On the other hand paro-paro which, if devoid of its other half would mean nothing (maybe like the funny word: irregardless). The Japanese language, however (as per story of my boss) has a different story to tell. One example is this: Japanese language technically assigned cho-cho as the equivalent of butterfly but one can just use cho and it would still mean the same: butterfly. Tagalogs do not and will not call the butterfly by its half-a-name, paro. We kiniray-a and hiligaynon speakers don't cut the name short to alibang either. Alibangbang. it's always alibangbang. (Boss mentioned other japanese words but of course i cannot recall any of them anymore.)

"Maybe it's a form of humility," I say, referring to "workshop-workshop" and "theater-theater". I'm not trying to say that by using the "workshop-workshop" the writing workshops I've been involved in are lesser in value than those considered by the literature majors the "ultimates". ABD is a wonderful mentor. He's inspired me in many ways than i could possibly think of, and i am completely satisfied by what i'm getting from all of these WS's. I meant to say “workshop-workshop” because I am not gaining any additional scholastic degree from it, nor will I be given additional academic credits. But no, it is not something that I do not take seriously.

And comes the remembering: when we say dugay-dugay (short pronunciation, not the /doooogay-doooogay/, which has a different meaning), we mean "sooner" than soon. Medyo-medyo = lesser version of medyo. I'm not sure about sala-sala, though. But it seems to me that this becomes some form of a mockery to the doer.

Ms. Raj's speech, in my opinion, is a direct result of this language quirkiness of ours. "Major-major" to signify a lesser form of the "major" -- or maybe she meant the opposite?

Gamay-gamay, dako-dako, hinay-hinay, todo-todo, laba-laba, lip-ot - lip-ot – doubling them rather exponentially changes the meaning of the "singles" (imagine: gamay squared), unlike the medyo-medyo.


Hmm…that is really something I should read about.

But then, the listener seemed satisfied by my short, amateurish explanation, and i don't think i'd like to expound further. He got up and went to look for the missing head of his wayang golek.


Fin.