English Like a Native (conclusion)

By Linda Grace Cariño

Inquirer.  Saturday, December 8, 2012

THEN there’s our use of John Hay, the name of the U.S. Secretary of State who handed over 21 million dollars to the government of Spain as payment for the Philippine Islands more than a hundred years ago. (Yes, that’s who he is.) To us, John Hay is the name of a place. For example: They went to John Hay. Or: John Hay is a quiet place. No self-respecting Baguio person says camp John Hay. When someone on TV once said in a simpering voice, “...kasi I’m a Baguio girl, e...I was born sa may Camp John Hay...” it was safe to conclude that she wasn’t. On both counts.

Also notice how natives say country club like it was one word? Papanam? Diay country club. Manila cousins like to affect the answer: the club. The climbers actually say country club, taking that first syllable way to seriously, counting on it, yes.

New residents of Aurora Hill like to say that they live in Aurora Hills, in order to claim relation to the chi-chi Beverly. The native has yet to learn this strange pluralization. Oldies still say “Central” when they talk of the Baguio Central School, once named after my great grandfather Mateo, its original benefactor. This is not to be confused with the one next door, named after his daughter, Josefa. Likewise, we say “City High” for the old local high school which, I think, has undergone a number of name changes.

You can spot the Baguio native by his/her acuity with Tagalog, which is near zero. When spoken to in Tagalog, this sort, be s/he a market vendor selling bananas, a taxi driver who knows where to take you without being told where you live, or the jeep driver who used to “short trip” your lola to the market, answers in English.

Back in the 80s, I worked with an American company that existed to teach English to Indochinese refugees in the Philippines en route to the U.S. of A. The company often recruited its staff from the Baguio hills (no relation to Bev) because they claimed that English as spoken by the Baguio crowd was closer to the way Americans speak it. And it is. 

The phenomenon comes from the fact that American English is the cradle language of a significant number of us. And by cradle language I mean exactly that – the one a baby first learns and which thus later defines his/her native language, native language being the one feels most comfortable with, be it native or not (another little joke there). A cross-cultural aberration, but that’s how it goes. For a good number of Baguio parents, English is what the children are spoken to from birth, definitely a throwback – albeit a useful one – to American colonial practices.

My own parents spoke English to us children when we were growing up. So did the rest of the household. I sincerely doubt if even our dogs understood much else. Which is why, of course, I sound like I do. In college at the UP Diliman, I had a Theatre professor ask me upon meeting me, “Where did you go to school, Brent?” No, Behn of the humble h in his name. We just all sound like this in the mountains.

Speaking of which, it shocks American-born English speakers to hear what I suppose is an alien face speak to them in English which is actually better than theirs, accents included. Much like I felt when I first encountered an Ilocano-speaking, ex-Peace Corps(e) Anglo friend say to someone in the same room, “Wuu-huu! Style mo, bulok!” 

At a Readers’ Theatre Performance at Indiana U (where there are no Indians), while doing some graduate work in Theatre, I did what my peers called an excellent job with a New York City Jewish Bronx accent taught to me by a classmate who was a Jewish girl from the Bronx. At showtime, the expressions on the faces of our largely WASP audience were absolutely priceless, eyes kind of glazed, jaws dropped. This prompted an American professor to show me off to her peers after the show. Said she to the head of the Theatre Department, “Great job, huh? And Linda has the best diction I have ever heard.”

This professor’s name was Marilyn. Like the rest of the Theatre crowd I hung around with, she said Linda the Spanish way because Theatre people are like that, i.e., like to order in flawless French in a French restaurant, drive vintage automobiles, act all the time, say Leenda because she says it like that... It’s just the way we often are. Some of us can be a very affected lot. So then, Marilyn, as she told everyone, could do just about The Best East Texas Accent in the world. In a moment of levity, still spay-king of mah jus’ mahrv-lous dikshen, she said to a whole class, “...Except for one word, just one word.”

“What word?” We wanted to know.

“Your,” said Marilyn, turning to me. “Linda says yore. Jus’ lahk... lahk... a native.