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Pangasinan: A Dying Dialect (?)

By Ernest M. Serote
(lifted from: ‘Balon Silew’ Oct-Dec 2000 issue - with permission to republish from publishers) 
A POPULAR JOKE is told about a young Pangasinense who, returning home after a year’s stay in Manila, is completely ‘tagalized’.
 
Feeling hungry one mid morning, he rushes to the kitchen and finds his mother preparing their lunch. “Ang bagal naman ni Inay,” he says, “Gutom na gutom na ako, e. Ano ho bang ulam natin?”

He sees a basket of live crabs. “Inay, ano ba ire?” he asks, pointing his forefinger, and suddenly blurts out: “Aray ! Anak na lasin alama ya, kinetket to ak!”
 
The preceding anecdote is an exaggeration, of course. But it is a telling example of how many Pangasinenses unwittingly kill their language through disuse. For a Pangasinense in another region loses his cultural identity – language especially, and is readily absorbed by the culture of that other region. This, among other things, account for the rapid decay of Pangasinan dialect.

More of the causes later.

In the not-so-remote past, Pangasinan was one of the major dialects in the Philippines. It bares close affinity with some Indonesian tongues, a fact often cited by historians as proof of the assertion that the fabled Princess Urduja was not a native Amazon but a migrant from the South. Pangasinan, too, has a fair share of the Hindu Arabic terms, an off-shoot most probably, of the once flourishing trade between Sual and the Arab world.
 
Pangasinan before the Ilocano Deluge, must have been spoken throughout the length and breadth of this big province. Many barrios in what are now predominantly Ilocano-speaking towns have retained their original names in the dialect. The barrios of Caoringan in Sison, Nancayasan in Urdaneta, Cabayaoasan in Mangatarem, are only three of the scores that can be named as cases in point. Also, many aging people from the Ilocano-speaking towns, whom this writer has had the chance to meet have intimated quite nostalgically that they are, or used that they had to adopt a second language having been overwhelmingly outnumbered.
 
The existence of people still fluent in Pangasinan in as far as south of Paniqui, Tarlac and the distinctly heavy streaks of Pangasinan terms in Ibaloy, the dialect spoken by the Igorots in Benguet, point to the Palaris and Malong in the once resplendent past. Today, Pangasinan is a dying dialect. It is spoken only in a handful of towns in the central part of the province.
 
And the frontier is continually being pushed inward due to incessant incursions of the Ilocanos from all sides. Even in these diminishing places that are ‘pre’ Pangasinan speaking are as virgins are in England.
 
Perhaps enrichment from other languages augurs well for many particular language. Unfortunately, it is not so with Pangasinan. Contact with other cultures does not enrich but rather annihilates Pangasinan.
 
The invisible limits of what remains a Pangasinan-speaking area are readily noticeable as one takes a bus ride from the city of Dagupan outward to any direction. One notes how, after travelling 20 kilometers or so, the passengers conspicuously change to Ilocano the way the driver shifts his gears. So small has the area grown that the Pangasinenses, once a major ethnic group, are now reduced to mere cultural minorities.

Political campaign strategists in Manila erroneously and sweepingly consider Pangasinan as part of Ilocandia. To native Manileño, other region, a Pangasinense is an Ilocano. Campaigner therefore, who spice their speeches with a smattering of Ilocano idioms usually endear themselves to Pangasinan audiences.

If this trend goes on, one dreads that day when Pangasinan-speaking people, cultural minorities that they are now, will be edged out into the sea, like the rats of Hamelin, there being no mountain vastness in Central Pangasinan to which they can retreat. That would mean the death of Pangasinan. And when that happens, “lingotopsy” will surely unravel the following causes of the death of the Pangasinan dialect.
 
For one thing, there has been no serious and sustained effort to preserve, much less propagate, the dialect. One vital factor in the propagation of any language is the development of its written literature. But alas, Pangasinan literature is largely oral. There is a dismal death of vernacular, including a novel in series. The Pangasinan novel, too, assuming that it deserves such a name, has almost died with the late Maria Magsano of ‘Samban Agnabenegan’ fame. Ironically this novel and some other works which include Colegiala Dolores Nami-ko (a translation from Japanese). Bales na Kalamangan, can be obtained more easily in their English translation than in their original version. The translations were done by Juan Villamil who also has novels to his name, notably: Ampait ya Pagbabawi, Pakseb na Kapalaran, Pinisag ya Puso, Diad Tape na Daluyon and Sika Tan Siak.

The themes of these novels and their variations have nourished for some time another indigenous literary form – the zarzuela. The zarzuela used to be popular fare not only among the simple barrio folk but also in the more sophisticated poblacion.
 
Years ago, no town fiesta was complete without a zarzuela as a major presentation. Now zarzuela is a dying art. One last ditch effort to revive the art was weekly radio program ‘Zarzuela on the Air’ directed by Lorenzo Morante, but it did not last.
 
Lorenzo Morante, who is better known as Lorenzo ‘Tason-taso’, represents the last gasping breath of another dying art-cancionan.

Cancionan is Pangasinan’s answer to the Tagalog ‘Balagtasan’ or the Ilocano ‘Bukanegan’, a sort of verbal joust usually between a man and a woman. It used to share equal popularity with the zarzuela. Now, too, it is a literary form in its death throes.
 
Original Pangasinan songs and ribald tales are occasionally hummed from oblivion by older folk usually after several glasses of alac-bogbog or CDC gin. Unfortunately, these songs and tales never get written for posterity.
 
Of course, the most readily accessible literature in Pangasinan is the Bible and a few religious literature like taw-tawag, galikin, and passion. But how many read today?
Another cause for the death of Pangasinan ‘lingotopsy’ is that assertion made at the start of the essay: that Pangasinan speaking people are generally not assertive. Some even go to the extent of denying their dialect.
 
That is understandable. With hardly a literary heritage to stand on and with a stage of linguistic development suitable only for grade two, how can Pangasinenses expect to stand with pride beside Ilocano and Tagalog? Pangasinenses take pride instead in their facility in learning other languages and getting themselves lost in or assimilated by other cultural groups.

Two Ilocanos can transplant Ilocandia anywhere in the world as they use their dialect without feeling embarrassed even before a king. Children of Pangasinenses who migrated to other regions, however, hardly know their parents’ tongue.
 
Pangasinenses are uniquely funny. As hosts, they try hard to seek the language of their guests. As guests, they struggle with the language of their host. Which is a very convenient way of losing, as it were, one’s roots. Must the Pangasinan dialect be left to die?

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Santiago Villiafania’s villanelles are posted at Panitikan.com.ph. 

Panitikan.com.ph is an online resource center for Filipino writers and readers 

SANTIAGO B. VILLAFANIA

Anlong:

Villanelle 3: Aligando
Villanelle: tagleey tonya'y puso
Villanelle in Pangasinan

 

The Fisherman of Binmaley By Restituto C. Basa

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On the town of Binmaley, beside the town hall stands a statue of a fisherman. A fish basket is tied to its waist, while he carries on his back a huge fish. The statue is an apt symbol of the town. Fishing is the first and foremost livelihood of Binmaley. 

Its location: The town lies along the coastline of the Lingayen Gulf. More than one half of its land area is swampy. Binmaley has a land area of 6,120 hectares. 

Binmaley is the wet land of Agno Valley. The wide river channel between barangays Naguilayan and Manat is the Agno River on its way to the Lingayen gulf.

Read more

Pangasinan radio, news, music and more now online!   

Aksyon Radyo Pangasinan 1161 kHz DWCM can now be heard online through webcast/ audio streaming. The audio streaming was provided by Bitstop through its eradioportal.com website. To listen to Aksyon Radyo Pangasinan 1161 kHz (DWCM), Click Here.

Aksyon Radyo Pangasinan re-opened last June 20, Agew na Dagupan (Dagupan Day).  http://off-the-air.prepys.com is the Official Journal of Aksyon Radyo Pangasinan.

The provincial government of Pangasinan, through its Provincial Council for Culture and the Arts, is conducting a survey on Pangasinan Cultural Heritage as part of its agenda to promote, develop and sustain culture and arts in the province.

Relative to this, a survey form is available for download here.

You may also wish to reproduce the questionnaire for distribution to other cultural workers you know and who may help us in our data gathering.

Please send accomplished form at email address, tourismpangasinan@yahoo.com on or before June 30, 2006. For further assistance, contact Provincial Council for Culture and the Arts at (075) 542-8007/6853.

(This is a repost from )

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May 1 is observed across the globe as Labor Day. As the day falls on a Monday this year, it translates to a long weekend, as it is usually declared a special non-working holiday. An opportune time to schedule that long-postponed vacation trip.

Pangasinenses attach a special meaning to May 1, but for another reason. Because May 1 had also been observed for years in the province as Písta'y Dáyat, literally translated as "Feast of the Sea," which is a celebration in thanksgiving for the seas' bountiful harvest.

So it means a trip to the beaches surrounding the Lingayen Gulf, going across Tondalígan (or Blue Beach) in Dagupan City all the way to San Fabian which borders La Union.

One of the highlights of the celebration is the pageant to choose the Limgás na Dáyat, the "muse of the sea," (literally translated, limgás means purity), and her eventual coronation around midnight.

The past several years saw the stretching of the festival to about a month of activities, like all other festivities that have seen the light of commercialization, especially with the bid for fame with the longest bangós grilling station in the world. That development has since segregated the celebration to each municipality, with the festival in Dagupan City renamed to Bangus Festival, to properly attribute the source of the best bangós.

I've never attended a Písta'y Dáyat, for the simple reason that crowded beaches can be one of the most disgusting places in the world to be in, due from both the wastes littering the otherwise pristine waters and humans wasted by alcohol and too much karaoke. Even during the other holidays of the year we avoid the beaches like the plague.

But, of course, that doesn't keep me from commemorating the occasion. Just rub a fresh Bonuan bangós with coarse sea salt (from Pangasinan, of course) and plop over live coals, innards intact (excluding the gills and minute bile sac), grilling until the scales blacken.

Eating the hot, succulently sweet, fatty flesh dipped in Lingayen bagóong with a squeeze of calamansi is always a cause for celebration, for me. Even the scorched, sea-salty scales are not spared by Pangasinenses, as we eat the entire skin, leaving only the tail and big spine (the head is sucked to pieces).

The only things missing then would be the sand under my toes and the whiff of sea breeze playing with my hair.

But with bangós production on full scale across the country, buying real Bonuan bangós can be actually tricky. All bangós vendors in Pangasinan will say their bangós is from Bonuan, when about fifty percent of the time it is not. There are other bangós ponds in the province, after all. And some Pangasinan bangós can be maáblir, smelling and tasting like mud.

A skill is most of the time needed to differentiate the real Bonuan bangós from that just pretending to be one. But the most telling characteristic of a Bonuan bangós is its size - so great is the demand that it is rarely harvested past its prime length, which is about 15 inches. A jumbo bangós is from elsewhere and is best made into a relleno.

A small head (relatively stunted) and short tail, which means a longer body, are also characteristic traits of a Bonuan bangós, as an uneven tail (one prong is shorter than the other, although not so obvious at first glance). Scales are light grey turning to white.

A bulging stomach is considered first-rate bangós, as it spells heavenly thick fat that enhances the flavor of the fish as it grills. Pangasinenses are self-avowed bangós belly worshippers, including and especially those who eat bangós as pulutan. The latter always offer prayers for a miracle that would turn the bangós into an all-belly fish, the thick, black fat running from head to tail.

Such is this obsession that all bangós sold in the province have slit bellies to show how thick the fat is, which also shows how fresh the fish is from the overflowing innards. Which is to say, no bangós is sold without the proper incision.

Lingayen City? About time Part II

By Mita Q. Sison-Duque

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April 4-10, 2006 issue

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