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language
symposium3martinezDILABIRTHakademyadefenderssallydugong aso|
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| FIRST ANNIVERSARY of the AKADEMYANG KAPAMPANGAN |
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AKADEMYANG KAPAMPANGAN USA October 21, 2001 Hello folks! Exactly a year ago this week, Dr. Evangelina Hilario-Lacson, the foremost authority on the Kapampangan language arrived here from the Philippines via San Francisco. I distinctly remember picking her up at the Portland, Oregon International Airport with my wife and bringing her directly to a Filipino cultural affair downtown that same day. She was, at the venerable age of 84, still strong and with a personable appearance. Time has fleeted by so fast and before we knew it, it is already the anniversary of that day she visited us and, like an evangelist, gave inspirational talks that made each and every one of us feel like being "born again Pampanguenos". She made us feel proud again by awakening in us the history and literature embedded in our culture, and finally, like an icing to cap a series of sessions she had administered daily for a full week, she established the Akademyang Kapampangan here and proclaimed us as original members. Today as I recall those sessions and reflect on the significance of her surprise visit, I tried to leaf through the books she left behind for us to study, as well as read magazines that may have articles relevant to what our Akademya stands for. That's when I came across this article in the September issue of National Geographic which was entitled, "Cultural Extinctions Loom". A world map spread on one page indicated that most of these cultures were located in Australia, North America and southeast Asia. And this is what it says: "A language is a flash of the human spirit," writes anthropologist, Wade Davis. "Throughout history, perhaps 10, 000 different languages have been spoken but of the 6, 800 heard today, many are not being taught to children, and fewer than half may survive this century. Some 450 tongues have only a few elderly speakers, and are in immediate danger from extinction." This information could elicit a sigh of relief to all the institutes of national languages in the world for obvious reasons. For not teaching school children their own native language in their native region, and teaching them instead other languages that they call "official" would really result in an eventual total "wipe out" of "unnecessary" existing languages. This process is a part of what was aptly called by Jed Pensar, a Visayan language activist, as "ethnic cleansing". In my case I refer to it as "ethnic weeding". While it is probably done unintentionally in as much as they have other prime goals set up to achieve, this disastrous side effect or "by product" is what indigenous people are getting as a result. In the early 1980's, the Hawaiian-language speakers were so worried about their declining number that they complained and appealed to their government for help. Whereupon the dying Hawaiian language was returned to the classroom and replacing English which had been the medium of instruction since the islands were ceded to the US in 1898. Today, their number surged to 10,000, as compared to only 1,000 in 1980. Now should Pampanga wait for its 2, 000, 0000 Capampangan-speakers to decrease drastically before taking action on this? Right now, we want our language to replace other languages as medium of instruction in schools, as the language of sermons among priests and the language in meetings among municipal councils - in the Kapampangan region. It is the only way to preserve our language if we were to do it, and if ever we would do it. It is also the only way to counteract the calculated prediction of writer Renato Tayag from being ultimately fulfilled. And like what Dr. Evangelina Lacson implied in her speeches before our Aguman, "tomorrow would be too late". Happy anniversary! ERNESTO C. TURLA |
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