Español

Growing up in a country colonized by the Spanish Empire is sure to influence a great deal in the culture, language and ideals of us Filipinos. Through this mestizos, we got use to the concepts of afternoon siestas, the fiestas in barrios, the impeccable rule of prayles (friars) in spreading Catholic faith, the traditional jotas, the social strata (Principalia, Illustrado and Masses) and most especially, the language.

During the occupation and establishment of the first Spanish colony in Cebu by Miguel de Legaspi, the colonizers remained faithful to teaching traditions in our native language. However when they first published written perephernalias, everything was in Spanish. Being refferred to as Indios, the Filipinos took a great deal of precaution – treating this mestizos as Lords of the Land since they seemed to know a lot more.

It was the same scenario when this español took their boats to the Americans and let their swords glitter in the face of the Aztecs. Correct me if I’m wrong. What I am writing is based on stock knowledge alone. When the Spanish conquistadors set their foot on the South America, we all knew that the Aztec culture was doomed. The continual conquest for gun, God and glory ‘gave’ the españols license to almost wipe out an entire civilization. And you must say, they did succeed — nearly killing the whole population and turning the remainder to slaves.

South America aside, it was the same here in the Philippines. The Españols treated themselves as the ‘supreme‘ race, the Principilia, the prime society establishing exclusive schools for mestizos and the isolation of the masses. Only a few Illustrados (Jose Rizal for example)  manage to mingle with this ‘elite‘ social beings. The line drawn by the prayle gave a lot of misconceptions. That’s why even if the Filipino language thrives with many spanish words, there is a great deal of misconception on the use. Thus, with age, the meanings of this borrowed spanish words changed – especially in the Visayan and Mindanao Region.

For example, the simple phrase siguro in Filipino denotes the instability or the probability of the situation. It’s the Filipino translation for the English word Maybe. However, when looked at the Spanish word seguro and when you do reach out for a spanish dictionary, you will see that it denotes stability or the secureness.

The word leche for that matter also gravely differs in meaning. The expression leche is usually said when there is tension, misunderstanding or when there is a need to say a degrading address to a person. And when translated to Spanish, it simply means Milk or Dairy Products.

The word baho for that matter means unpleasant smell in Tagalog, while it means descent or below in Spanish (bajo). In this tense, you could clearly see that the Filipinos misinterpreted the Español. The Filipinos thought that this Spanish person comments on the smell (which maybe the reason why Filipinos often bath themselves) but in Spanish context, they are addressing Filipinos in a degrading manner. So the phrase ‘Mabaho ka‘ wasn’t intented to mean ‘You smell bad‘ but ‘You are lower that me‘

One of the more funny translations would be lamierda. When an elder Filipino person states that ‘Naglalamierda ka‘, they refer to your presence simply wandering about or painting the town red. In Spanish context, la mierda means shit, poop or whatever you might call the thing that comes out of your butt. In a flash, you might imagine that the spanish people were calling Filipinos shit and Filipinos translated it to wandering about. So when they did address Filipinos with ‘Naglalamierda ka‘ they mean was ‘You are spreading your shit‘. Harsh. I know but I find it funny.

Here is another one related to shit. The phrase cubeta. In Filipino context, it simply means the loo, the bathroom. But in the Spanish context, it means bucket. I think the resason behind this would be since Filipinos before didn’t have a toilet bowl – to be honest. They only had buckets or arinolas for their pee and poo. So I think we might have some explanation for that mistranslation.

It may sound like we, Filipinos, have been greatly deprived of the true meaning of simple words we use everyday. But language, as my Filipino teacher once said, changes along with the people who use them. And it’s up to the people who use them, if they’d make the change positive or negative.