Say Hello to Mother Tongue

According to our teacher in Ed 8 (Curriculum Development), the system of the curriculum in Philippine Education will be modified in the year 2016 since there will already be the inclusion of the Mother Tongue. So imagine this. If your original dialect is Bisaya, you will actually have a subject where you, as a teacher, will speak in Bisaya, and everyone will give their response in Bisaya, too. All your lessons will be in Bisaya and you will have to translate all English and Tagalog words into Bisaya. 

We all reacted to what he said but the fact that that kind of future to the Philippine Education will happen, I don't have the right to oppose. Moreover, our Philippine Literature teacher said that the Bisayan dialect has richer vocabulary than the English language. Consider this: 

Let us use the word "carry", an English word which means "to support something or somebody and take it or them from place to place" in the Oxford Dictionary. But in Bisaya, you say...

• "lukdo" -- you are carrying something or somebody in your head.
• "ambilay" -- you are carrying something or somebody in your shoulders.
• "bala" -- you are carrying something or somebody at your back.
• "kugos" -- you are carrying something or someone using your hands which/who is positioned near or below the chest. 
• "bitbit" -- you are carrying something using your hands in a freestyle manner.

When you translate all these words into English, it would all mean one thing and that is "carry." See the distinction? This is just one of the many evidences that the Bisayan language is richer than that of the English language and should therefore be treasured. Mother Tongue is just one way of preserving such rich culture. 

So when you enter into your Mother Tongue class, you say...

Teacher: Maayong buntag kaninyo mga bata.

Pupils: Maayong buntag pud kanimo ma'am.

Teacher: Palihug manindog na ang tanan para sugdan na nato ang atong pag-ampo. 

Pupils: (mag-ampo)

Teacher: Pwede na mu makalingkod. Karung buntaga, muadto ta sa atong bag-ong leksyon. Pero bag-o pa man ta mu padayun, ipaguwa sa ninyo palihug ang mga buluhaton nga akong gitugyan kaninyo. 

Enough of it. I still have to learn more Bisayan words. I admit I am proud to be a Bisaya but I think I have more English vocabularies than Bisaya. I just hope everyone in the future will enjoy the new subject if ever it will successfully be implemented. Say hello to Mother Tongue.