#Mahal is one of my #favorite #Tagalog #words. You can say it any number of ways and it still sounds #beautiful. Whispering it into someone’s ear. Shouting it out angrily just before slamming a door. Sobbing it with an ugly crying face. Or even just in casual conversation (I feel the same way about the word for #hope, #asa). More than just the way it sounds, though, I love what it means. Love. It also refers to the value of something, namely that it is expensive, costly and worth much. I love the implication that love has great value. Another word for love is #ibig. I love that it sounds so guttural, like it’s coming up from the very depths of your soul which a word like that should sound like. When you say it, you should be saying it with all of your being, from every dark and hidden corner of yourself. This is how I feel about the word #pangarap, too. It means #dream or #wish. It’s not lost on me that my favorite Tagalog words are all #romantic. I’m sure it says a lot about me. But more than that, it says a lot about the #Filipino people. Someone once told me Tagalog was one of the ugliest languages he ever heard. I’m assuming it’s because of how guttural it sounds. It can be very harsh and the syllabic emphasis makes it sound rather aggressive. #Filipinos can be very raucous and loud when they speak. But I think a lot of that is because Filipinos are so #passionate. When we love something, we really love it. When we dislike something, we really dislike it. You’ll rarely find a Filipino who’s on the fence about something. Food, music, drink, places, people. We all have very strong feelings and opinions about these things. And we want to be heard. We want to be understood. And the language reflects that. And when a people’s #language so perfectly reflects the feeling of its people, I think that’s a really beautiful thing.
Posted on: Mon, 31 Mar 2014 14:45:14 +0000
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