Accents
By Julia Carreon-Lagoc

Do you speak English? 

The Chinese must have shipped their red wood furniture to Manila by the time you are reading this. Their Red Wood Furniture Trade Fair occupied most of August in a downtown mall. Exquisite workmanship on wood of finest grain and extreme hardiness—the type that goes down to generations to become heirlooms. Unfortunately, business propositions were a goner—all lost in translation despite our gestures in aid of communication. The four young Chinese attending to the customers could hardly speak English. You thought the Chinese community should have hired an interpreter considering that these products put their country's best foot forward.

The language barrier is never good for business, nor for any transaction for that matter. Funny and less funny situations occur because of the language problem, especially because there are those who have very limited knowledge of English or just refuse to embrace English as the world's universal language. During our 11-country tour of Europe in 1995, we experienced miscommunications since many in those countries do not speak English. To communicate with us, some natives would resort to their native tongue or Spanish of which mine is only up to “Hasta la vista” or even French which is Greek to me. Confusion would follow when the tour guide was not around to interpret.

Both skilled and unskilled Filipino workers have the edge over other Asians or citizens of other countries in work opportunities abroad, one reason being our language advantage. I remember this question asked in Jeopardy , a popular TV quiz show in America: “What is the third biggest English-speaking country after the United States and England?” The contestant answered, “Philippines!” And by gad, he got it right!

Our fluency in English must also explain why the Philippines is known as the Text capital of the world. I've heard, however, that we are being edged out by India on this title. Anyway, a title not very complimentary; in fact texting can be detrimental, considering how texting defies all rules of spelling and grammar. Our children and grandchildren may get wrong ideas when they write those formal themes.

Let me recount some experiences abroad on the matter of communicating.

“Do you speak English?” my daughter Raileen asked a Chinese couple we met at New York's Woolworth. Thinking she was Chinese, they talked to her in their native tongue. Raileen could only shake her head even as the couple were shaking theirs.

“Do you speak English?” asking this time was one of the hands in the ferryboat to Cozumel, one of the Caribbean islands. The question was his reply to my husband Rudy who was struggling with his Spanish, “Donde esta la cubita?” (Where is the toilet?) The fellow after all was very fluent in English in addition to Spanish, his mother tongue.

Even in simple notes or messages or letters to family and friends, we do write in English or English mixed with Bisaya or Hiligaynon, or if you are Tagalog, you write or converse in the so-called Taglish or Engalog. Palaging may halo na Tagalog ang English or the other way around. I have to narrate this incident because of the question that greatly surprised me. I was in the clinic of my daughter Randy in West Virginia. I was using her secretary's computer to type a letter to my son's family in Iloilo. Imagine her surprise to see me writing a letter bound for home in English. I was as much surprised by her question as she was to see me writing to the folks at home in English.

Then there was this incident at the Kennedy International Airport in New York. Randy had chosen for me the seat with a wide, comfortable leg room, the one situated next to the plane's exit. The lady who was checking me in said she was seating me there, but I should be able to open the Emergency Exit and that I should assist passengers on the way out. You know, the untoward just-in-case might happen. Thinking I did not understand what she was talking about, she told Randy to explain the same to me. Then and there I repeated verbatim what she was telling my daughter. Randy just smiled as the lady said, “So you can speak English.”

Another incident happened in the cruise ship to Greece. An elderly, white man was reading a newspaper. When he put the paper down and began talking to the young man beside him, I said, “May I borrow the newspaper?” His reply: “But this is in English.” I simply answered, “I can speak English and can write in English.” At all times, you'll just have to answer firmly any comment at all that insinuates you aren't any better because you are precisely what you are, if not better. (Comments to lagoc@hargray.com)