I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed, but on this site I am quite mindful of using diacritical marks when it comes to local, i.e., Bisaya, words. “Pako” can mean one of two things, so I write pakô when talking about wings and pakó if I mean fiddlehead fern. Sabá is a type of banana while sabâ means noise. As for laki, that is someone (or something) male; lakí (with an acute accent on the i) is still male, but a kabit — not that I’ve had reason to write about that. Same with baji (female).
It’s a lot of effort, so I really only bother with accentuation when the word concerned is a noun and the possibility of confusion exists. It’s very much in the spirit of this essay, which is in (formal) Tagalog, by the way, hence accessible to the management of Manila-based URC, maker of the Jack ’n Jill brand of junk food. Saw the TV ad for Mang Juan Chick’n Skin’s new flavor variant (the tail end of it, anyway), and the word “suka” leapt out at me from the screen. It took a moment to realize that it was not referring to vomit (suka, no accent), but vinegar (sukâ, glottal stop on the last syllable).
Blame it on the missing maragsâ (diacritical circumflex). Or, better yet, the semanticist in me. But then again, these days, who knows? If some people think it fun to dine in a toilet-themed restaurant, who am I to discount the market potential of puke-flavored crisps? Lourd de Veyra endorses this brand, doesn’t he? Now that guy definitely has a thing for poop and other bodily secretions. Same here.
This post has no comments.
Post a Comment