Workers cover the monument to be unveiled on Wednesday, August 26 at 8:00 am at the Capitol Grounds.
When asked about what language do Marinduqueños speak, the answer would be: "Tagalog mandin" (Tagalog indeed).
Tagalog is one of the major languages in the Philippines; it is spoken by about one third of the country's population. In 1937, it was chosen as the basis for the national language. Tagalog has eight major regional dialects listed in Ethnologue, which include Bataan, Batangas, Bulacan, Lubang, Manila, Tanay-Paete, Tayabas and Marinduque.
Marinduque is part of the Tagalog region, but it's speech is not easily understood by speakers from the Manila area. In Rosa Soberano's The Dialects of Marinduque Tagalog (1980), the language is divided into two dialects: the Western and Eastern Marinduque Tagalog. The Western dialect is spoken in Western Marinduque, which comprises the coastal towns of Gasan and Buenavista, the capital town of Boac and it's adjacent town on the north, Mogpog. The Eastern dialect is spoken in Eastern Marinduque, which comprises the highland towns and barrios of Santa Cruz and Torrijos. She also noted that “The Tagalog dialects of Marinduque are more similar to each other than they are to Manila Tagalog. When a native of Marinduque speaks, another native listener can readily tell the dialect area from which the speaker hails. His speech is marked by a characteristic intonation, the presence or absence of non-phrase-final glottal stop, a few items of different vocabulary and morphological structures. On the other hand , when a speaker of Manila Tagalog hears Marinduque Tagalog for the first time, he will notice the same variation in phonology as has been recognized by a native speaker of Marinduque Tagalog but more differences between their vocabulary and morphological forms. Apparently, many handy terms, such as dayag (wash dishes), muuk (wake up late), labun (boil bananas, corn or root crops), have not found their way in current Tagalog dictionaries".
Furthermore, according to Cecilio Lopez (1925), Father of Philippine Linguistics: "When listening to a conversation between people belonging to the speech-group here in question, a native from the country around Manila is likely to receive the impression that Boak Tagalog is simpler, more imperfect form of his own, more highly developed speech. We should not forget, however, that although they have followed a different development, such provincial forms of speech have been originally the roots, or among the roots, from which modern national forms have sprung, and that in them may, therefore, be found remnants of the more archaic speech of our forefathers, remnants long forgotten by our modern parlance but nevertheless of great interest to the linguist".
Soon a Bantayog-Wika monument in Marinduque, an initiative of the Provincial Government, Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) has been constructed, in recognition of Marinduque Tagalog, the language from which our modern national forms have sprung and from where remnants of ancient Tagalog forms can be found.
Text by Sigfredo D. Paala | NM MRAMSO
