By Tonette Orejas
Inquirer
Last updated 05:26am (Mla time) 06/20/2007
CITY OF SAN FERNANDO – What is “sipan,” “langolango,
” “galang,” “yubyub,” “carangcarang,” “amuyam,” “lambangan,” “limpasut,” “talangtalang” and “batanglaua?” Or better still, “aniani,” “lualu” or “saclong?”
These are lost Kapampangan words that, like thousands of other terms, had been buried for nearly four centuries in the pages of a twin book by an Augustinian expert on grammar and lexicography.
But that was until last month when two Catholic priests in Pampanga—Edilberto Santos and Venancio Samson—completed the translation of Fray Diego Bergaño’s “Arte de la Lengua Pampanga (Grammar of the Kapampangan Language, 1729)” and “Vocabulario de Pampango (Kapampangan Vocabulary, 1732),” respectively.
In translating the highly regarded documents, Santos and Samson have made more available to non-scholars Bergaño’s works, which were written in Spanish.
Translated into Kapampangan and English and published back-to-back, the friar’s works are now easy to decipher by anyone wanting to learn the language or use the rediscovered words in everyday life.
“Bergaño’s books can reinvigorate the Kapampangan language by supplying it with thousands of rediscovered words, which is why I consider the translation of these books a real breakthrough in Kapampangan studies,” said Robby Tantingco, executive director of the Holy Angel University’s Juan D. Nepomuceno Center for Kapampangan Studies in Angeles City.
The National Commission for Culture and the Arts is co-publishing the books, which is scheduled for launch on Aug. 24 at the San Agustin Church in Intramuros, Manila. The launch, coinciding with the Language Month, is also held in honor of Bergaño who, at 23, joined the Augustinian mission in Manila in 1718.
Bergaño, a native of Cervera, did not intend to chronicle the words in perpetuity. His own prologue in the vocabulario said: “The most important reason why I undertook this work (writing the Kapampangan-Spanish dictionary) was my desire that, when we explain the word of God, we avoid inappropriate language.”
Treasure troves
“They are veritable treasure troves of linguistic and anthropological data,” Tantingco said. “He was able to identify the basic, original source word of all derivatives and string them up together under only one word entry, and then explained their interconnectedness. One does not achieve this by merely going around collective words.”
The word “buri” (like), for instance, evolves into “paburen” (neglect) and “paburian ye” (leave him alone).
Another, “dabpa” (in today’s version: dagpa) means “the bird on a perch spreads its wings forming a cross.” It can mean “capba” or “an arm’s length.” It can also mean the idiomatic “dimpa,” which means “befell.”
A related word is “dipan,” as in “Dipan na ca ning alti (May lightning strike you)!” which old folks used to curse a person they were angry with.
Bergaño did not do his task single-handedly. He tapped Don Juan Zuñiga of Mexico, Pampanga, to help him in the projects. These were his two of three major works.
The definitor (official) of Augustinians at that time, Fray Vicente Ibarra, said: “This book will finally satisfy the great desire of the ministers of the Gospel to grasp the precise meanings and connotations of those words in order to be able to speak the language correctly.”
Indigenous
Tantingco believed the dictionary itself contained “indigenous, even pre-Hispanic, conditions of the Kapampangan language and the Kapampangan themselves, but only to a certain extent.”
This was because the priest wrote the book 161 years after the Spanish colonizers arrived in Pampanga. In the absence of mass media, though, the rate of adulteration might have been slow and Bergaño might still have captured the nuances of the old language.
His text showed that the Kapampangan, a riverbank-dwelling people, possessed a sophisticated language as they had words for anything and everything around them.
“Sipan” is toothbrush, “langolango” is toilet, “galang” is bracelet, “yubyub” is barbecue, “carangcarang” is baby walker, “amuyam” is sponge, “lambangan” is rice dispenser, “limpasut” is shark, “talangtalang” is goldfish and “batanglaua” is spider web.
There are numerals from “isa” (one) to “lacsa” (10,000), “gatus” (100,000) and “sangyuta” (a million).
The verb “to cross legs” is “timpo” for women and “sila” for men. As for dance, it is “indac” for women and “terac” for men.
There are terms for times of the day, colors, body parts, family ties, flora and fauna, sex and erotica, as well as etymology of common Kapampangan surnames like “laus” (hole), “tayag” (to lift), “sagum” (to mix drinks), “ibe” (to become intoxicated from chewing betel nut), “canals” (to succeed in office), “abad” (slight wound), “tulabut” (to spurt), “viray” (boat), “calma” (luck) and “suba” (to navigate upstream).
Find also what Tantingco calls quaint words: “payungdaguis” (mushroom, but literally, “mouse’s umbrella”), “sulungdaguis” (morning star, “mouse’s lamp”), “sabo susu” (milk, “soup from the breast”), “bungang tudtud” (dream, “fruit of sleep”), “pinanari” (rainbow, “king’s loincloth”), and “anac sulip” (illegitimate child, “child from the basement”).
This was the center’s second translation project after the one on Fray Francisco Coronel’s “Arte y Reglas de la Lengua Pampanga (1621).”
For reservation of copies of the two books, e-mail rptmt@yahoo.com or call (045) 888-8691 local 1311 or 1312.
Members of various Rizalista groups nationwide gather together to form a human flag at the Quirino Grandstand in Luneta, Manila as tribute to Dr. Jose Rizal’s 146th birth anniversary. 
Civilization of Love 