 |
| (c) Caricature 2015 N. Sharief |
There
was once a time in Ranaū-Irnaūn society when proverbs were so revered, they
almost had the force of law. Really. I'm not pulling your leg. Uttering choice
proverbs is akin to quoting an article in the Civil Code. This was way before
Islam got buffeted into our shores.
When
Islam came, the ancient proverbs took backseat and lost their enforceability,
yet they're still quoted as a fountain of pithy wisdom, clear thinking, and
elegant language. And where a proverb doesn't run roughshod with the imported
religion, it is coopted.
Today,
however, we often quote these ancient pronouncements like we're making an
apology. "Katharo ō mga lokěs."
Folk-saying, we'd as quip the excuse. They're no longer entwined with our daily
lives as they used to. As a cultural entity, we're losing out fast on the
internet. Everything is being swept under us. And to sprinkle salt to injury,
we—our very selves—are just too happy to jettison them as if we are relieving
ourselves of a burden. You don't hear the old saw anymore. Seldom you'll hear
them even from our senior citizens—the supposed repository of our literature.
In
weddings and banquets, to give our otherwise modern weddings a flavor of the
old, someone is often hired to do a discourse in the ancient language. And when
he does, as if he is talking to an audience of newly landed Martians. The
audience could not decipher a word he is saying, although you would often see
them nod every now and then for form's sake. He could be selling everybody
wholesale to the highest bidder and no one is the wiser.
What
hypocrisy.
Take the
following seemingly innocuous folk saying:
So sarog na matanog a di so kimbaaněn on.
We found
this invariably translated into the English proverb:
Action speaks louder than words.
The
conversion is automatic, like it can't be helped. Like converting pesos into
dollars at the current prevailing rate. Very careless, because something got
pilfered. If I have a peso every time someone translates it this way, I'd be an
Andrew Tan. I think the bandwagon is the lazy way out. I know because I'd been
a victim of my own ineptitude too. This seems alright until you gave the
proverb its proper 3D rendering:
Action is louder than (just) sneezing it.
Now, you
are then slowly getting aware that there is a nuance meant in the proverb a tad
different from its supposed English equivalent. The Ranaū-Iranūn refrained from
using the word "speak" or "talking about it" because it
would sound pedestrian and lose impact. "Coughing" about something is
what one does when one is shy or inarticulate about what one needs to express.
"Sneezing" it gives it a sense of urgency but it falls short
just the same.
The
English proverb is broader, if bland, in scope and emphasizes more the
clarifying of intention or purpose, while its Ranaū-Iranūn counterpart is about
carrying out one's desire or intention. Given its set of idioms, every
culture has its own ingenious way. In the English, the action could
cancel out what is professed if they run against each other because action
overrides what is said. The proverb, in
fact, is used as a Maxim of Law that one's action is presumed to be one's
intention unless proven to the contrary in court.
On the
other hand, in the Ranaū-Irnaūn, the proverb's mission is to admonish the
person being addressed to act on what he wants to accomplish and not just
prattle about it like old women gossiping at the well. The gist of it is that
munching words accomplishes pretty little, while grunt work gets the job
done. If you got a complaint, it might not be enough to just write letters to
Malacañan and go beat about the bush.
Now you
know what we mean (and I'm not saying it)…A-a-a-chu!
No comments:
Post a Comment