SUBANO, an endangered language

The Zamboanga Peninsula is a piece of land almost detached from mainland Mindanao like a tail of an unknown headless animal heading for the Pacific. The isthmus between Panguil Bay that separate Lanao del Norte from Misamis Occidental and Illana Bay that separates Lanao del Sur from Zamboanga del Sur is what connects the Zamboanga Peninsula from the rest of Mindanao island.

The original inhabitants of this piece of land are Subanons. They are all over the peninsula from the western end of Zamboanga to the entire province of Misamis Occidental. They own the land without possessing documents to prove ownership. They lived nomadic life clearing vegetations to grow their crops moving from one area to another when the land becomes less fertile after a few cropping. When settlers from the rest of the islands of the Philpppines came to the peninsula, they moved to the mountains where the new settlers are least interested. They remained there until today.

The language they speak are distinct from the Subanos of Misamis Occidental and the Subanos of Katipunan, Polanco, Pinan, Sergio Osmena, Josefina, Domingag, Suminot, Midsalip, Bayog, Leon Postigo, Siayan, Roxas, Manukan, Jose Dalman, Sindangan area. Their language is also different in the areas from Salug, Godod, Buug, Diplahan, Imelda, Siay, Naga, Kabasalan, Titay, Tungawan, Liloy, Labason, Gutalac, Baliguian, Siocon, Siraway, Sibuco, the barangays around Zamboanga City. Still their language is different in the Dumalinao, Lakewood, San Pablo, Guipos areas down to Margosatubig, Vincenzo Sagun. It is a lanuage difficult to learn unless learners are exposed twenty four hours a day for six months to a year to the language. Some Subano words are difficult to pronounce; some words are spelled easily but pronounced differently which makes the language difficult to learn. No published rules on how to pronounce and spell their words. Neither published rules on how their verbs are conjugated and on how their nouns changes from singular to plural. The only way to learn to speak write and read their language is to live to with them. And while their language is different, there are some words they share with some major languages in the Philippines. Niyog which means coconut in Tagalog, Tausog, Ilocano. and other Filipino languages, also means coconut to the Subanos. Patay which in Pilipino means dead is MYATAY in Subano. And in some pronunciations, the pronunciation of IW like magiliw, a word in the Philippine national anthem, the Subanos pronounce as MAGILIO, the way Tagalog speaking people in Liliw, Laguna, would pronounce the name of their town as LILIO. When a Subano sings the first line of the Philippine national anthem he'll say "bayang magilio." Although not exactly the same, in Bicol a language spoken in the provinces of Camarines Sur and Norte, Sorsogon, Catanduanes and most of the northern part of Masbate, SIRA means fish. In Subano, the word for fish is SARA

Until the early 1950s, the Subanos remained in their mountain homes rarely having contact with the settlers in the lowland except when they came down to sell orchids, forest ferns, baskets and return to their mountain homes with salt, salt-preserved fish. soap, kerosene, matches and other necessities they want to enjoy from time to time. They come down to the lowlands through foot trails carrying their wares on their shoulders and heads.

With the advent of heavy equipments, the foot trails were widened into mountain roads. The lowland influence then became easy to creep into their way life and into their language. By the late 70s and early 80s, Subano children began to feel ashame to use their language in conversations among themselves especially when there are non-Subanos listening. The death of the language officially began when the last of older generation of Subanos that speak no other language but their own were all gone. The younger generations of Subanos who have acquired both the lowland language from their lowland peers and the Subano language from their parents do not speak the Subano language anymore to their children cutting off the passage of the language to the next generation of Subanos.

Within the next 40 or 50 years the Subano language, will be, not just dead but extinct. By then Subano will be a language nobody neither speaks nor understands

Some conversational Subano

Piag andaw - Good morning
Piag sises'lum - Good afternoon (between 9am and 2pm)
Piag delabong - Good afternoon (after 2pm and before 6pm)
Piag gabi - Good evening
Ta' don - I don't know
Da' masunay - I don't understand
Ta' pagaw? - Where are you going?
Ta' ma pangay? - Where you been?
Santa' me'n? - How much?
Gataw Buwid - Mountain man
Myatay na 'leh - Already dead
Muli na sug balay - I'm going home now
Malo gusay - Always have sex
Muli na sug buwid - I'm going to the mountain now

Subano Basic Vocabulary

buwid - mountain
dupi - rain
geto - dog
b'ring - cat
lusi - penis
ba'a - vagina
gataw - man
libon - girl
mamag - betel
bunga - areca
gapoy - fire
gandaw - day
gabi - night
sises'lum - afternoon
suba - river
sara - fish
saraan - viand
palay - rice
timuay - tribe head

Subano Garay 1

Subano:
Nanowa ma magunsawa naowg
Bos na saa naugulang nga na
Pigunlaan mo gupiya i'g gubalol naowg
Anon nalang gumang i'g gumbal buntod

English:
When are you getting married girl
Will you wait until you're old
Don't waste your cunt
As food to hermit crabs

Subano Garay 2

Subano:
Si yaya Maria
Detub suba neglaya

English:
Old mary
Castnets in the river

the coin diver

It was Sunday morning and the sun slips from the horizon to float freely in the sky. Only one old, diesel smelling, slow, passenger boat that crosses to another city in Mindanao was moored on the pier. The other boat that shuttles between the city and another smaller nearby island had left earlier. Only the two cranes with its gantries raised to the sky working on the pier expansion made the pier seem busy.

Down beside the aft of the old boat was a Badjao couple in their canoe and their daughter less than three years in estimate was inaudibly sobbing from hunger. Hunger was reason enough to cry but she was too weak for the effort to really cry. They’ve been displaced into a civilization they can not assimilate. Except by this trade.

The wife grabbed the baby to coddle her in her arms resting its buttocks on her lap then put her left nipple on the baby’s mouth to pacify her not really to feed her. The baby was naked and her thin genital, wrinkling from inadequate nutrition was cleaved to the eyes of the boat passengers as she turned her head to her mother's unhealthy milkless breast. The romblon hat her mother wore hides her face from the glare of the morning sun as she suckled.

Coins were thrown to the water for her husband to dive. Each time the coins were long in coming, she asked the passengers to throw some more using the Badjao language the passengers don't understand but nevertheless knew she's asking for coins. She never raised her hands with an open palm the way beggars do. She extends her hand as though she is reaching another hand for a handshake. Her people never considered this begging but a legitimate trade. Her husband provides a diving show to the boat passengers by allowing a few seconds before he follows the sinking coin underwater.

The family knew there was not enough time anymore for the day’s business. The boat leaves in a few minutes and the next ship from a Malaysian city arrives at dusk and so coin diving is impossible.

The boat blew its horn twice to signal departure and the funnel sent black smoke into the air to get ready. The couple knew what it meant so the wife added a little amount of loudness to her voice.

"Sige na" she shouted in their own language.

The mooring ropes were removed from the bollards and were dropped to the water and almost instantly, the ship carried by the current drifted a few inches from the log fenders. The winches hummed as it rolled to gather the ropes into the giant spool. The engine rumbled and the water ruffled with the heavy movement. The wife dug the paddle to follow the boat while she called for more coins. From crystal clear, the water turned deep blue-green and the dune-like bottom sand and a few debris and some garbage of an uncaring city began to get obscured. Some passengers remained leaning on the railings watching the couple waiting for some diving exhibition. One passenger who was lying on his cot, not pleased by the entertainment, stood and approached the railings.

"Why these people don’t find work," he murmured.

He dipped his hand in his jeans pocket and the wife saw it. She directed her hand to where the man stood.

"Sige na! sige na!" she called, her voice carries the tone of begging now.

When the man got his hand out from his pocket, his palm had three pieces of yellow coins. The husband’s face lighted to show willingness to give the man entertainment if entertainment is what the man is looking for in exchange for his last minute generosity. He grabbed his daughter from his wife and put her on his back and the baby dutifully clang to his father’s neck as though she knew that this is an early practice in the trade. The passenger threw one of the coins and father and daughter instantly leaped into the water. They landed a few meters away from where the coin dropped. Some few seconds later, two gleaming heads bleached brown by iodine and sunshine were back on the surface. Father shook his head thrice in quick succession to free his eyes of the stinging saltwater that drips from his forehead; daughter wiped her face with one hand for the same purpose while her other hand remained clinging to her father’s neck. They swim towards the canoe as the wife rows towards them to meet them. His forefinger and thumb touched his mouth where the coin is clipped between his teeth and then extended the hand to the side of the hull of his boat to drop the coin there.

A few seconds after father and daughter climbed back to the canoe, the second coin was thrown. It was almost like torture as oxygen had just gathered back into their lungs. He put his hand on his forehead like a visor and lowered his face almost touching the water to locate the coin. The child on his back was a censored sight. Her legs parted as her toes dug the side of her father’s waist to avoid somersaulting ahead into the water. The watching passengers were divided between laughter and pity. Once the sinking coin sent a whirling gleam to the eyes of the coin diver, they slipped into the water in that position.

Up in the big boat the passengers were held in suspense. But not the wife. She knows her worry can’t do any help; she knows the diving skills of their men even before greed fishing destroyed with dynamites their fishing grounds to steal their fishes.

The coin whirled too far. It sunk in a zigzag motion in obedience to both buoyancy and gravity. Two times his palm missed the coin. The bottom sand was just a few kicks below before he finally caught the coin.

Father and daughter resurfaced nearly half a minute later and too far from where everybody’s eyes expected them to emerge. Once more the wife rowed towards them to meet them.

Slowly, the old boat turned south to set her on course. Once the prow found its destination in the horizon, the tail boiled. The last of the three coins was still in the fist of the passenger. He threw it but a bit too close to the bubbles of the propeller. The husband handed the baby to his wife and for a few moments thought about diving for it. He changed his mind. Instead, he dangled his right foot on the water to help his wife counteract the current the old boat created and gave the coin thrower a blaming look. His eyes locked on the man’s blurring face like a jet fighter on its target. The yellow coin may not mean anything to that passenger but it means so much to the couple like food that slipped from the mouth irretrievably into an unclean surface.

But the boat sped up now and the distance it gained had freed the passenger from the eyes of the coin diver.