The Spanish that I know

Seen here is my friend Pepe'sspanish blog, shown with its new banner. A proud creation of mine! Thanks for the brief but sweet post for this little contribution of mine.

My friend here as Fennimore-Cooper's famous literary work states, is a "Last of the Mohican's" type, a rarity of Spanish speakers who still fights to keep it upfloat, they who believe that the Spanish language should be kept alive. I happen to share the same view, we have lost a great amount of time but its never too late.

There's so much benefit we all could get from learning Spanish (aside from not needing English subtitles if we watch Mexican telenoveleas). According to Soledad-Locsin, Spanish is "the language". yes that's right it was FIlipino's first unified language - there was an obvious attempt by the early leaders of this nation to supress and eventually kill the language, they are the political heads that used education to eliminate our Spanish past, thinking that it would promote nationalism.

Personally I'm disgusted that our nation's leaders allowed Spanish subjects to vanish in our school curriculums! our more than three century of written history is in Spanish, without it we are disconnected from our history.

i was reading as usual this past few nights (even at work!), there was not much to do in the office and here at home but read and sleep. I was trying to dig up some old books which happens to be in spanish, i usually shy away from such activity for its not fun for a spanish illiterate like me!

Whenever I read Spanish I do so with a dictionary at hand, though I read spanish better now than 5 years ago I still suck, yes, big time! we're just talking of reading here not even the spoken part, for that I rate myself nil. I'm absolutely incapable of putting up sensible sentences.

I will eventually take up Spanish lesson so I can interact effectively once I visit Spain (someday!dreams are free) but what I'm trying to get at is, if we had leaders who would just realize how important it is to keep this language in our school we would be closer to our past. I was reading Ambeth's newest book and he was telling a story about his intention to dispose some of Rizal's printed book to academes and some schools, to his surprise there were no takers, why? most did not know how to read Spanish.

i always see education as the only way we could answer some of the biggest problems that confronts our nation today, but in order for it to be more effective it should be the right kind of education. I have relatives in the states who studied there and they have mandatory (I believe) French classes, why not Spanish classes for our children? are we not Spanish speakers before? My family hails from Bacolod - they did not speak tagalog, but Ilonggo and Spanish. Spanish was our official language then not tagalog. As soon as we start learning tagalog we began hating Spanish.

Learning Spanish makes sense, it would've been easier for someone like me to research our past if only I was proficient in Spanish but I'm not, by the time I was in school they already got rid of it. I tried learning from the people around me but it seems that they too forgot. Until now I can't believe this took place in just a matter of, what a few decades? less than a century actually, its true that Filipino's are quick to forget. Even the language which has been our bridge to education and the world in past.

I have no grudge against the Tagalogs, if this is the official Filipino language and in fact it has been successfully spread even in the provinces that fine, we could all live with that, but why erase our Spanish? why not re-learn our old language?