Asi tribe’s children speak to Sibale’s past

Merwin Mosquera, 44, and a childhood friend, has an obsession: to produce a dictionary of the Asi language.

In an island with just a little over 5,000 residents, majority of whom have not gone past high school, this may not be a commercially-viable undertaking, given the national current—nudged on by economic necessity—toward learning English, the lingua franca of globalization.

This is also a tall order because Merwin has been working and living in Saudi Arabia for how long? Twenty years? I am afraid—judging from his constant attempt to converse in our local tongue—that he finds it even difficult to speak straight Asi now. Long isolation from the mainstream Asi speakers has its toll and Merwin and other Sibalenhon expatriates must have been feeling its ill effects.

But Merwin, like Vincent Fabiala who is also a Saudi resident, is an Asi child. He can’t forget. He remembers. And he is obsessed.

He had read a previous article of mine, “To Marlowe: Write in Asi”, which received notice from a few Sibalenhon readers and this, I suppose, fired up his desire to compile between two covers the language of his ancestors. He has been asking Sibalenhons to contribute Asi words online to develop his dictionary.

Merwin may not know it, but there is already a lexicon of the Asi language. It was painstakingly put up by Lyndon Fadri and Abner Faminiano, two Banton intellectuals whose moorings in every aspect of Asi culture, like those of Ismael Fabicon, a Banton expat who is leading Herculean efforts to preserve Banton culture, have been the saving grace of Asi civilization.

Fadri’s and Faminiano’s Asi dictionary is aptly titled "Tuk-anan". Tuk-anan is the Asi noun-place for “seeing” or “knowing”. It’s verb form—tuk-i is an exhortation to peep through, to get a glimpse at, or to take a close look, and its common usage is in the context of an Asi fisherman on his boat, his muscular body bent to the waist and, with his hand-made googles on, scanning the sea around him for fish.

This postcard-perfect picture of an Asi fisherman “nak ging tutuk-an ka kalalawran habang nag-aawoy” captures in the magical lens of memory the life in the Maghali Islands of Banton, Simara, and Sibale—cradle of Asi—that every time I hear the word “tuk-anan”, it transports back my senses to my childhood days in Sibale and brings me in touch once again to the Asi past that illustrates how close to nature our culture is. In fact, the Asi culture is a culture reared by nature, that is why it is so unique.

Merwin now wants this language culture preserved in written form. His efforts may take some time to bear fruit considering, firstly, that his expertise lies not in languages. Secondly, he might be dismayed to know that even Sibalenhons who live within the orbit of Sibale no longer speak pure Asi. I know this by personal experience. Frequent social interaction with non-Asi speakers have led to the dilution, if not erosion, of our language.

Many alien words have slowly but surely seeped in into Asi, overtaking—if not rendering obsolete—many original phrases particularly those which has no equivalent in the other languages. To overcome communication barriers, people tend to borrow and improvise, and Asi speakers are no exception to this social instinct.

Thus, the Asi, like many other languages, is evolving as it is influenced by other tongues. Much of this evolution, this “influencing”, is wrought upon by the Asi speaker himself. If he liberally welcomes the intrusion by non-usage, or if he raises no defense of the language (sheer laziness to speak Asi, for example) amid the onslaught of, say, Tagalog or Bicolano, then Asi is finished.

Over time, I fear, Asi will be gone, forgotten, lost or unidentifiable in the Babel of our times.

This fear is not totally without basis. Again, it arises from personal experience. In Lipa City, for example, where many Sibalenhons work and live, pure Asi is taking a beating from the Batangan, the language of the Batanguenos. I find it frustrating that when talking to Sibalenhons, very few corresponds with me on pure Asi, such that when I ask, “Riin ka gi sayanaw?”, or “It kag uno ka pa gi butho?”, the most common response I get is only an impish smile. “Sayanaw”, of course, is simply the Asi methapor for “flight” and “butho” is the native language for “emerge”. I wince when I come across a Sibalenhon and he or she talks to me in Tagalog even if I try to steer the conversation back to Asi.

This is a pity because Asi is expansive and complete. Its singsong, melodious tone possess a soul and, as a language, it serves our purpose of getting the full range of the Sibalenhon's human emotion understood.

Actually, the crisis of the Asi that Merwin recognized is universal. Languages all over the world are struggling to be preserved and revived. Many experts estimate that one language dies every two weeks. At this rate, they say, nearly half the world's 7,000 languages would disappear in the next century as local dialects are replaced by the dominant languages of globalization, such as English or Chinese.

And language and culture are so intertwined that along with the language, linguists fear losing each culture's history and traditions. If Asi disappears, then the local Asi culture—our traditions, such as the panuba, pasukat, pataktak it subok, katipon, ayadon, langkapi, bawi, pangupong, pamughat, parugo, yubos, and many others which distinguish us culturally from the rest of the people of the world—will vanish. We would no longer be Asi. We would be pasi. Ask a Sibalenhon what pasi is.

I support Merwin in his effort. But there is more that can be done apart from asking Sibalenhons to contribute a word or two of Asi to complete a dictionary. One logical way to start is to raise money for this endeavor. A final push to revive and preserve the language needs financial resources. The volunteer spirit can produce miracles but in the end the practical reality is that an undertaking as important as an Asi dictionary needs financial wherewithal that neither Merwin nor any one sympathetic or culture-conscious Sibalenhon seem prepared to spare at this time.

The local government, led by Mayor Limeul Cipriano, may lend a hand. That, of course, depends upon the priorities of the mayor. Or Merwin can raise money from grants and donations from individuals and private cultural institutions. I believe there are enough Samaritans who would recognize that Asi is worth their charity.

If he can do this, he can finally say, “Salamat sa pagdangat”.