Special thanks to Melissa Gibson for sending me these slides!
My mum, and her family, though she doesn’t speak it all the time, IS ilokano. My Ninang is hardcore ilokano. Lola Pinky of my dad’s side CAN speak ilokano (she’s actually multi-lingual and spoke many Filipino dialects which is pretty awesome).
Anyway, what I’m trying to say is – I wish I took learning Ilokano more seriously and picked up more phrases and words other than ‘diak maawatan’ and ‘mabisin nako’ and ‘awan.’ Because my vocabulary is really ‘basit.’
I have to admit, sometimes it feels awkward when you’re part of the minority in a room of ilokano speakers. Well, refer to graph. Doesn’t matter, they all understand Tagalog so I’m ok. haha
But this is probably an acceptable answer for those who have asked me ‘How come you speak very good english (as a Filipino)?’ Don’t get mad now, it’s really not their fault. It’s always better to educate. In a correspondence with new Manila Tourism executive Carlos Celdran, he told me he tells them the same thing – ‘OMG, Yours is excellent too. How did that happen?’
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