Tuesday, October 14, 2008 Tantingco: Confusing Kapampangan words By Robby Tantingco
I CAN'T stop marveling at the wealth of linguistic and anthropological material contained in the old Kapampangan dictionaries and grammars translated (from Spanish) by Fr. Edilberto Santos and Fr. Venancio Samson.
If you still don't have a copy, especially the Bergaño dictionary, I urge you to get one. It's not the final word on the Kapampangan language, but it will give you a look into the words, thoughts, beliefs and values of the early Kapampangans, circa 1732.
In addition to the words I've already discussed in this column, here are some more Kapampangan words that often cause confusion:
talindata, "to lie face up," as in Migtalindata ya ing asu anyang pakyalungan ke.
talindiking, "to turn to one side," as in "Migtalindiking ku bayu ku metudtud."
In those days, Bergaño wrote, Kapampangans used two different words for dance, depending on who was dancing.
For men, it was "terak," and for women, "indak." A male dancer was a "talaterak" but there's no entry for a female dancer in the dictionary.
Today, terak has become generic for all dances and dancers, and indak is used sometimes as a synonym and sometimes to refer specifically to the swaying of hips.
Another gender-specific pair of words is "sila," which means "to cross legs while seated," applicable only to men, and "timpo," which means "the sitting posture of a woman, her legs folded to one side."
patpat, "circle;" in Tagalog, this word means bamboo stick
parisukat, "square," which is the same in Tagalog.
The next two pairs indicate the proliferation of certain animals in the area and our ancestors' familiarity with them. The first pair is pauo, "sea turtle" and pawikan, "freshwater or mountain tortoise," which is an accurate differentiation. The other pair is makiwa, "stag or male deer" and maibi, "doe or female deer," which confirms historical accounts of huge number of deer in Pampanga and Tarlac-so huge, wrote French traveler Jean Mallat, that in 1819, "more than 7000 heads of stags were killed in the single pueblo of Tarlac.
Kapampangans made the meat pindang or tapa, which they exported to China where it was considered a delicacy, charging P10 (big bucks at the time) per pico (about 1375 lbs), according to William H. Scott. The deer hide, on the other hand, was exported to Japan for the military outfits of the nobility, the daimyos and the samurais.
When attending a funeral today, we use the word "patnugut," but Bergaño, by defining it as "to accompany out of courtesy, like attending a funeral or assisting someone at the stairs or to the door," expanded its meaning to include circumstances outside the funeral procession. Interestingly, patnugot in Tagalog means "editor."
On the other hand, "patnube" means "to assist someone beyond the door, like up to a quarter of a league." In other words, "patnugut" is doing a normal charitable act, while "patnube" is Christian charity, i.e., giving more than what is necessary or beyond what is expected. We don't know, of course, how much the priest in Bergaño had editorialized in this definition.
pun, "beginning or top" as in "ing pun ning balen" (the leader of the town) or "ing pun na ning tanaman" (treetop)
sepu, "end or bottom" as in "king sepu ning yatu" (at the ends of the earth)
salapung, "a thing that forks, like the tongue of an iguana," which is why we have places in Pampanga called Salapungan, the area where the road forks or splits.
salápi, "a thing divided into two, like two fingers jutting from one stub," but I suspect its meaning is "two things converging into one" because Bergaño's example is "like when two roads and two rivers merge into one." Idiomatically, he says, salápi means "to become related either by marriage or by claim" as in "Sinalápi ya mu kareng Ayala-Zobel iyan anya mikualta ya."
So "salapung" and "salápi" are two ways of looking at the same thing. Another interesting pair is "salibabi" which means to infuriate one person or a few against many" and "lumlum," to infuriate many against one person. For example, "Mekipagsalibabi ku kareng kaklasi ku" (a ramble between me and the entire class) and "Limlumanan da ku reng kaklasi ku" (my classmates turned against me).
gansal, "odd"
tupad, "even"
tampaling, "a slap on the face"
tampi, "a tap on the buttocks or other parts of the body"
lindas, "to turn or swerve to avoid someone, like a bill collector"
lindo, "to go round and round to avoid someone"
ambun, "morning dew;" today it means slight drizzle
amug, "dampness on stone or wood;" today it means morning dew, probably influenced by the Tagalog "hamog"
biga, "cloud"
ulap, "mist, drizzle" which is the Tagalog word for cloud
alapaap, "the space between the earth and the sky" which is also a Tagalog synonym for cloud
alimum, "the vapor that exudes from the ground after a sudden downpour during the dry season" which is still the same meaning today
alipup, "the vapor exuded by the body"
busuk is the generic word for "vapor of the soil or of the body."
