MY NEPHEW related how a young person was repeatedly saying "yawa" outside Mom’s house the other day.
“Hindi naman galit. Para ngang masaya pa, pero bakit puro ‘yawa’ man ang sinasabi (It wasn’t said in anger. It even sounded like the young person was happy. I just wonder why all he could express was ‘yawa’),” my nephew said. Yawa means “devil” in Bisaya.
Just yesterday, I chanced on a TikTok video of a young woman showing different ways where "yawa" is used to mean something – from praising to anger. This TikTok video was labeled to mean that it’s how Bisaya people talk. And I wonder with my nephew why "yawa" is the way the “Bisaya” are supposed to express emotions because, honestly, I disagree.
This exchange and the video made me more aware of how people are speaking around in the subdivision, and yes, the young ones, the teens and even the pre-teens use "yawa" so much, I wish to meet their parents and have a word with them.
No, that is not how the Bisaya speaks. The Cebuano says “pagkanindot” when expressing praise over beauty, the people from Cagayan de Oro would prefer to use “chada” short of “pachada,” the Dabawenyo would say, “gwapo” or “kuyaw.” In anger, there is “pesteng yawa (pest of a devil),” but not stand-alone “yawa,” and a long list of others “gago” (stupid), “siraulo/ulol” (crazy), even “hindot” (fuck) all referring to sleazy characters and actions. But never the devil.
(If you’re cringing at why these "bad words" are spelled out, I am asking you now, why can’t I spell out stupid and yet you do not cringe when your children invoke the devil?)
Comes now the 21st century and the devil moved mainstream, what used to be a curse against the devil (pesteng yawa) has become just the devil, and it leaves a very bad taste in the mouth.
“Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man ‘unclean.’" -- Matthew 5: 17-18
The past months were all about hygiene. We have to wash our hands as often as possible, singing Happy Birthday twice to make sure that the hand is properly cleansed, and yes, don’t forget to wash the back of the hands and in between the fingers. The past months were about taking a bath as soon as you come home from work or errands, to not even bring your outside clothes to your bed.
And yet our children are allowed to speak as they want to, to be in the groove, to speak as their generation speaks, invoking the devil in their expressions of emotion from appreciation to anger. And we wonder why we’re all in this unimaginable situation as we welcome 2021 and face the prospect of yet another year zipping past to Christmas while forced to stay home.
The past months have made us focus on the physical and how to stay clean. Let’s spend time to check on our spiritual hygiene as well. Let’s start with the words we speak. saestremera@gmail.com