Many years ago, my Colombian friend Luz Marina Valencia and I were both applying for a Spanish-speaking job in an office in Alabang. While waiting for our exam, she asked me something that I didn’t understand at first.
“¿Tienes un carro, Pepe?”
She just asked me if I had a carro. 😱 I didn’t know if she was joking or what. Because here in Filipinas, we all know what a carro is — a hearse. But noticing the puzzlement in my face, she just switched into English. What she was actually asking me was if I had a car. 😂 It was then when I realized that in her country, the Spanish for car was carro. But for us Filipinos, it is coche (both in Spanish and Tagálog).
There are more than twenty Spanish-speaking countries, but not all of them share the exact same vocabulary. For instance, the Spanish expression ¡Órale! is strictly Mexican. You will never hear it uttered in Spain, Argentina, or elsewhere. Also in México, the Spanish for chili is chile, but it is ají in Perú.
This scenario is just the same with other languages such as English. When you go to the United Kingdom, for instance, you will find out that their word for apartment is flat while Irishmen are fond of using the word mate to refer to other men. In Tayabas Province, Tagálog speakers would rather say pumarine ca instead of halica dito (come over here).
Native Filipino Spanish-speakers have also developed their own unique Spanish. For instance: whether cooked or not, the word rice is always known as arroz all throughout the Spanish-speaking world. But here in Filipinas, cooked rice is known as morisqueta. Arroz is used only to refer to uncooked or unhusked rice (in Tagálog, it’s called bigás).
Another example. When asking for somebody’s name in Spanish, we ask ¿Cómo se llama? or ¿Cuál es su nombre? But here in Filipinas, Spanish speakers use a totally different question which might never be understood in other Spanish-speaking countries: ¿Cuál es su gracia?
Among the first words that are taught to Spanish language students are colors. For red, they learn that it is rojo in Spanish. However, native Filipino Spanish-speakers call that color by a different name: colorado (pronounced as coloráo).
In relation to the abovementioned examples, there are lots of native words that have been accepted into the general and standardized Spanish vocabulary. Some of these words are abacá (species of banana), paipay (heart-shaped native fan made of palm), and palenque (public market) just to name a few. The incorporation of new Spanish words is regulated by the Real Academia Filipina and its satellite of Spanish-language academies throughout the globe. In our country, its branch is called the Academia Filipina de la Lengua Española, the oldest state institution which was founded in 1924 by Enrique Zóbel de Ayala, Claro M. Recto, Macario Adriático, Fernando Mª Guerrero, and a host of other great writers and thinkers of the period. The Academia Filipina is currently being presided by the illustrious scholar, Señor Guillermo Gómez Rivera.
Filipino words that have been included into the standardized dictionary that is being maintained by the Real Academia Española are usually called by scholars as Filipinismos.
EL FILIPINISMO 