The honorable peculiarities of Filipino English

Around 15 years ago, my mother exposed her quirky patrician side when she got into a “petty” argument with her in-laws. My family was then preparing for the golden wedding anniversary of my lolo and lola, and my uncles and aunts were drafting an invitation letter. The draft invitation read “We cordially invite you to the golden wedding anniversary of Atty. Enrique Claudio and Dr. Victoria Claudio.” Mom, always concerned with proper etiquette, objected to the use of the title “Atty.” Unlike “Dr.,” she claimed, “Atty.” was not a proper honorific, but one invented by title-obsessed Pinoys. Mom argued valiantly, but my uncles and aunts prevailed. I was thinking of this incident the other day, so I did some research on commonly-used professional titles in the Philippines like “Atty.,” “Arch.,” and “Engr.” True enough, my mother, Prof. Dr. Sylvia Estrada-Claudio, MD, PhD (titles are really funny), was right. Miss Manners’ (Judith Martin) guide to proper etiquette does not include these three in her list of accepted English honorifics. Moreover, if you look through the two most reputable English dictionaries (Oxford and Merriam Webster), you will note the absence of these words. The less reputable dictionary.com includes “atty.,” but defines it as an abbreviation and not a title meant to precede a name. All sources, however, list Ms., Mr., Mrs., Fr., and Dr. So why did Pinoys invent titles for professionals? Personally, I don’t see the need for excessive and insecure claims to higher education. An “Atty.,” for me, conjures images of either a juvenile lawyer/frat boy who beats people up simply because he can or a cutthroat goon who defends everyone from plunderers to warlords (Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying there aren’t wonderful “Attys.” The image just bothers me). In contrast, an attorney who refers to one’s self as “Mr.” or “Ms.” conjures a man/woman of understated class and humble restraint. I find it surprising that Filipino English would create new titles, given that our English is based on the supposedly “democratic” English of the Americans. Unlike the case of British colonies like India or Malaysia, the English taught to Filipinos was the “egalitarian” English of the New World. American English, as conceptualized by Noah Webster, was a language rid of the superfluities and class distinctions of British English. Webster sought to simplify the language from spelling to pronunciation. Unpronounced Us were dropped (as in the case of colour becoming color), and Ss that sounded like Zs became Zs (as in the change from “organise” to “organize”). Webster also despised the upper-class English habit of clipping syllables (as in the case of “mi-li-ta-ry” being pronounced as “mi-li-try”). For Webster, a standardized American English would allow all Americans to speak and write the same language. The British spoke different Englishes (from the Queen’s English, the Scottish brogue to cockney), which created what the fictional Professor Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady called “verbal class distinctions.” You could tell a rich Brit from a poor one based on how he/she spoke. American English, on the other hand, would reflect the sense of equal opportunity at the center of the American dream. For Webster, all Americans would speak the same dialect regardless of their class origins. Webster’s linguistic impulse naturally dovetailed with American Republicanism, which, in challenging British courtly governance, also challenged British courtly titles. America is not known for having lords and ladies. So if Filipino English is based on American English, why is it more hierarchical? Why the fetish for professional titles like Atty., Arch., and Engr.? I have not conducted documentary research on this topic, but allow me to offer some hypotheses. A simple answer would be that the Americans who colonized the Philippines encountered lowland societies that already used Iberian linguistic class markers like “Don” and “Doña.” Don and Doña, however, are not professional titles like “Atty.” So we still need to ask why we ended up inventing titles that reflect one’s educational status. I suspect the answer lies in the fundamental contradiction of the American colonial project. The Americans who occupied the Philippines justified their actions through the rhetoric of “benevolent assimilation.” In other words, they were only subjugating Filipinos in order to teach them values like American egalitarianism. The contradiction here is obvious. How can you teach egalitarianism through a system (colonialism) that is inherently anti egalitarian? Consider that in order to successfully subjugate a people, a colonizer must manufacture a desire for his culture and his society (a desire we now call colonial mentality). In the case of the Philippines, this is exactly what the Americans did. The power of American colonialism lay in its emphasis on education – an education that supposedly exposed Filipinos to the “wonders” of the American way of life. Through education, the American colonial state bred a new elite of Filipinos trained in a new, more “modern,” American system. People with advanced degrees like law or engineering were at the apex of this system. Their prestige, as such, not only rested on their purported intelligence, but also their mastery of the colonizer’s way of life. This, I suspect, is the source of the magical and superstitious attachment we have to attorneys, architects and engineers. The language we use is still haunted by our colonial experience. We linguistically privilege professionals because our colonizers made us value a certain kind of white-collar work. I must say though: if titles are meant to represent what societies value, we should make up new ones. Two come to mind: “Trp.” for Trapo and “Cque.” for Cacique. We routinely elect them, so we must value them. Oh, but wait, I forgot these people already have a title: “Hon. Cong.” for honorable congressman. And that, for many reasons (not least of which is the assertion of being honorable), is the most absurd title yet. Lisandro Claudio (“Leloy”) is a PhD Candidate in the School of Historical Studies, the University of Melbourne. He is also a lecturer (on leave) in the Department of History, Ateneo de Manila University. For more on the history of language in the Philippines, see the considerable work of historian Vicente Rafael.