Preface of Language and Culture
This story, as do many of my stories, involves an American English speaker living in the Philippines and interacting with Filipinos. Primarily with Filipinas, the females.
For those of you whose primary language is English, it may surprise you that compared to some other languages, your language is a highly precise stew pot of words, nuances, and structures that allow for a strict understanding of exactly what is intended to be conveyed. We have rules upon rules of what constitutes correct speech so that ambiguity is removed.
The languages of the Philippines are the converse. Ambiguity is part and parcel of their lives. States of being we use are completely missing from their casual lexicon. Where a child might come to an adult and say, 'Mom says to tell you it is time to eat dinner.' A Tagalog speaker might simply say 'Kain na'. That Tagalog translates to Eat now. If you hand me a sack of potato chips, I might say, 'I have had enough', in Tagalog, it would be 'Tama na'. Now, Tama actually means Correct and na means now. But when strung together it is understood as Enough. So Correct now, means Enough, and nowhere is there a verb of being.
The result is a spoken English which sounds a bit odd to your ears until you remember that the missing words come from people who are unaccustomed to using anything like them. An example is: What you do her? Which can mean: What did you do to her? Or What did you do with her? Or What did you do for her? You are supposed to gather the meaning based on the context of when the question was asked.
An additional complexity arises in our penchant for asking compound or complex questions. For instance, in the sentence:
Joan, are you ready to agree; is this for you?
The Filipina hears two questions.
1. Are you ready to agree?
2. Is this for you?
When faced with two questions in one sentence, you will not get a useful answer. If you do, you are very lucky! The general rule is one question per sentence. However you can modify a sentence, by asking it in improper English and avoid this. It is a subtle difference but it does work.
Joan are you ready to agree, this not for you?
It may not seem like much to you and it is definitely not proper English but, you will get your answer!
In this novel, the dialog is as accurate to the place and type of conversation as I can make it. There are things I don't do. In real dialog, he is confused with she and visa versa. Tagalog does not use gender pronouns and so the Tagalog speaker will often make this mistake.
Pronouns are used freely within sentences and often do not refer to any identified subject. Further a number of individuals may be identified by the same pronoun in the same sentence. If there are four sisters, which sister is being referenced, is anyone's guess. If you ask, you often get a look, like, why does it matter?
That is the nature of the ambiguousness in lives led. You will often hear a Filipino complain that a foreigner is strict. The foreigner is trying to untangle the ambiguity and it is not appreciated.
So I have done as much as I can without making the reading completely impossible. I hope you enjoy what follows.