She said the word “kilig”-that tingly romantic feeling hard to capture in a singular English term-may be next. “This means that Philippine English will continue to be represented in the dictionary-I really cannot ask for anything more as a legacy.” “The idea that I am contributing my own knowledge and work on World Englishes, and Philippine English in particular, and that this work will, many years from now, continue to be used by a new generation of lexicographers that are keeping the OED current and useful for a new generation of users, that just gives me a real sense of purpose,” she said. Many more are on the pipeline as Salazar continues to work on the Oxford Dictionary. Philippine English is just one of these vibrant new varieties of the language that make English a truly global tongue,” she said.īefore her employment at OED in December 2014, the 31-year-old Salazar worked on a research piece on “improving the representation of Philippine English” in the Oxford Dictionary. “As a dictionary that considers itself the ultimate historical record of the English language, the OED … is keen to, include more and more words from these World Englishes. “English has gone beyond the countries where it is spoken as the sole native language, and has spread to many different parts of the globe, where it is used for intra- and international communication along with a number of other local languages.”
Salazar said the inclusion of the Philippine terms “benefits both the dictionary and the Philippine variety of English itself.” The Philippine terms were among 500 new words, 900 newly revised and updated words, and 2,400 new senses (or definitions) of existing words. “The Inquirer is actually a good source of illustrative quotations for the OED, meaning that your newspaper is actually in the dictionary,” Salazar said.Īs examples, she cited the newspaper’s use of the terms “baro’t saya,” “batchmate,” “estafa” and “gimmick” in its news stories. The research also included referencing “studies of Philippine English by Filipino and foreign linguists, and also from my own observations as a native speaker of the variety,” Salazar said.įilipino publications, such as the Philippine Daily Inquirer, were also used as a source for word suggestions. The terms were selected through the Oxford University Press’ resources “to track the emergence of new words and senses,” including the Oxford English Corpus. Such recognition may also lead to the realization among Filipinos that the liberties we take with English are not aberrations, but rather linguistic innovations that reflect our own cultural experience and contribute to the richness of English,” Salazar said. “Becoming part of the OED is a recognition of the role that Philippine English plays in the evolution of the language. Salazar said OED’s recognition of Philippine terms may also uplift the lot of the Filipino variety ofĮnglish as it gives legitimacy to usage previously frowned upon, such as “carnap” and “salvage.” The words “Pinoy” and “adobo” were added in 2006. Philippine English has long been present in the OED, with the word “abaca” included in the dictionary’s first edition in 1928. “The inclusion of Philippine English words … is an acknowledgment that this particular variety is as worthy of serious linguistic scholarship as older, more established varieties, such as British and American English,” she said. The country has also become a prime hub for English-language call centers. The addition of Philippine terms in the lexicon lends itself to the “legitimization of Philippine English as a variety in its own right,” said Salazar.Īlong with Filipino, English is an official language in the Philippines, used in the academe, business, government and daily life. Halo,” “barangay” and “suki,” hybrid expressions like “balikbayan,” “sari-sari store” and “kikay kit,” and derivations like “presidentiable.”Īlso included were compound words like “batchmate,” so-called blends of clipped words like “mani-pedi” or “manicure-pedicure,” initialisms like KKB or “kaniya-kaniyang bayad,” Filipinized translations like “go down” to mean “get off a vehicle,” conversions of nouns into adjectives, such as “high blood” to mean “angry, agitated,” and “complete changes” of word denotations, such as “gimmick” to mean a night out with friends and “salvage,” which means “to kill” instead of “to save” in the Philippines.
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