FIRST, LET US start with a Parallelism: that of ‘Neo-Latin’, in English. This one means
SPEAKERS OF ENGLISH – whether ‘native’ e.g. British, American, Australian, etc.; or ‘non-native’ e.g. Thais, Chinese, Filipinos, etc., use these [actually or originally] Latin words, expressions, terms, and so on, in their daily communication – informal, formal, name it.
ARE THEY AWARE of this? Our answer: yes, some of them are very aware or so; but some: are not or may not yet have keen cognizance of it. Some applications are in order:
THE PHRASES: AB OVO, ad infinitum, and Quod erat demonstrandum or Q.E.D., and others like: per diem, pro bono, e.g. (exempli gratia), ex officio, and surely: et cetera!
WITH THESE SAMPLES or applications, let’s try substituting the would-have-been ‘pure’ English equivalents of at least the first three:
AB OVO = ‘FROM the egg’. Now, if we have a sentence like: It was a shaky try ab ovo, could we correctly mean the same when we say: It was a shaky try ‘from the egg’? And next:
AD INFINITUM = ‘TO/until infinity’. If we have the English sentence: “you cannot solve that problem by adding another problem – because after that one, may come another one, etc., ad infinitum” In this same sentence, could we correctly substitute ‘to/until infinity’ for the last two words and, ‘no qualms; no worries’, as to meaning?
MAYBE YES? OR No? But certainly, if we do so, we shall be missing some ‘shades of Implication’ from the neo-Latin original Usage of ad infinitum. And then,
QUOD ERAT DEMONSTRANDUM (Q.E.D.) = ‘which was to be demonstrated’, in an example like “Blitzkrieg has been proven as an effective/devastating attack-strategy in War, Q.E.D. (in WWII)”
IN THIS CASE, we could use either Q.E.D. – or its native-English form ‘which was to be/ (which has/ have been) demonstrated’ – without serious damage to meaning-transfer; but what about the writer’s form or the (specific) Field’s format? In Philosophy, for instance, they’ll mostly use Q.E.D. – in place of the ‘alternate’ English native or ‘pure’ form. Ain’t that right? Now, to our ‘neo-Iluko’ phenomena in Nabaloi. We start with the most recent one: from a text-message of a Tun-od agui (relative sister/brother) on January 30, 2022, in reference to the 2nd day of that ‘first rain of’ the year (2022), to wit:
PIGSAY ORAN. MANKOKOT, teg-in. [Transl: “Strong is the rain. (Let’s) Fold on (to the blankets), (it’s) cold”].
THE THIRD WORD – mankokot, is Iluko-based and in-use Contemporarily, and its corresponding Nabaloi word is man kalimotmot. But why did the texter instead use Mankokot; and she’s a native speaker of Nabaloi? And now,
OUR NEXT THREE examples – must have been there for a long time. They’re randomly gotten from songs, on-records or not – of our Ibalois, to wit:
MANTEDTED = “FALLING/DROPPING”, Shamo = “first-time”, and Iliw “missing blues/woes” – as in the following lines of (3) different songs:
MANTEDTED E SAYA (“Dropping are the tears”); Nonta shamo ~ ([During] the first time~”); and Iliw ko son si-kam (“My missing woes for you”). Now,
THE WOULD-HAVE-been ‘original’, ‘pure’, or even ‘Standard’ alternates are: Man bejjak for Mantedted; pilmero for shamo, and Seppik for Iliw ko. But why did the singers not use these instead? It’s for us only:
TO CONJECTURE? ANALYZE? guess? et cetera? Have it whichever way, but must be that the makers/composers of those lines have assumed that the Usages, as well as their would-have-been alternates, are both accepted? or understood, and freely applied, in Contemporary or present-day Nabaloi – i.e. whether they’re neo-Iluko or original/native/pure in version! Ayuhh!
April 20, 2024
