March 29, 2024

COPY PLAIN COPIED: “Hello, Hello, Hello! he he iyat di odom ay e Manila ay men greeting Ü kumu2sta kadi (name of official)? Na andi met lai udan nahmo?” (Language used is the ‘emerging’ Kakaiba [Kankana-ey, Kalanguya, Ibaloi] variety, and in substance, the sentences translate: “Hello! (3x) Say some from Manila when greeting (people). How are you, (Name)? Has gone now the rain out WOND?). And the (high) official’s reply – also plain copied:
‘HE HE! WEN Sir Manong.. In a while, we’re going to have a meeting to find answers, and [then] address some pressing Sib Kanserns’.
ALL THE WORDS in the official’s message, you and I are able to comprehend well – even as we ‘adjust’ to the immanent idïosyncracies of the ‘gadget language’; except
THE WORD ‘SIB’ – as used in this context: it becomes ‘ambigous’ to you, doesn’t it? (It does to me, I confirm) as we peer deeper into its present-message-application or Usage.
BY ‘SIB KANSERNS’, the official could have meant in formal rendition: ‘concerns of, or among, the siblings’? Or, is it:
RATHER, ‘CONCERNS OF, or among the members of the Sib’?
THE FIRST SIB is derived from the original ‘sibling(s)’.. but it loses the final -s because it is adjectivized to modify kanserns/concerns.
THE SECOND SIB (Usage) has no ‘gadget’ nor informal requirement(s) to comply with. It is in ‘normal’ or plain or formal Usage, viz. Sib =int
A KINSHIP TERM to mean that the referring Kinsman traces and/or acknowledges his relatives on both his/her father and mother’s sides – or his patrikins and matrikins. So,
WHICH DID THE official mean: the first Sib (Supra) – or, the second? Or, did he mean ‘both’?
[‘COME NOW, IS that possible?’, you may sidestep to ask; but assuredly, we say yes, it is!
IN THESE ‘ELECTRONIC’ Times of yours and mine, many things have become possible – especially so in our present-day languages – even in our manner of communication, in general?
[TRY TO VISUALIZE these facts as you imagine the ‘exclusive’ Use of the Morse Code, as well as the age-old rigid rules and exceptionalities of Grammar and Semantics. You, and I realize):
THESE TIMES, WE are able to understand – or perchance, we have to sometimes ‘adjust’, in order to be able to understand those ‘possibilities’ – some, dubbed before as ‘impossibilities’ or problems, or difficulties.
FURTHERMORE, THERE ARE other ‘unique’ factors that may come into the Interplay.
IN OUR DISCUSSION today of the term Sib, i.e. the first, as well as the second, the ‘natural’ ambiguity is much more fortified when rendered in the languages hereabouts, or in ‘these Heights’. For example
IN NABALOI, THE everyday-language word Sib/ling)s is Agui – and this reference can extend, up to the ‘cousin’ (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.) Level. But note:
IS IT NOT that from the ‘1st-cousin’ level, the term Sibling (or Siblings or ‘Sibs’) cannot apply? But it does – and it may, in Nabaloi (cf. that in Engligh and in the other languages, the cousin is not interchangeable with sibling or sib (the 1st instance).
IN KANKANA-EY, THE AGUI (1st instance) can even apply to affinal kins, e.g. brother-in-law, sister-in-law.. and this beyond-the-consanguinal reference – or (direct) address, in some other Cordi locations, can also apply – whether ‘ceremonially’ or otherwise; to: a stranger, a visitor, a friend, etc., not their consaguinal nor affinal kin. So that
IN SPEECHES, INTRODUCTIONS, or (direct) addresses: you see (or/and) hear, someone being welcomed as: agui, or tulang, or sunod or tun-od – all falling under the semantic import of sib (1st instance) or sib (2nd instance).
AS EARLIER CITED, the Sib (2nd instance) can be meant or understood as: co-member of a clan, a family line, a tribe, even a nation. The Anthros further delineate: call it sib if tracing both mother and father ‘sides’; gens, if only the father’s side; and clan [or ‘sub-clan’, etc.] if only the mother’s side! Ayuhh!