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It’s Girl Scout Cookie season. We’ve already ordered a batch of cookies from my co-worker and from an old neighbor visiting the area. Of course, they were selling them for their daughters. This article calls the whole enterprise “stressful.” I may not call it that but it’s so hard saying “no” that we may end up with a cupboard full of Samoas, Thin Mints, Lemon Coolers and Tagalongs.

I’m sure that last one, Tagalongs, caught the attention of you Pinoys out there. Sounds too much like Tagalog, no?* These bestsellers are chocolate-covered peanut butter cookies. Um, yeah, light brown on the inside and dark brown on the outside. Ehe.

*although with Tagalog the emphasis is on the GA

SFGate article via geekpress

I discovered an interesting weblog through the comments section of my post about my Mac speaking in Tagalog. Tagalog Translation is where Joseph, who lives in Barcelona, Spain, chronicles his work as a professional translator of the English/Tagalog/Catalan/Spanish languages. Linked from his site is another Philippine language blog, Salita Blog. It is Washington, D.C.-based Christopher Sundita’s site “dedicated to his thoughts about the language situation and the over 160 languages in the Republic of the Philippines.” Check ‘em out.

In the fantastical movie Big Fish, something smelled fishy in one of the flashback scenes. In what appeared to be a show for Chinese Communist soldiers in a huge auditorium, the dialogue between a ventriloquist and his dummy puppet was done entirely in Tagalog. Now, the performer was obviously Chinese for he was also donned in soldier garb. In a case of cinematic code-switching, the host spoke in Cantonese as he had the ventriloquist and his prop hauled off the stage. Here’s what I could catch of the dialogue:

Puppet:
‘Sus, kanina pa ako salita nang salita dito.
Pagod na pagod na ako.
Ikaw?
Wala ka bang sasabihin?
Tsina-tsansingan ako?
Akala mo, inip na inip na ako.
Pinapawisan…

Ventriloquist:
Ako, basang-basa sa pawis mo…

Puppet:
Hahahahaha!
Akala mo pawis iyan?
Ihi ko iyan.

Now they may have been kicked offstage due to a dialect unapproved by the Party, but I think it is due more to the content of the performance.

PS: According to the credits, the actor who played the ventriloquist is named Metz Duites.

Update: This is even more babylonic than I thought. According to this, the scene takes place in North Korea. While the host speaks Korean (ok, my bad), Ewan McGregor and the Siamese twins speak in Cantonese.

Powerfully simple.

Here is my Macintosh reading the Panatang Makabayan (mp3, 604k).

A few posts ago, I mentioned I was going to find a way to record my Mac’s text-to-speech voice. Well, I found a couple of Applescripts at VersionTracker that does just that. Easy enough. The hard part was getting my Mac to speak in Tagalog. I chose the Philippines’ Pledge of Allegiance for my Macintosh to read because I figured the monotonous way in which this piece is usually recited would suit the intonation of the Mac’s robotic voice. But additional work was needed to be done in order for the Mac to read Tagalog convincingly. I modified the text so that it would be read phonetically, plus I used dashes, commas, and periods to add the proper pauses and syllable emphasis.

Here’s the text for reference:

Panatang Makabayan

Iniibig ko ang Pilipinas
Ito ang aking lupang sinilangan
Ito ang tahanan ng aking lahi.

Ako ay kanyang kinukupkop,
At tinutulungan upang maging
Malakas, maligaya, at
Kapaki-pakinabang

Bilang ganti, diringgin ko
Ang payo ng aking mga magulang
Susundin ko ang mga tuntunin
Ng aking paaralan
Tutuparin ko ang mga tungkulin
Ng isang mamayang makabayan
At masunurin sa batas

Paglilingkuran ko ang aking Bayan
Ng walang pag-iimbot
At ng buong katapatan
Sisikapin kong maging
Isang tunay na Pilipino,
Sa isip, sa salita at sa gawa.

An English translation can be found at Paulo’s site.

Here’s how much I butchered the text in order for it to be read properly: