Ilonggo Pride
I attended a reunion of my Dad’s former officemates a few days ago… one unique thing about that company was that it was predominantely made up of Ilonggos… I am assuming this was because majority of the good agriculture schools came from that area at that time…
The running joke was that because of the majority’s Ilonggo accent, if you sat in a meeting you would think that the people were singing because of the rolling melody of their voices. The Ilonggo dialect is a very unique dialect because of its warm and gentle tone of speaking. Because of this, it was very hard to distinguish when the person talking to you was mad or not. I remember my female classmates in college were swooning when I introduced my cousin to them, who was a pure blooded Ilonggo fresh off the boat from Negros. Chicks just dig the accent. *snicker*
At the party, one guy told a story of him crossing a river in one of the farms when his little boat capsized because of the strong current. He said that it was a good thing that he was Ilonggo otherwise he would have drowned. On which somebody lamented that the world would have lost another Ilonggo, that sent the crowd into another burst of laughter.
The funny thing was that because a lot of people were Ilonggo’s in that company, those who weren’t, ended up learning the dialect… I am assuming by constant exposure to it *snicker*
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I am proud of my Ilonggo lineage even though it’s only half of me. Hehe. My dad’s from Iloilo but I lived most of my life in Metro Manila. Fortunately for me, we lived in Iloilo for 2 years and 6 years in Bacolod so I am fluent in the dialect.
bout the accent thing, it is true. Girls from Manila like the Ilonggo accent. For me, it was the other way around. When I went to Bacolod, I spoke Ilonggo with a tagalog accent and girls found it cute. Hehe..and girls over there, like guys who come from Manila.
I’m giving it a couple of more months, then I can probably start speaking the language… I can understand very easily but I have no courage to speak it… yet *snicker*