Learning the Language (An Sakong Pag-adal ki Tamang Bikol)

Bicol is perhaps the most romantic and most flexible language I can speak and understand. Being a writer, I could not help but wish to be able to use it as a means for literary expression. In the past, I have sat down and read books at the university's Center for Bicol Studies, partaken in forums merely for the sake of conversation and chatter in the language.

Books alone are never sufficient, for language has its rules and yet it is dynamic and ever evolving, but along with participation in the forums, I was able to be come up with a Bicol adaptation of one of the poems I have already written in English. This was published back to back in a literary folio in our department, in which luckily, I happen to be a member of the publication staff.

At leaving the university however, nothing has followed. Over the years, I have continued to write, but in the language I have trained for half of my school life. It is absurd that when we speak of writing in the native tongue, my hands fall into a hush. It is by lack of diligence in study and eagerness in communicating in Bicol that too many writing opportunities in the language have passed for me, I admit, and it is sad that there are pieces left unwritten for lack of proper words to write.

Today, I set my mind to start again, and begin by reading the works of renowned Bicol writers. I go back to reading the blogs of Jose Dalisay and Vicente Nierva. Of Kristian Cordero, I have yet to look into his writings.

For now, The Midnight Writer will have to sleep, and tonight, post the remaining parts of the Autumn Fireflies series--the last of which is "Pagkasulnop Minabangui", to mark the new avenue that this blog and its writer is heading to at the turn of the season.