Re: BIRIT by Jose F. Lacaba

[Virgilio Almario]

Pasensiya na kayo kung medyo atrasado ang reaksiyon ko hinggil sa pinagmulang ng "birit" at "hirit." Ngayon ko lang kasi uli nabuklat sa file ko.

 

Nakatutuwa na ginagagamit pala ngayon ang "birit" sa showbbiz para ilarawan ang nakatanggal-tutuleng hiyaw ng ating mga diva. Pero nakaangkla pa rin ang bagong gamit na ito sa orihinal na kahulugan ng "birit," gaya ng mababasa sa diksiyonaryo. Ang paggamit ng lakas o anumang kasangkapan para bumilis ang takbo ng sasakyan o pagtapos sa isang gawain ay para lamang ding paggamit ng ubos-lakas at bigay-todong tinig sa pagkanta.

 

Ngunit hindi ko uugatin ang "birit" sa Ingles na "beat it." Ang pagkakahawig ay bunga lamang ng pagtitiyap at hindi sinasadya. Gaya ng joke na mas mayaman daw ang Tagalog sa Ingles dahil ang "hen" daw ng Ingles ay bahagi lamang ng "inahin" (ina+hen). Bata pa ako'y naririnig ko na ang "birit" sa mga pahinante kapag naghihila ng mabibigat na bordon sa aming probinsiya. Ang hinala ko'y baryasyon ito ng "binit."

 

Ang "hirit" ay nakatutuwa ring kahawig ng "hit it." Totoo ring malimit gamitin ang 'hirit" sa sugal. Bata pa ako'y naririnig ko na ang "hirit" sa mga naglalaro ng blackjack at ripa kapag nanghihingi pa ng dagdag na barahaang isang nagsusugal. Kaya marahil tinutudyong "humihirit pa" ang sinumang nagpipilit kunin ang isang bagay kahit talo na o kaya'y nagpipilit pang mangatwiran kahit nabokya na.

 

Nais ko ring imungkahi na titigan ang salitang "irit" ng mga Tagalog. Dahil Kapampangan ang nilakhan kong komunidad, hindi kaya nalagyan lamang namin ng "H" ang "irit" ng mga

Tagalog? Nakagugulo ba ang komentaryo ko?Ganito talaga kabusisi ang paghahanap sa ugat ng mga salita sa ating dila.

MatyagWika <perfect...@gmail.com> wrote:

Ipinadala ito ni Vim Nadera:

SHOWBIZ LENGUA
Jose F. Lacaba

MAKING BIRIT

The Word of the Year, according to dictionary publisher
Merriam-Webster Inc., is blog. That's a shortened form
of Web log, which is something like a diary, but one that's open to the
computer-literate public. Merriam-Webster reports that blog--defined as
"a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections,
comments, and often hyperlinks"--was the most looked-up word on the
dictionary publisher's Internet sites in 2004.

Blog is English. What could be the Word of the Year in
Filipino, Pilipino, Tagalog, Taglish, Philippine English, or
Pinoyspeak in general?

Unfortunately, we have no equivalent of Merriam-Webster. A few online
word lists keep track of developments in Pinoyspeak,
but these are mostly the hobbies of amateur wordwatchers like yours
truly. So let's just say the table is open for nominations for
Pinoyspeak Word of the Year 2004. That could be a new coinage you
encountered only last year, or an old word that somehow gained currency
or new meaning last
year.

My own candidate for the honor is birit.

Let me cite two examples of the word's current popularity. At
yearend, the country's Number One noontime show, Eat Bulaga, had two
contests to determine who would be Birit Queen and
Birit King. Earlier, in the Philippine Daily Inquirer of October 10,
2004, columnist Nestor U. Torre noted the propensity of local divas to
make birit--which he defined as "to belt out songs with maximum range
and vocal power." Torre went on to lament that "belting and birit" made
the local music scene "so strident and trying-hard,"
besides being a "real strain on the singers' vocal cords and the
listeners' eardrums."

The UP Diksiyonaryong Filipino (2001), described as "the first
comprehensive monolingual dictionary in Filipino," defines birit as
"pilat sa talukap ng mata" in Iloko and "pagpapabilis
ng takbo ng sasakyan."

The second definition could be the source of birit's
current musical meaning, since a race car going high speed does create
a screeching sound akin to high-pitched singing. But let me hazard a
wild guess about lexical origin, closer to the world of pop music:
birit is really a mispronunciation of Michael Jackson's chart-busting
"Beat It."

Don't laugh. There is a well-documented theory that hirit, as in huling
hirit and unang hirit, was originally a term in
softball, a sport brought into this country by speakers of
American English. Hirit! is the command you hear when it's your turn at
bat: "Hit it!"

>From hit it to hirit, from beat it to birit--sounds plausible enough
for me.

YES!
2005 February

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