a_bbles

on cebuanos refusing to speak tagalog in cebu. first of all, that handpicked screenshot from hundreds of POVs on threads does not represent cebu. he’s mayabang to say that we don’t compromise because we sure do. cebuanos are very kind human beings. there’s also a backstory behind why that topic blew up and triggered a lot of cebuanos, but i’m not going back into it because honestly, it’s just irrational at this point. second, when you visit cebu, you’ll most likely encounter two types of people: person 1, who wouldn’t mind speaking or responding to you in tagalog, and person 2, who would rather respond in english. that’s just the kind of interaction a tagalog-speaking tourist might have here. we’re not going to insist on speaking cebuano when we already know you don’t speak our language. but at the same time, don’t force person 2 to speak tagalog either. person 1 might try to accommodate you, but the conversation could end up being in taglish anyway. my point is, cebuanos have been mocked for thick accents whenever we speak tagalog, and honestly, that’s one reason why many would rather not even attempt it anymore. some would rather just switch to english and move on with the conversation. why make someone uncomfortable over a language when there’s another way to communicate? our primary language here is cebuano, but english is a language we’re also very comfortable with. the majority of us speak it VERY WELL. so when i saw that twt saying ‘hindi kami marunong magtagalog’ or ‘wala kaming alam’, well, excuse me? 😭 choosing to speak english or bisaya doesn’t mean we don’t understand tagalog, much less that we’re any less intelligent. we simply prefer speaking the languages we’re most comfortable with, and trust me, english is one of our strong suits, something the rest of the nation might be struggling with. lastly, when we visit manila, we don’t expect people to speak cebuano to accommodate us. we try to speak tagalog, but if we’re uncomfortable expressing ourselves in it, we switch to english. it’s really that simple. communication should be about understanding each other, not forcing someone to speak a language they’re uncomfortable with. ✌🏻