All I Can Handle

Whenever I talk to Spanish speakers, I always find some words that are similar to words that I use in Chavacano or Tagalog. Since I write all articles about Chavacano in my Chavacano blog , this article is about some unexpected Tagalog words that may have its origins from Spanish. When asked about which words in Tagalog come from Spanish, most Filipinos would commonly think of kitchen utensils as well as names of the months and days of the week. Common answers will include:  kutsilyo ,  kutsara ,  tinedor ,  plato ,  baso ,  lunes ,  martes ,  miyerkules ,  huwebes ,  biyernes , and  sabado . Don't ask me why the word for 'Sunday' isn't  domingo . I have always suspected that most Spanish words which are found in the Tagalog language are a result of that language being deficient. This can be evidenced by most modern inventions and probably things that were brought by the Spanish being called by their Spanish names in Tagalog. A few examples would be  relo/relos ,  telep

Since the American colonial era, the Spanish language had been on a steady decline in the Philippines. As early as in the 1920s, there was already a notable decrease in the usage of the Spanish language which even led to the creation of the Premio Zobel. Established to promote the Spanish language, Premio Zobel was a literary award given to Filipino writers who wrote in the Spanish language. Today, while the Spanish language no longer plays a vital role in our country, it remains to be alive in the form of words found in our local languages that have its roots in that language. Words in the Filipino language such as pero (but), oras (hours), mesa (table), radyo (radio), libro (book), sapatos (shoes), baka (cow/beef), kalye (street) and many others make it impossible for Filipinos to go through the day without uttering a single word in Spanish. In Zamboanga city, the importance of the Spanish language in our culture can be appreciated even more as the people there speak a Spanis