Sa Aking mga Kabata - Pilipino Express

Something Fishy About Rizal Poem • Part 2 • Paul Morrow
A young linguist
Rizal’s formal education began in
1870 in a small classroom in Biñan,
Laguna, a year after he allegedly
composed Sa Aking Mga Kabata. In his
student diaries he reminisced about his
first day in that Biñan school:
When I entered [the teacher’s] class
for the first time… he spoke to me in
these words:
“Do you know Spanish”
“A little sir,” I replied.
“Do you know Latin”
“A little sir,” I answered again.
For these replies the teacher’s son Pedro,
the naughtiest boy in the class, began to
sneer at me. 19
Rizal at age 18 in 1879,
around the time he wrote
his diaries as a student in
Manila
If the poem is to be taken at face value, young Jose, despite
his admission of having only a little knowledge of Spanish
and Latin, was supposedly sophisticated enough to compare
these languages with Tagalog. The fourth stanza of the poem
declares that Tagalog is the equal of Latin, English, Spanish
and the language of the angels. (See the poem on p1)
Curiously, English is included in the comparison to Tagalog
rather than more predictable choices such as classical Greek or
French. This is also a bit suspicious because English was not
yet an especially influential language in the Philippines of
1869. Although his uncle, Jose Alberto, spoke English, 20 Rizal
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