Which do you actually do?

[John J]

Hey Dave:

>but I can see that my last sentence may have given that impression.

Not at all Dave. This is often the problem with exchanging dialogue over the net. I too am not interested in a debate but simply to point the common misconceptions found in FMA. I just wanted to reiterate the distinction between sword and stick techniques.

Bart:
>But as for most of them, I think they definitely share development.

My conservative guess is there are over 200 styles or systems in the Philippines, if not plenty more. Through publications, only about 50 have had exposure. OUR thoughts are merely speculation. The only sure way of knowing is to trace back the development & evolution of each style / system of Arnis & Eskrima.


John

 

[arnisandyz]

The only sure way of knowing is to trace back the development & evolution of each style / system of Arnis & Eskrima.


John [/B][/QUOTE]


This would be imposible to do. Many of the older Masters did not document or openly teach thier art and in many cases, the art died with them. I've heard many stories of people not even knowing their own family member (an old uncle or great grandpa, etc.) was an arnisador.

 

[arnisandyz]

Someone mentioned to me that even FMA is not an accurate term to describe ALL of the Martial Arts of the Philippines since the "F" represents the name Philippines which was named after King Philip of Spain. Some food for thought.

 

[John J]

>This would be imposible to do.

You do realize I was just making a point NOT a suggestion.

>Someone mentioned to me that even FMA is not an accurate term to describe ALL of the Martial Arts of the Philippines

The primary use of F M A was simply an acronym to Filipino Martial Arts.

John

 

[arnisandyz]

You do realize I was just making a point NOT a suggestion.

Yup. Just adding to your thread for the other members who might not be as knowledgable on the difficulty in documenting our art. Don't take it personal.


The primary use of F M A was simply an acronym to Filipino Martial Arts.

John [/B][/QUOTE]


What about the arts that are pre Spanish? They were not called Filipino as that developed from being named by the Spanish. I'm just throwing stuff out there to see what others think. When dealing with the history of FMA it can be very confusing as we don't have manuscripts of history of the art like the monks in China did for KungFu.

 

[Damian Mavis]

Anyone know why the Phillipines martial arts are called FMA? FILIPINO martial arts? Is this just a spelling mistake that we keep encouraging through recurring use?

Damian Mavis
Honour TKD

 

[Datu Tim Hartman]

Originally posted by Damian Mavis

Anyone know why the Phillipines martial arts are called FMA? FILIPINO martial arts? Is this just a spelling mistake that we keep encouraging through recurring use?

Damian Mavis
Honour TKD

Phillipines - is the country

FILIPINO - is the singular.


This is like living in America being an American.

 

[Damian Mavis]

Really? This is internationally accepted or just a U.S. thing?

Damian Mavis
Honour TKD

 

[Datu Tim Hartman]

To my knowlege this is the case. I have been corrected by Remy himself.

 

[John J]

>Don't take it personal.

No offense taken. In fact, like yourself, I just wanted to make sure others knew I had no intention of spearheading such a task. It can be difficult at times to convey your thoughts in writing.

>What about the arts that are pre Spanish? They were not called Filipino as that developed from being named by the Spanish.

You are certainly correct. The history of FMA has always been a bit unclear. However, there is no doubt that indigenous fighting arts existed. Some of the pre Spanish terms were used to describe the art, method or movements were: Kaliradman, Sinawali, Pagkalikali, Kalirongan, Didya, Kaboroan, and Ibanag to name a few. I may have incorrectly spelled some due to the various dialects.

John

 

[John J]

Filipino or Pilipino can be seen as synonymous. However, some of my peers would prefer the following:

Filipino - from or related to the Philippines

Pilipino - a native from the Philippines

John

 

[arnisandyz]

Because it is called Filipino Martial Arts. Filipino (Filipina - female) refers to that which is from the Philippines whether it be people or things. It would be like calling African Martial Arts – Africa Martial Arts or Mexican food – Mexico food. I think the real question should be why is Filipino spelled with an "F" and not a "PH"? In addition you could also question why it only has one "p" rather than two as in PhiliPPines.

 

[arnisandyz]

John,

your seem very accurate with your facts (and even your assumtions) with Filipino history (as cloudy as it is). I enjoyed reading your posts and look forward to more.

Salamat

Andy

 

[arnisandyz]

Originally posted by John J

Filipino or Pilipino can be seen as synonymous. However, some of my peers would prefer the following:

Filipino - from or related to the Philippines

Pilipino - a native from the Philippines

John

Not only the spelling, but the pronunciation I've heard go both ways "F" and "P"

 

[Master of Blades]

So Basically what you're saying is it all boils down to names....

 

[Damian Mavis]

Honestly I was thinking that the U.S was spelling Phlipino, Filipino because it seems right or is easier? Not dissing American spelling or anything just I've seen words change in the States before and thought maybe this was the case.

As an example, I went to a bank machine in the States and received a receipt that said Cheking account instead of Chequeing account.

Sorry to kind of go off topic.


Damian Mavis
Honour TKD

 

[thekuntawman]

i practice and teach kuntaw and arnis/eskrima. for many years i was calling my stickfighting "arnis" but now i say "eskrima" since most of the people i know here in california say eskrima. its funny, when i talk to my brother, sister and my mother, i still say "arnis".

i teach a separate class for the kuntaw i was taught, and my own style of kuntaw. i also name my arnis style "gatdula fighting arnis" which is a combination of all the techniques i like the most in eskrima. in my fighting eskrima i only teach the single stick and the single knife, maybe i might add stick and knife, but it depends to who wants it, and how good they are with the techniques i taught them already.

for Filipino/pilipino:
many filipinos spell "F_ilipino" but they say "P_ilipino". when you speak, you call it "pilipinas" which means its the style of the philippines. but a person is "pilipino". this is why i call the art "philippine martial arts" not "filipino....." a filipino is the person, philippines is the country.

also i would like to say that i think saying your style is "prespanish is ridiculous. nothing we have has not been touched by the spanish, that is what makes us pilipino. the same way you cannot say who was your great great great grandfather, and thats in your own family, how can you tell us something about the art passed from ANOTHER family? the word "pre spanrish" is a commercial thing to make your art more authentic. people should not get sold out to things like that. the bottom line is, can somebody take this things your teaching, and whip some *** with it, or not? if you want to call it "pinoy tae kwon fu" if your technique works and your training and knowledge can make a weak man strong, then you have all the credibility in the world, more than some "pre spanish authentic passed down ancient"style.

okay i'm finish with my :soapbox:

 

[arnisandyz]

Originally posted by thekuntawman

i would like to say that i think saying your style is "prespanish is ridiculous. nothing we have has not been touched by the spanish, that is what makes us pilipino.

I personally wasn't (nor do I think other members) were saying that "my" art is pre-spanish. Only that the Philippines did have a fighting style, system or whatever BEFORE it was touched by the Spanish, and because of poor documentation or records of history, it is difficult to say exactly what that was or to what extent the indegenous material was changed due to Spanish influence. I don't deny there are people who are taking advantage of this.

Andy

 

[bart]

Hi There,

This is my understanding of the Filipino, Pilipino, Philippines, and Pilipinas subject. We need to recognize that we are dealing with a subject that came into Modern American English after a history under the Pre Magellan, Spanish, American, and Filipino people.

Question: Why Filipino with an "F" and not a "Ph"?

In the English speaking world the Philippine Islands, named after King Philip of Spain are referred to as "the Philippines" for short. In Spanish they are referred to as "Las Islas Filipinas" or Filipinas, because the Spanish for Philip is Felipe and the word Isla is feminine hence "of Philip" would have to be converted to the feminine, Filipa. Thus directly translated The Islands of Philip or The Philippine Islands becomes in Spanish "Las Islas Filipinas". That's why there's an F.

Question: Why is Pilipino spelled with a "P" and not an "F" sometimes?

In Tagalog there is no native "F" sound, meaning that in native Tagalog words there are none that contain "f". The closest sound is "p". In tagalog and the mixture of tagalog with other native languages of the Philippine archipelago that was and is called Pilipino, words are spelled phonetically, as in exactly how they sound. In Pilipino, the Philippines are called Pilipinas and a person of the Pilipinas is a Pilipino/a depending on gender. Before the Spanish came to the Philippine Islands, the indigenous people didn't refer to the place they lived under a unified term, they identified there place of living as the Island that they lived on, or the part of the island that they lived on, like "Sugbu", or "Maynilad". This is very much how if you ask some from the UK where they live, they will most likely respond with the city or the region first, like Bath or Wales. The Philippines was united by the Spanish under one colonial government. The Spanish gave the region the name that they came up with for it: Las Islas Filipinas. Later when the "Republika Ng Pilipinas" gained independence from the US it took on the name the islands were unified under during 300+ years of colonial government, but they spelled it according to what was present in their language hence "Pilipino", "Pilipinas", and "Pilipino/a".

Question: What's the deal with "Philippino" instead of "Filipino" or vice versa?

When the US conquered the Philippines following the Spanish American War, the US colonial government came into contact with the English version "Philippines" and the Spanish version "Filipinas". The US did everything in English. So you find US newspaper articles in the early 20th century that use "Philippino". But that's a real pain to spell and you find gradually that the American English Terminology for "of the Philippines" becomes the Spanish Masculine "Filipino". You can find that on US Census forms today and on many other government forms including the ones I just used to get my daughter a birth certificate.

In English, there is no change of the ending of an adjective, due to masculinity or femininity of the noun as that structure does not exist in the same sense in English as it does in Spanish or other Romance languages. So since "art" has no gender, a "martial art" of the Philippines is referred to as a Filipino Martial Art aka FMA. This predominance of FMA as the term came about most assuredly because the practice of FMA was first made popular in the Western World in the United States as the Philippines was a colony of the US until 1945 and has very close relations still.

Question: Which one is correct?

They all are depending on the language you're coming from or who you are quoting. Though not interchangeable, the terms mean roughly the same thing, with differing connotations if you understand the historical and cultural background of the term. In short I would say, don't get caught up in the terminology if you aren't willing to lay the intellectual groundwork. Without that groundwork, everything is nothing but conjecture. Focus on techniques and martial practice anyway, because it's unrealistic to expect every practioner of the art to be a walking history book on the Philippines. And just because a person doesn't know the terminology doesn't mean they don't have the skills.

Question: What are your resources?

I speak Tagalog, Spanish, and English, some better than others. I paid attention in my Philippine History and Government Class in High School where our teacher went to great lengths to show Filipino kids how the Philippines was portrayed in the US and the rest of the world. I read a lot about the FMA in English, Tagalog, and Spanish.

Hope this clears some stuff up.

 

[lhommedieu]

The argument for recognizing distinct pre-Hispanic Filipino martial arts is made by Mark Wiley in Filipino Martial Culture. He states that the term "Kali" should not be used in this context, and argues in favor of using the indigenous-language term for the variety of different arts that existed prior to the Spanish occupation. Martialtalk Forum readers who are interested in this topic may also want to look at the "Influence of Spanish Renaissance Swordsmanship" thread on the Dogbrothers Public Forum.

Re. "Pilipino vs. Filipino," the following essay can be found at: http://store.escalate.com/store/turoturo/article11.jsp

The author is a professor at San Francisco State University.

"As a Filipino people, we had been completely mixed up and entangled in our colonial past. When we think we have shaken away the vestiges of the Spanish colonial experience, some mundane things such as the way we define ourselves to others reveal how ingrained we have become to the Hispanic cultural influence. For example, the Tagalog term for our race and nationality is "Pilipino", as in "Pilipino ako." (I am a Filipino). In determining someone's nationality we say "Pilipino siya." (He/She is a Philippine native). This sentence cannot be literally translated, because "siya" is a gender neutral pronoun; we can only know the gender of this person by the sentence context. The indigenous Philippine language has no gender differentiation, yet occasionally we apply the gender rules for figures of speech following the Spanish language. We use "Filipino" to refer to individual males from the Philippines, and "Filipina" for individual females. However, when we refer to the people in general, we use "Filipinos", following the Spanish language structure rule.
Many of my colleagues at San Francisco State University had asked me as to when it is proper to use Pilipino and when to use Filipino. I indicate that for purposes of my own idiosyncracy, I use "Pilipino" in two ways. I use the term whenever I want to refer to the people within a Tagalog sentence construction. However, for the same thought expressed in English, I use the word "Filipino". For example the Tagalog sentence, "Pilipino ang salita ng mga Pilipino." when expressed in English becomes "Pilipino is the language of the Filipinos". The words "Pilipino" and "Filipino" have the following meanings:

1) A collective noun, denoting any citizen of the Philippines and refers to both female and male. The Spanish word "Filipino" referring to the people has been adapted in all written English documents. One finds the term "Filipino" used more and more often in the literature and in writings in English, whereas when writing in the Philippine National Language the term is "Pilipino". For example, "The Filipinos are the fastest growing minority population among Asian Americans".
2) "Filipino" is a noun for a male native or citizen of the Philippines. Example: "My friend is married to a "Filipino".
3) "Pilipino" is a noun for the Philippine National Language which is claimed to be based on Tagalog. Since I am Tagalog-speaking, I see no difference whatsoever between what is called the Philippine National Language, and my mother tongue. In my opinion, Pilipino is 98% Tagalog, and we are coopting and perpetrating the hypocritical stance of the Institute of National Language when we keep on mouthing their definition of the National Language as Tagalog-based or as other sociolinguists insist is a syncretic language with borrowings from other Philippine languages.
4) "Pilipino" is an adjective, as in Wikang Pilipino (Philippine Language) or Ugaling Pilipino (Philippine Custom). The debate on the use of "Pilipino" and "Filipino" came during the Constitutional Convention of 1973 when some scholars and linguists, began to question the use of the word "Filipino". The reasoning goes like this: Since there is no letter "f" in the Tagalog alphabet, the right term is "Pilipino". This means that we should call ourselves "Pilipino", our nationality is "Pilipino", and our national language is "Pilipino". The assumption is that we as a nation cannot pronounce "f" because the sound is alien to us. The usage of "Pilipino" began to proliferate. Strangely enough, the Filipino Americans began to use the word "Pilipino" because of the movement of seeking roots in Philippine culture among the Filipinos in America.

There are many who disagree on the use of "Pilipino" for three reasons. First, we no longer use the "baybayin" , apparently of Sanskrit or Arabic origin--an ancient syllabary of 17 symbols where the letter "f" is non existent, and "O" and "U" are interchangeable as well as "E" and "I". We had adopted the Latin alphabet. Second, during the Spanish colonial rule (378 years, 1592-1889), the population had been introduced to the Spanish language. In fact we were then called "Filipinos" after the country "Las Islas Felipinas." Even our own family names have the letter "F". I would hate to have my own name changed to "Plores". Thirdly, we had been educated in the English language, and English became the language in our schools and the instructional tool during the American administration (1889-1945). Since then, English had been the lingua franca of the Philippines. The public school system and the introduction of mass education had mandated that all subjects from Grade three on - primary school, secondary and tertiary levels of education - be conducted in the English language. So, to say that we cannot pronounce "f" is to heap insult on our intelligence and capacity to be trained in speech. It is like saying to Americans to change all English words ending in "ge" as in "garage", "mirage ", "collage" because these are French words and the English speaker can never pronounce the terminal "ge" sound. During President Corazon's Aquinos term, the word "Filipino" began to creep back into correct usage. We have since come a full circle from the 1970's when the nationalistic fervor dictated a return to indigenous alphabet sounds to the 90's when we have become more cosmopolitan in thinking and in accepting common usage and borrowed sounds. To summarize, when using the English medium it is therefore correct to use Pilipino with a "P" when referring to the Philippine National language, and to use Filipino with an "F" when referring to the people, to the race, and to nationality. When using any of the Philippine languages (Tagalog, Ilokano, Cebuano, Ilongo, Bicol, Pampangan, Pangasinan), then the issue becomes moot since one cannot have any other resort except to use the "p" spelling or sound. One more nagging question comes to my mind. At the Treaty of Versailles when "Las Islas Felipinas" (named after the Spanish monarch Felipe II) was ceded by Spain to the US, the name was Anglicized to "The Philippines" (King Philip II) to reflect the change. Why then did we not change our national nomenclature and called ourselves "Philippinos"? I have a theory. We are as uncomfortable with the phoneme "Ph" as we were originally with "f". Another thing, can you imagine debating which is the correct spelling: one "p" or double "p"? It would be deja vu all over again. I think the Hispanic undercurrent influence still runs deeper than we want to admit."

- Penelope V. Flores