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That the words of the ambahan vocabulary are found not only in
the ambahan of the Hanunuo-Mangyans but also in the literary products
of the neighboring Mangyan tribes, seems to be a significant coincidence
worth investigating, especially if it is remembered that these other tribes
use a conversational language different from the Hanunuo-Mangyan
language. Some questions that would confront the investigator are the
following: Where do these ambahan words come from? Are there other
dialects in the Philippines from which they may have been derived? Or
do we have to turn our attention to other countries like Indonesia or
India to get an explanation? Here is a potential field of research that
should give a linguist enough material to work on.
THE ORIGIN OF THE AMBAHAN
If you ask a Hanunuo-Mangyan,
"Where did you get this ambahan?," he will
most likely answer, "I copied it from
somebody else." That is quite probable, for
the ambahan has been popularized by being
copied on any piece of bamboo, such as the
container for tobacco or apog (lime), the
scabbard or sheath of a bolo, a violin or
guitar, and even on the bamboo beams of a
house. When a Mangyan discovers a nice
ambahan, he uses his knife to engrave it on
bamboo, in the age-old Indic-derived script.
Thus, he has "copied" it.
In answer to the same question,
another Mangyan may reply, "We obtained
this from our forefathers." Most of the ambahans they possess now have
been handed down from parents to children through continuos copying.
Yet there is no doubt that new ambahans are still being written today
by the poets or composers, although it is hard to find out who these
poets are. A Mangyan would never admit that he is composing
ambahans.
To determine the approximate time in which an ambahan was
written, two criteria may be suggested: the subject and the kind of
words used.
The first criterion cannot be applied without reservation, for the
subject of the ambahan is sometimes very general and true of any
period. But if we find reference in the ambahan to Moro attacks or to
Mangyans still living along the sea-shore, we are on surer ground, for
the attacks of the Moros are known to have occurred at a certain time,
and the Mangyans lived along the shores before the non-Mangyans
settled on the island. On the other hand, when an ambahan poet writes
of going to America, the poem is certain to have been written in modern
times.
The second criterion, the kind of words used, is more reliable and,
if used by experts, would be a more certain indication of the age of the
ambahan. By using this criterion, ambahans may be categorized into
three classes.
The first type is the ambahan that only uses the poetic language with a
minimum of contemporary words. Sometimes common Hanunuo-
Mangyan words are used, but this type of ambahan restricts itself mainly
to the use of literary words, i.e. words not used in daily conversation.
According to the Mangyans themselves, this is the oldest kind of
ambahan.
The next type of ambahan is that in which words borrowed from
neighboring tribes, especially the Buhid tribe, are used. Frequent
contact with this tribe has made the Hanunuo-Mangyans accept these
borrowed words and expressions which found their way into their
ambahans.
Lastly, there is the ambahan of later times, in which loan-words
from Spanish, Tagalog or Bisaya are evident.
The painstaking study by linguists of the words used in the
ambahan may supply the final answer to the question of the time in
which an ambahan was written.
The Mangyan Community of Mindoro is known to carve their literary
pieces on bamboo sticks with the Script Surat Mangyan. Consisting of
seven syllables per line. These poems are called “AMBAHAN”. They are
most of the time found to express feelings or judgement about birth,
adolescence, courtship, marriage and death among others.