literally: hey! go ahead with the "push"

It’s Taytay, actually. The Tehtày is how most older generation of Taytay, Rizal folks will pronounce it. Taytay Accent.There are always two sides to a coin as to how and why my kids speak and sound the way they do now.

Bacoor accent tends to end on a high note just like the tenor when asking a question. This tendency applies to all types of sentences: statement, question, exclamation, and command. Taytay accent is predisposed to end on a lower timbre with the end syllable heavily accented. The people of Taytay have the tendency to add g to a word ending in n or to delete g from a word ending in ng. An example is kain where it is changed to kaing while karsadang baku-bako would be karsadan baku-bako. The accent is highly distinctive and well, funny. I remember Tony Gonzaga slipping into Taytay accent one time. This was when she was tapped to join Pinoy Big Brothers and she wailed “mommy, wala akong is-tepping” (step-in or slippers) in flawless puntong Taytay. To a non-Taytay-nian (I don’t know how natives of Taytay are called), Tony’s lapse was unnoticeable. Of course not all taga Taytay has the accent and peculiarities.

Just like in Bacoor, Cavite, Taytay has its own atypical words too. My mama thought it wise to enroll me in Manila when i hit high school. I enrolled at JMD-PWU. During a Home Economics class period in my freshman year, we were taught the proper table place setting by our teacher. At the end of the period we were supposed to wash and pack away the dishes. I told my group mates, “hoy, mag-urong na tayo” literally translated to"hey, let’s start pushing" to which they laughed for whatever will they be pushing? I was mortified! In Taytay, mag-urong means wash the dishes; sintang is pail, lupa is ground floor, kalupe is wallet, hâ-o is yes.

Don’t let me start with superlative adjectives. In “normal” Filipino, we add pinaka, ubod, walang-kasing to an adjective to form the superlative. The “most beautiful” is “pinaka-maganda” in Filipino. Not so in Bacoor and Taytay. In Bacoor, one has to curse first: read: DANG-Ganda to say most beautiful. In Taytay, one has to shoot first: read: BANG- ganda to mean most beautiful.

Taytay folks are actually embarrassed by their accent. Once they step over the town boundary going to Manila, the puntô is magically gone: a perfect Manila accent is acquired. Yes. These Taytay-nians can easily switch accents according to need. It’s really quite hard for untrained ears to discern a Taytay-accent-on- the- loose which bring to my mind that the Bacoor–nians must be proud of their accent for, whatever happens, come rain or shine or high water; no matter what place, predicament or persona to face, they never loose their inflection completely.

I remember my daughter not comprehending her grandaunt when the grandaunt asked her to get her “kalupe” sa “lupa”. I remember my youngest daughter's confusion with "leron, leron sinta as she kept on singing leron, leron sintang. My son compained then that he has been repeatedly asked to eat "koboy" which he does not want to since when is it alright to eat a cowboy?

It’s a wonder my children learned to speak at all.