The Filipino in Me - Insights into Living Heritage
Entry by Leo Mascariñas. Toronto, Ontario
Creator's Statement on Work
Over the course of the pandemic which greatly affected our lives, an original Filipino word game called DAGDAG-BAWAS became an option for educational entertainment. It ran daily on its creator’s Facebook page for all 365 days of 2021.
Subsequently in 2022, several new word games were created based on certain lingustic features and constructs such as palindromes, reduplication, homographs, compound words and idiomatic expressions.
Altogether, the nine word games form a channel for preserving the Filipino language in a novel way. The vocabulary is not restricted to common words. The words, terms and names run a wide gamut of categories: ancient or archaic, newly-minted slang, geography, history, topography, flora, fauna, indigenous peoples, arts, culture, cuisine, meteorology, observances, famous personalities, just to name a few.
Links
About the Artist
Leo Mascariñas could perhaps be best described as a Renaissance man, a person embracing universality whose interests and talents span the sciences and the arts. He takes pride in hailing from far-flung Butuan, the Land of the Balangays. Leo's life journey has been enriched by his varied experiences in five continents around the globe.
This citizen of the world is a Mensa-certified genius, a United Nations Fellow, a software engineer, an educator, a bass-baritone, a master photographic imagineer, a world traveller, a polyglot, a published author, an archivist, a language conservationist, a word game creator, a multi-cultural community volunteer, a Butuan City Library benefactor, a Philippine ambassador of goodwill, and a multiple brain tumours survivor.
* We would love to hear what you think of this entry. Leave a comment below.