Elements of Swardspeak as Catalyst for Telepathy

Phoebe to Christopher:

“I-kembot mo dito yung chervalou na kiniyeme sa’iyo ni kuwan.”

Now what the fuck was that about? That was a mind-boggling conversation I’ve eavesdropped from officemates some time ago. Hearing it was enough to lose my wits. But that’s just because I was not a part of that dialogue.

Christopher opened his drawer and took out a slightly crumpled brown enveloped and tossed it over to Phoebe’s desk.

I was impressed.  Two perfectly functioning human beings were able to communicate with naught but a gurgling of arbitrary words. Heck, the words they used were so meaningless that a simple eye contact between the two of them would have sufficed.

Swardspeak has provided Filipinos with more tools of convenient communicating with such words as chorva, kiyeme, and chenelyn, on top of the more common kuwan and ano. Filipinos are gravitated towards over-decorating (food, jeepneys, fiestas, conversations) so combine this with gay flamboyance and you got one hell of a riot. I am still learning the language of my kin, and I’ve been relying heavily on context clues to catch up.

Communication by arbitrary words is made possible by rapport and empathy. This is why Phoebe, a gorgeous babaeng bakla, and Christopher, your gay-next-door, were able to have that example of seamless communication. It appeared to be the initial stages of telepathy. Like the psychic connection between twins or a mother and her child; except this connection is with two crazy baklitas. I was around the Ateneo Spirit Questors for a couple of years and most of them, including the moderator, were gay. I’m not surprised that the demographic that benefits mostly from communication via chervalou are the gaykin. We’re all better at the esoteric, psychic bonds, empathy and rapport, and the chervalou word fillers have been effective catalysts.

I enjoy hearing or reading swardspeak and I would love to be fluent someday. However, there is danger in relying too much on convenient word fillers that pull you away from exerting any effort in locating specific words, whether in English or Filipino, to convey your message. People are getting lazy. This is why I was peeved by schoolmates who knew no other language than Taglish. They could not (or worse, pretend not to) speak straight Filipino but they couldn’t speak straight English either. And it’s perpetuated by the convenience of Taglish. The seemingly innocuous chervalou might do the same.

Bottom line is: if the person is articulate in two or more languages (ex: Filipino, English, and Swardish), he gets 500 pogi points.  And if he’s eloquent with his body, that’s an additional 10,000 pogi points.

(My baby has accumulated approximately 256,000 pogi points as of this day)