LANOG

Post 5: Lolo Ramon's Story

"Back in Tinoc, my father, Fontano and Lanog would go hunting for our meat. Lanog would always come home late with his own prey - just in time to feast on whatever my father and Fontano had brought home first. My mother would ask my father as Fontano hands her the meat, "Mhen Tu'wah Lanog?"(So, where's Lanog?). He will not answer but looks at the woods like someone is about to come out. Hours would pass, no one appears."

"My mother and my sister, Dalen-na, will cook for supper while my other sister, Sab-ot, looks after the baby."

"I like staying out and wait for Lanog. When he does, he walks straight to my mother and seems not aware I was there anticipating his coming. I always thought, maybe because he is hungry". Ramon remembers.

My Dad's extended imagination may be possible if I stayed young. He said, "Maybe Lanog had reached Pangasinan and their dialect originated from our Kalanguya.

Back when I was in college, I speak Kalanguya with my classmates from Pangasinan and they do the same with their lingo. Another is when I go buy fish from the Public Market, I'll ask the vendor, "San piga?"(How much?). Pretending I speak their tongue, I always get a discount.

It makes me smile and think of the people from Bokod Benguet who knows this old Ambuklao joke. About the typhoon that drifted some Bokod Ibaloi folks thru the Ambuklao River down to the low lands. They then became the Pangalatots. The slight changes of their dialect from Ibaloi was the cause of amnesia. Those head bumps would be a unique lineage for the said race if it's true.

Was it then the Ibalois or Lanog?