Terms of Filipino endearment

Have you ever wondered how many “Ates” and “Kuyas” you have?  Not your real older brothers and sisters, but people who are non-family yet you still call them such.  And if you happen to live and travel abroad, has it ever occurred to you how this figure has considerably increased with older “kababayan’s” you now refer to as Ate or Kuya?  Given that I am the first in a family of four children, my bona fide Ates and Kuyas are my cousins born to older sisters of my mother (as my father is the eldest).  As of last count, there are 16 of them.  But they are not the only ones…

While studying and then working in the Philippines, my Ates and Kuyas were the school and university’s canteen staff, secretaries, security guards, photocopiers, etc. as well as older colleagues in the company I used to work in – including factory workers, receptionists, telephone operators, janitors, etc.  Not that I indiscriminately call everyone older than me Ate or Kuya; it’s just that growing up in the Philippines meant hearing almost everyone refer to someone or someone being referred to as one or the other.  I don’t know the exact number of all my Ates and Kuyas but I do know that this previous total has gotten noticeably bigger as soon as I started living in and traveling to other countries.

For instance, the domestic helpers in Singapore instantly became my Ates, and so did Filipinas married to locals in Tunisia.  Nurses in both the US and the UK also added to my list of Ates (mostly) as well as Kuyas (some of whom preferred to be called Ate instead…).  Here in Yemen, my Ates are the service workers and my Kuyas, the engineers.  And they are in fact my Ates and Kuyas in the true sense of the word – lending me money and not asking me to pay them back, providing me a shoulder to cry on, and giving me sound advice (particularly on my love life) every now and then.

In the countries I have visited where I have met at least one Filipino, I would almost always be the first to greet someone with “Kabayan!” (or at times “Kabayan?”) and then immediately call him or her Ate or Kuya as soon as the person responds with a smile (or an “Oo”).  If he or she happens to be younger, then there just seems to be an instantaneous understanding that this person refer to me as Kuya.  And even back in the Philippines, I am not only Kuya to my brother and sisters.  Their friends and colleagues also address me the same, and so do younger siblings of my friends and colleagues.

Outside the Philippines, when one happens to be the youngest in a group of Filipinos, chances are that this person is called “Bunso” by everybody else.  Like this one kababayan in a “barkada” of window-shopping housemaids I met in Kuwait.  She was 18 and her friends were much older than her and, girl, was she spoiled by her older “sisters”.  In Senegal, I came across a cabin-full of sightseeing seamen with the youngest among them going by the name of Bunso and, boy, was he typically treated as the youngest – being the center of attention and all.  If some non-related Filipinos are around the same age (or there are some who hate to admit that they are older), then everyone simply refers to each other as “Kapatid”.

Over the years, I have observed less and less people calling me Kuya and more and more referring to me as “Tito”.  I do have my own share of Titos and “Titas” who are not my real uncles and aunts, but I usually reserve these names for those who are much older than me (touché!).  In the Philippines, they are my parents’ friends and colleagues as well as my friends and colleagues’ parents.  Outside, they are the kababayans I couldn’t address as Ate or Kuya because I’d otherwise be reducing our age gap (and I’d like to believe that I’m still young).  And they really live up to the name of Tito and Tita – treating me out to a restaurant and/or movie, listening to me rant about nothing and everything, and giving me sound advice (particularly on my love life) now and again. 

Of course my “super-extended” family will not be complete without my “Lolos” and “Lolas”.  All four of my real grandparents have already died but I don’t consider myself a “grand”-orphan.  Both in and out of the Philippines, I have a couple of them.  Worth mentioning are my Lolas in Los Angeles and San Diego.  One is the mother of my aunt’s husband and the other, the grandmother of one my best friends.  Whenever I visit either of them, it’s like my parents’ mothers were still alive – keeping me company when it comes to watching “The Price is Right” in the morning and mall-hopping in the afternoon, preparing me delicious Filipino food (with doggie bag in tow), and giving me sound advice (particularly on my love life) on several occasions.

If I am lucky to have more than two grandmothers, I am even luckier to have more than one mother.  In London, I wanted to act British so I started calling my former boss (who was an expat) “Mum”.  And she did become my surrogate mother – inviting me to spend the night in her lovely home, pushing me to finish my doctoral studies, and giving me sound advice (particularly on my love life) from time to time.  In Tunis, I got to know a wonderful Filipina who happened to have a son the same age as me.  She began referring to me as “Anak” and I addressing her as “Nanay”.  She was truly like a mother to me – taking care of me and my household chores, checking up on me before she sleeps with her phone calls, and giving me sound advice (particularly on my love life) every so often.

These endearing terms of family for both family and non-family can only be heard from Filipinos.  In fact, there is no equivalent English and, correct me if I’m wrong, European-language translation for Ate, Kuya, and Bunso.  This is why Westerners call their older and youngest siblings by their first names.  There are, however, English (and European) words for “kapatid”.  But you never hear Americans, for example, refer to each other as “brother” or “sister” unless they are missionaries or members of the clergy.

There are also English and European-language translations for the words Tito and Tita but then again, native speakers of these languages don’t call someone outside their nuclear family as “uncle” or “aunt”.  Heck, some of them are purely on a first-name basis with their parents’ siblings.  And some others with their own parents!  As for the elderly, rarely do Westerners use their own language for grandparents to refer to them.  Almost exclusively, their equivalent terms for “grandfather” and “grandmother” are only for their parents’ parents.  Among us Filipinos, hardly ever when we talk about a senior citizen do we call him or her “Matanda”.  We always address the person as Lolo or Lola.

Not to imply that we Filipinos have the monopoly of endearing terms for family and non-family.  While I was in China, I found out they had different terms for siblings who are the eldest, second to the eldest, youngest, second to the youngest, etc. – yet these words are only confined to their own brothers and sisters.  In Egypt, it was very common for me and everyone else to hear everybody call each other (including tourists) “Habibi” or sweetheart.  In Algeria, every man’s common name was “Saddiq” or friend and every woman, “Okhti” or sister.  But it is only in the Philippines and among us Filipinos that we call non-family family and that we have a variety of terms to address them.

Being abroad means being away from one’s own family.  But the fact that Filipinos everywhere use terms of endearment to call each other and treat non-family as family in the process, means that an overseas Filipino actually has a second family.  Filipinos have always been admired for their sense of community.  But I would argue that Filipinos especially around the world have a sense of family.  You meet one kababayan one minute, and the next minute or two, you are already calling him or her (or you being called) Ate, Kuya, or Bunso.  You may have also left your real grandparents, parents, uncles, and aunts as soon as your plane (or ship) departed Philippine soil, but there are Lolos, Lolas, “Tatays”, Nanays, Titos, and Titas waiting for you the moment you step on foreign ground.