Batangas Tagalog - Honorifics

Honorifics

Like most Southeast Asians and Filipinos, Batangueños use honorifics in order to convey respect, even to strangers. Honorific use features most heavily amongst the Batangueños as compared to other Tagalog-speakers.

Though it has largely disappeared in the Manila usage, the Batangueños still use the plural forms of the pronouns to show politeness. This is comparable to the use of the singular 'vous' in French, 'usted' in Spanish, and the singular 'Sie' in German. Normally, this is used to show respect to one who has authority either by age or by position.

However unlike the case of Romance languages, the Batangueños have a choice either to use to second-person plural or third-person plural to show this respect, similar to the Italian lei meaning "she" but used as "you" in formal/polite situations.

Generally, the second person plural is used to show respect to older people or to people in authority but still maintains close affinity to the speaker. This is mainly used with grandparents, friends of the parents, relatives who hold high position or your religious leader. This is similar to the use of 'vosotros' in the Middle Ages.

For complete strangers, the third person plural is deemed appropriate.

Example 1:

Example: Someone is knocking at the door and you want to know who the person is --

Sino iyán?

Sino hô silá? (which translates to 'Who are they?')

Example 2:

Example: You came to pass an older person who is family friend... The greeting will normally be---

'Kumusta na pô?' (wherein the particle pô is the signifier of respect)

'Kamusta na hô kayó?' or 'Kamusta na hô sila?' (wherein 'kayó' and 'silá' are the plural second and third person personal pronouns, respectively).