THIS is part of the geo-social-history of the Cordillera which I began in the past columns. To some historians they call it the "peopling". It refers to who the people of certain place are. Their origin, worldview, legends, folklore and tradition and even rites.
Language is very important in peopling. A people's Language is a main tool to express and more importantly to record the changes across time among the people. The rate of changes in a people's worldview, reformulation in their legends, folklore and tradition depend on many factors. People like the different tribes of the Cordillera pass on their worldviews, legends and tradition to next generations orally.
I heard a linguist that it takes a way of thinking to speak a language fluently and smoothly. To speak English the way it should spoken takes and English mind or mentality. It is observable that our grandparents who were taught by the Americans speak English differently from we do it. "Taglish" became fashionable. A teacher of mine in college showed her dislike for taglish. To her ears, taglish did not only violate grammar and syntax. Taglish was almost a desecration to her lingua franca. Taglish was not English. It was a vexation to her essence. I need not mention her name. I don't know if she still around. But she was class by her own. She taught Humanities not English.
English is a second language to most Cordillerans. We owe it to the Americans. Public education was a policy of their governance. The Cordillera being a landlocked region surrounded by Ilocandia assimilated some of the Ilocano character. Foremost, of it is the Ilocano Language. Imbedded in the Ilocano language are words and the accompanying acts of respect or deference. Among these is the "agmano"- when a child gets the hand of an elder and puts it on his/her forehead. It is an act of blessing on the part of the elder. While gestures of this nature may imply in the part of the Ilocano a history of having been under Spanish conquest, like many other Ilocano tradition that the Cordilleran imbibed, these tradition of the Ilocano improved our IP culture.
Despite these influences, the IP remains the indigene. There is in us (the indigene) that separate us from these influences. The IP can be in America, yet he remains the indigene-Cordilleran at heart. I presume this is what Auntie Briggs-Hamada Pawid was trying to impress in me the last time we talked. An IP remains as the indigene even s/he wears Prada, eats at Mcdonald and works as a senior officer in one of the multinational companies in Manila or Japan. The late Doctor Henry Pit-og who worked half of his life in America referred to himself as an "Igorot in America."
Such quintessential reference of the IP to oneself goes beyond "self-ascription". Self-ascription is a legal term by which the indigene accordingly ascribes to him/her or his tribe characteristics that differ him/her or the tribe from the mainstream Filipino including those from the Ilocandia. His/her adopted lingua franca so far has not the indigene in him/her, not his or her frame of mind, neither the mentality. The geo- social history of the Cordillera has left and insignificant change in the indigene as of now.