ARE YOU LOOKING for samples of poetry and short stories written in Isinay?
I'm putting my Isinay neck on the chopping board here, but here's a bit of advice to the linguistics, literature, and poetry enthusiasts/students/researchers among you who may be in such a mission now: stop looking.
Yes, fellow word lovers, as of today I have yet to find what passes for a poem or even a synopsis of a short story written in Isinay by an Isinay.
It is a sad reflection of my hometown's language, I know. But I guess the apparent dearth of Isinay prose and poetry may have been the consequence of decades if not centuries of the marginalization of the Isinay language -- which in turn is caused in part by the bullying of Isinays by non-Isinays.
By marginalization, I mean my ancestors may have also been poetic and imaginative, but they chose to keep their romantic musings and creative juices to themselves lest they would invite the ridicule of the more literate colonizers, including the Spanish mestizos, the Hispanized Ilocanos, the Americanized Isinays, and more recently the dyed-in-the-wool Tagalogs.
Bullying? Well, certainly the earlier Isinays were not indifferent to the finer things in life. But it was probable they didn't pour out their thoughts, feelings, and dreams on paper because doing such would expose them to being considered backward and "uneducated" (that is, they couldn't write in Spanish, English, Ilocano, or Tagalog) by those who think they were more superior and educated.
JUST YOU WAIT. It may be a case of better late than never, but with the call for Isinays and language activists to bring back the glory of the Isinay language, we may soon see the blooming of Isinay literature not only on paper but also in the social media and the internet.
In the meantime, it may help if you look at the lyrics of the Isinay love songs (such as the War Sipam Uwar).
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