by Karen Grace Pascual
In our annual family reunions, everyone in my clan comes over. So that mans double the number of people I really don't know. What puzzles me back then was the fact that my grandmother kept looking for her "ditse" or my mom looking for "dete" Leli. What was that?
An article of Penelope V. Flores, a professor in San Francisco State University cleared this sibling hierarchy for me.
These titles seem to have seeped into our Filipino culture and have manifested in many Filipino homes. These Filipino titles are not so Filipino at all. In fact, the Filipinos got it from the Chinese.
According to her article, anthropologist Arsenio Manuel, states that the word kuya comes from the Chinese word ko which denotes elder brother, and "a" as a word modifier that denotes kinship. However , we have widely used "kuya" as a term for elder brother not necessary the eldest or addressing an obviously older male related or not related to you. With the widespread use of honorific kinship titles, Kuya has become a generic term for an elder brother, not necessarily the eldest.
A study of many Filipino families with Chinese antecedents can be very informative. For example, former President Corazon Aquino was born a Conjuangco. Her great grandfather was an eldest brother as discerned from the honorific title "Co" in the family clan name. For that matter, any Filipino Chinese patronymic name that begins with "Co" as in "Coseteng" or "Cu" as in "Cutiongco," indicates a family branch from the eldest son.
For the females, "ate" denotes an older sister. In Chinese, you replace the ko with chi thereby making it to achi or atse , like in Kapampangan,or what is relatively known as ate in Tagalog regions.
The second eldest is called diko for males and ditse for females. di translates in Chinese to second. Di indicates a clan that derived from a cadet branch of the family belonging to the second son in the Chinese clan. Although ditse means second elder, in some places, calls them dete .
Following the ordinal Chinese count, third will translate to 'sang'. Thus Sangko is the third elder brother and the third elder sister is sanse.
Lets try another one, Fourth translated in Chinese is, you guessed it, 'si'.The fourth elder sister is called, 'sitse' and fourth elder brother 'siko'.
Well, I guess you can now do the remaining by yourself. But of course we should never forget, the youngest one.
In a Filipino family with nine children of four brothers and four sisters plus the bunso (also called the runt), there is a sociologically structural kinship implication of who has clout. It is abundantly clear who kowtows to everyone else and who carries the commensurate power and prestige among the hierarchy of siblings.
In Filipino families, the elder brothers and sisters are to be respected always. The amount of deference and respect is directly proportional to his/her ordinal position in the sibling constellation. But there is something disarming in all these Kuya and Ate syndrome.
In a Filipino family, the youngest sibling is either the well-loved baby or the brat. Sometimes, they can also be pushed around when the parents arent home. The common little boy name Totoy is actually a Chinese term which means the foolish son . The little girl name Nene , in Chinese means the dull one . We all know that Totoy can be ato , atoy , toy ,etc. And Nene can be ineng , day inday .
If youre the youngest, dont worry, its not that youre stupid. These name handles are in fact terms of endearments. The youngest kids normally get away with everything.
No matter if you are older or younger, you must always remember to respect one your siblings. It doesnt excuse a kuya to bully a totoy nor an ate to push her the nene around. And if you become a parent or is one now, always remember to keep things fair around house.
Her article can also be found in the August 2000 issue of Filipinas magazine
