Siyokoy (linguistics)

Siyokoy us a term which was coined by National Artist Virgilio Almario who also chaired the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino (KWF; lit. 'Commission of Filipino Language').[2] It was derived from the Philippine mythological creature siyokoy roughly equivalent to the merman.

It is used to described hybrid words which are "not Spanish and not also English" and are said to be often made by educated people not aware of proper equivalent of the siyokoy word in Spanish who wanted to sound like Spanish in speech. The phenomenon was first notice when radio broadcaster Rod Navarro popularize the word konsernado, Hispanized from the English word "concerned". The Spanish translation for the word is concernido and therefore the KWF asserted that the word should have been translated as konsernído in Filipino.[2]

The proliferation of siyokoy words is fast due to its usage by celebrities, broadcasters, writers and academics who have limited knowledge in Spanish.[2] The stance against siyokoy words is instituted on the KWF Manwal sa Masinop na Pagsulat, which was written by Almario as KWF chair.[2] Almario who has been critical of siyokoy words since 1976 is more tolerant of jejemon and bekimon which he characterize as "cultured language" meant to be intelligble by everyone and thus is not "permanent languages".[1]

Virgilio Almario suggest consulting the English-Spanish dictionary and derive the Filipino word from the Spanish term. He also prefers Filipino speakers to straight up use English terminologies if they are not aware of the Spanish equivalent. The most preferable approach is to use existing Filipino words such as larawan for "image".[2]

The following are examples of siyokoy words, their equivalent in English and Spanish, as well as the proper Filipino language equivalent as suggested by Almario and/or the KWF.