Launching of Ariel's Contemporary Ilokano-English Dictionary

Art representation of a typical Ilokano May Santa Cruzan

We missed most of Dr. Aurelio Solver Agcaoili's lecture on Liberation Linguistics during the launching of his Contemporary Ilokano-English Dictionary at the  Laoag campus of the Mariano Marcos State University College of Teacher Education on August 11, 2012. Of course, as usual, he, formerly of the University of the Philippines, and now at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, challenged the thinking of his audience--students, teachers, a lot of Ph.D holders-on language, specifically Iluko. Undoubtedly, Dr. Ariel opened their eyes on how important the language is vis-avis other languages in the Philippines. We were surprised at the reactions of two faculty members, who were "liberated" from whatever notions--"I thought Ilokano is a dying language--" they have with Iluko. Our only comment all throughout their spoken essay: they did ot utter a single Ilokano word. Nevertheless, they have been "converted"--they are Ilokanos and they love the language. "Kiniwar" ni Apo Ariel ti panunotda. Re his dictionary, it is as "heavy" as his English-Ilokano dictionary (top photo) launched two years ago. The US edition priced at P4,999.00 has 1,800 plus pages and 35,000 Iluko words. The book should be a "must own" book to writers, teachers, especially those involved in mother language education. Another major accomplishment of the most active Ilokano literary brain--ti pudpudno a malalaki iti puli.