Shopping and Haggling

The price is an opening offer. Everyone knows this. Behave accordingly.

The false friend that will embarrass you

Start here, because this one matters. In Tagalog, mahal means love. Tagalog speakers say mahal kita and mean "I love you."

In Siargaonon, mahal means expensive. Only expensive. There is no romantic sense whatsoever. Say mahal takaw to someone on Siargao and you have not confessed your feelings — you have informed them that they are overpriced.

The word you actually want is higugma: Tag higugma takaw. Write it down. This is the single most consequential false friend in the language and visitors walk into it constantly.

How a haggle actually goes

At the palengke — the public market — a price is the beginning of a conversation, not the end of one.

Ask Pila ang presyo? When the answer offends you, and it will, the correct response is Mahal karajaw! — too expensive! Then: Pwede mag-tawad? Can I bargain?

The phrase that does the real work is Ubusi pa gamay — lower it a little more. It is polite, it is expected, and it is not rude to use it twice.

When you're satisfied: Sige, paliton ko. — okay, I'll buy it. Then Bayad na. — here's the payment. Your change is your sukli.

And if you decide against it entirely, Dili rakan. — never mind, I won't. Nobody will be offended. That is what a market is.

The words themselves — 11 entries

Why the Market Vocabulary Sounds Spanish

Read the words on this page and a pattern appears. Presyo for price, Palengke for the market, Sukli for change, Bayad na. for the payment — almost the entire commercial vocabulary arrived with Spanish.

The same thing happened to the calendar. Every month and every weekday came from Spanish too, while the words for morning, night, today and tomorrow stayed Siargaonon. Trade and administration were borrowed; home and weather were not. You can almost read the colonial economy off which parts of the dictionary are foreign.

What did not get borrowed is the way you use them. Mahal karajaw! puts the intensifier after the word it strengthens, which is Siargaonon grammar wearing a Spanish word.

Pila Does Two Jobs

Pila ang presyo? asks the price. Pila kabook asks how many pieces. The same word covers how much and how many, and kabook is what narrows it to counting.

Get this wrong and you will ask for the price of a quantity or the quantity of a price. It is a small distinction that comes up every single time you buy something.

Asking for a Different One

Sometimes the answer is not a lower price but a different item. Jaon bay mas gamay? asks whether they have a smaller one, and Jaon bay lain na kolor? asks for another colour.

Both open with jaon bay — do you have. Once you have that frame you can ask for anything by dropping a new word into the end of it, which is worth more than memorising either sentence.

Leaving Without Buying

Dili rakan. is never mind, and it is the phrase most visitors never learn because it feels rude to rehearse. It is not rude. Bargaining that ends in no sale is an ordinary outcome, and having a clean way to close it is better than walking off mid-sentence.

Dili on its own is the general negation word — no, not, don't. It will serve you far beyond the market.