Expectedly, one of our favorite topics was our hometown, specifically our simple way of life and how secluded our town was so that it somehow felt isolated from external influences, even from our neighboring municipalities. In one of our conversations, one of my friends told me that San Antonio has a unique accent, different from other parts of Nueva Ecija. With great curiosity, I probed further and asked my friend why they said that we had a unique accent.

Apparently, some of our batchmates from our hometown who studied in Cabanatuan City would say that other Novo Ecijanos can tell if one is from San Antonio just from our accent. That can be a topic for debate. 

Personally, I had classmates in college from Gapan City and San Miguel, Bulacan, and I observed that we all spoke the same, in terms of intonation and lexicon. People would laugh at us because of how we spoke and the words that we used. And being new in Metro Manila, we thought that we spoke normal Tagalog. We were conscious at first (too promdi!), but as I grew more mature, I learned to celebrate my uniqueness as a child of San Antonio, Nueva Ecija.

Going back to that San Antonio accent, again, I have yet to prove it for myself. I hope some of my kababayans can attest to this claim, especially if you have any firsthand experience. Nonetheless, my friend and I agreed that we indeed have our peculiar set of words, and I thought that made rthe esidents of San Antonio special.

Speaking of those words, ano nga ba ang mga ito? Well, here are the words that we use that make us unique:

We use “eka” heavily in our sentences. Its root word is “wika” (as in “wika nya” or “they said”). Another Tagalog equivalent for it would be “sabi” – “eka n’ya” simply means “sabi n’ya.” We also like to end our sentences with “eh” – “eka nga n’ya eh.”

In English, the closest translation would be “meticulous,” but madiwara has a somewhat negative connotation in that a person described as such would be overly meticulous.

This is a word that I have recently discovered. According to some residents of our town, it was heavily used in the 70s and 80s but gradually disappeared later on. A Tagalog equivalent would be “akala” or in English “thought (verb)” or “assumption.”

“Kesep kubeh…” means “akala ko ba e…” or “I thought…”

It means tucking a shirt into one’s trousers or skirt. I remember one time when I was lining up for a job interview. I met a person who used the word “paragan,” and I immediately asked if they were from Nueva Ecija. It turned out we were both from San Antonio, haha.

Kapurit means a small amount or piece. A Tagalog equivalent would be “kapiraso.”

To trample on something. “Dinapurakan ang mga damit” means to aggressively or violently step on clothes.

These are types of hollow or concave plates, and I think the closest English translation would be a bowl.

Our equivalent of dinuguan. The main difference is that tinumis is soupy and uses young tamarind leaves as a souring agent.

I think most Filipinos are more familiar with “aratiles.” They’re the same plant/fruit.

For most Filipinos, this means to move backwards, but for us, this means to wash plates. So if your mom tells you, “Urungan mo nga ang mga palaton,” – you are not expected to trample on your plates in a backward fashion, but it’s a command for you to wash the dishes.

Speaking of palaton, we use this word to mean plates or plato. I understand the younger generation is not familiar with this word anymore but our grandparents used this on a daily basis.

When my grandfather was alive, I used to hear him say “ista” and “isda” (English “fish”). Ista is fa reshwater fish (the “t” in insta stands for “tabang” or freshwater), and isda is a saltwater fish (the “da” stands for “dagat” or sea/seawater).

This just means snack or a light meal. A Tagalog equivalent would be “merienda”.

In San Antonio, we also like to change the pronunciation of words. I guess many of you can relate to the following words:

We also have our own unique everyday expressions in San Antonio. These are phrases that you hear in our day-to-day conversations:

I will not give the meaning of these expressions, but I will let you discover them for yourselves.

These are just some of the unique words and expressions from San Antonio, Nueva Ecija that I can think of. This list is not exhaustive, rather a work-in-progress which I intend to update and enrich as I discover more words and expressions from our town.

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