LITERARY ANALYSIS

The poem was originally written in Tagalog titled “Sa Aking mga Kabata” by Dr.
Jose P. Rizal when he was eight years old. It is a poem about the love of one's native
language.

OUR MOTHER TONGUE

Jose Rizal

IF truly a people dearly love

The tongue to them by Heaven sent,
They'll surely yearn for liberty
Like a bird above in the firmament.

BECAUSE by its language one can judge

A town, a barrio, and kingdom;
And like any other created thing
Every human being loves his freedom.

ONE who doesn't love his native tongue,

Is worse than putrid fish and beast;

AND like a truly precious thing

It therefore deserves to be cherished.

THE Tagalog language's akin to Latin,

To English, Spanish, angelical tongue;
For God who knows how to look after us
This language He bestowed us upon.
AS others, our language is the same
With alphabet and letters of its own,
It was lost because a storm did destroy
On the lake the bangka in years bygone.
 Analysis of the Poem

The literary piece is written in the form of poetry. One of the imageries that can be
pictured out from the poem is “bird in the sky” on the first stanza which signifies a man who has
been experiencing absolute freedom. On the other hand, the line “As others, our language is the
same, with alphabet and letters of its own” is a sort of juxtaposition because two elements are
put together to compare and contrast like English language is being contrasted from our native
language in which the former has been continuously increasing its popularity and influence all
over the world while the latter has been gradually declining its relevance or significance in our
own country due to invasion of foreign languages. However, both languages are being
recognized to have its own alphabets and letters which make them unique to each other.
Obviously, the writer uses the third person point of view because of the pronouns: he, his, they,
and us. He uses the symbols such as bird which means freedom, tongue which means language,
bangka which means mobility or voyage. Its theme centers on the patronage and love for our
mother tongue or native language for it is a God’s gift and it is the best representation of
exercising freedom which had been fighting for so long by our dear heroes. Its tone could either
be motivating, reflective, assertive, hopeful, or dismay.
The poem has five stanzas with four lines for first and second stanzas, two lines for third
and fourth stanzas, and eight lines for the fifth stanza. In the poem, every first word of the stanza
is all capitalized for emphasis and it implicitly calls for an action. The phrases, “The tongue to
them” from first stanza and “To English and Spanish” from last stanza both manifest
alliteration for its close repetition of the consonant sounds [t] and [sh], respectively. However,
the phrase, “them by Heaven sent” from second line of first stanza displays assonance for the
repetition of the vowel sound [e]. The word “bangka” is a tagalog term for boat. Thus, it is
considered as colloquialism. The writer truly has an exceptional intelligence for his diction or
choice of words are thought-provoking and free from any grammatical error. The word mother
tongue can be considered as a jargon in the field of education. These lines, “They’ll surely yearn
for liberty, like a bird above in the firmament” from first stanza reflect simile because two
opposite things, humans and bird are being explicitly compared to each other through the use of
like. However, this line, “A town, a barrio, and kingdom” from second line of second stanza
implies metonymy for they are substitution for the word people or constituents. It applies cross
rhyme that can be seen on the second and last lines of first stanza (sent and firmament), of
second stanza (kingdom and freedom), and first, fourth, sixth, and eight lines of last stanza
(Latin, upon, own, and bygone). It has a rhyme scheme of ABCB (1st and 2nd stanzas).
The poem has a rhythm of trochee, has two syllables, the first of which is strongly
stressed, while the second syllable is unstressed. The bolded syllable on every line is the stressed
one.

IF tru/ly a /people/ dearly/ love

The tongue/to them /by Hea/ven sent,
They'll/ surely /yearn for /liber/ty
Like a/ bird a/bove in/ the firm/ament.
 The poem has applied declarative sentences for it conveys the importance of our mother
tongue and it presents the current condition of it which is quite alarming. Most of the sentences
structure are in complex form because of the presence of dependent and independent clauses.
Looking further into its syntactical aspect, it simply uses parallel sentence structure because
there is a balance within one or more sentences of similar phrases or clauses that have the same
grammatical structure. Every stanza begins with dependent clause followed by independent
clause. It can also be noticed that the writer applies quantitative climax that can be reflected from
these lines; A town, a barrio, and kingdom and To English, Spanish, angelical tongue.

Indeed, the poem persuades the reader to selflessly love and be proud of our roots and
culture, most especially when it comes to our native language because it is part of our identities
as true-blooded Filipinos. Dr. Jose P. Rizal appeals to all of us to embody the spirit of patriotism
through using our own language and through preserving it for the posterity.