‘Gigil’
Next time a non-Filipino asks you for a definition of the Filipino word “gigil,” refer them to the online Oxford English Dictionary (OED).
The word is now accepted by Oxford as English, or one of the world Englishes (e.g., one of many indigenized forms of English found in different parts of the world). With so many Filipinos living and working overseas, it’s not surprising we’ve “donated” quite a few of our words to world English.
Every day, throughout the world, people are coining new words, some variants of older ones and some completely new. With the world now a global village, thanks to rapid travel and almost instant encounters through the internet, we borrow words from each other that English as a world language ends up with words from all over the world, reflecting what it is to be human in myriad settings.
In March, the OED recognized 11 more Filipino words, defining each of them as well as providing information on its etymology (roots and evolution), usage, phonetics (pronunciation, in American and British English as well as Filipino English; the British and American versions will make you giggle, which is the way the word is massacred in the west).
Let’s look at the definitions given in the OED:
“An intense feeling caused by anger, eagerness, or the pleasure of seeing someone or something cute or adorable, typically physically manifested by the tight clenching of hands, gritting of the teeth, trembling of the body, or the pinching or squeezing of the person or thing causing this emotion;” (as an adjective) “of a person: overwhelmed by an intense feeling caused by anger, eagerness, or the pleasure of seeing someone or something cute or adorable.”
It’s pretty comprehensive, but the world’s newspapers picked up mainly on the “cute” aspects of the word. In fact, The New York Times’ online edition used a photograph of a puppy, much like the many clickbaits you find accompanying animal or human interest stories.
The gigil article was a welcome relief, given the wayThe New York Times has mainly been featuring the other types of gigil clustered around gigil—anxiety and anger—with the nonstop Trumpist assaults against the world. That’s where I felt the OED definition of gigil was inadequate: the unhealthy, even pathogenic gigil which we Filipinos recognize. A Tagalog Wikipedia entry describes the gigil generated as “pinipigil na emosyon” or suppressed emotions. That kind of gigil stays inside our psyches, building up and threatening to become a destructive storm surge.
I don’t want to add to that destructive gigil, instead, let me return to the cute side of gigil. Note that similar words exist in other languages. The words for “cute” are pronounced differently in Japanese (kawaii), Korean (guiyomi) and Chinese (ke ai) but when written out in Chinese-based characters, they all use the Chinese “ke ai,” the original germs better defined as “lovable.”
It is not a passive adjective as with the English “cute,” instead, it describes a response, i.e., I love you because you’re so cute.
Our Filipino gigil has even more value-added, more accurately describing our response as “cute aggression.” Gigil makes us giggle and scream, tremble, and clench our hands and grit our teeth (I smiled reading that in the Oxford dictionary, knowing how totally non-British that would be). Gigil makes us want to pinch the cute person (puppy or even a stuffed animal) and sometimes even bite, like zombies do. Maybe zombie sickness is actually a mutated form of gigil.
Oh, let’s not forget, too, gigil is not just about babies. Gigil is what adults in a relationship feel, too, the longing, the fondness, with a sense of urgency, for someone not necessarily that cute. Overseas Filipino workers know this gigil all too well.
If your foreign friends want to see gigil at its best, invite them to your family reunion, the bigger the better, and with a good number of babies and children. Treat your friends with wave after wave of noisy gigil, the best ones coming from the babies themselves.
Assure your friends gigil is highly infectious but not harmful or dangerous; people are careful about the biting and pinching and the babies are themselves titillated, or should I say, gigil-ated.
Finally, also less talked about, gigil mediates, gigil heals. Watch it during reunions. Gigil can dissolve or neutralize anger, depression, resentment, adversaries agreeing, for the day at least: We have our disagreements, but you have the cutest, the most lovable baby (babies) in the world, so, thank you for your gift of gigil.
