Did you know that in ancient Bicol, there was sign language called palbá? Like most sign languages, this was a language used to talk to deaf people.

Although it wasn’t know how widely-used this was, Malcolm Mintz and Carolyn Brewer of The Australian National University say that the name of this sign language could have come from the Bicol word “luba,” meaning “to think” or “to imagine” or “to assume.” This word is familiar to you if you have heard of the folk song “Sarung Banggi,” which goes,

“Sarung banggi, sa higdaan
Nakadangog ako
Nin huni nin sarong gamgam
Sa luba ko, katurugan
Bako kundi s’imong boses, iyo palan“

Paluba, therefore, is centered on the meaning or the thought of what is being said.

Sources:
For this post’s photo: Pexels / cottonbro studio
For this trivia: The Philippines at the Turn of the Sixteenth Century by Malcolm Mintz and Carolyn Brewer. http://intersections.anu.edu.au/monograph1/mintz_arts.html