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FranDr. Jose Rizal's love for his native language led him to write Sa Aking Kabata encouraging them to love their own language. What was the occasion when Dr. Jose Rizal's first poem Sa Aking Kabata first read?
"Sa Aking Mga Kabatà" (English: To my Fellow Youth) is a poem about the love of one's native language written in Tagalog. It is widely attributed to the Filipino national hero José Rizal, who supposedly wrote it in 1869 at the age of eight.
However, there is no evidence to support authorship by Rizal and historians now believe it to be a hoax. The actual author of the poem is suspected to have been the poets Gabriel Beato Francisco or Hermenigildo Cruz.
The poem was widely taught in Philippine schools to point out Rizal's precociousness and early development of his nationalistic ideals.
A passage of the poem often paraphrased as Ang hindi marunong magmahal sa sariling wika, masahol pa sa hayop at malansang isda (English: 'He who does not love his own mother tongue, is worse than a beast and rotten fish') is widely quoted to promote the use of Tagalog among Filipinos. It is used most frequently (often in an accusatory manner) during the Buwan ng Wika('Language Month'), a commemoration of the establishment of theFilipino language as the national language of the Philippines.
No manuscript for Sa Aking Mga Kabatà written in Rizal's handwriting exists. The poem was first published in 1906, a decade after his death, in a book authored by the poet Hermenigildo Cruz. Cruz claimed that he received the poem from another poet, Gabriel Beato Francisco, who in turn received it in 1884 from an alleged close friend of Rizal, Saturnino Raselis. José Rizal, however, has never mentioned anyone by the name of Saturnino Raselis. The poem may have actually been written by Cruz or Francisco.
Pascual H. Poblete published a different account in his introduction to the 1909 translation Noli Me Tangere; Novelang Wicang Castila Na Tinagalog Ni Pascual H. Poblete (note old Tagalog spelling), he claims that the poem was well-known to Filipino poets during Rizal's childhood. This account was later repeated in Austin Coates' 1968 biography of Rizal, Rizal: Philippine Nationalist and Martyr, who further added that Juan Luna had a role in preserving the poem. This is not substantiated by any known evidence.
The earliest known poems of Rizal in the National Historical Institute's collection, Poesías Por José Rizal, also date six years after the alleged writing date of Sa Aking Mga Kabatà. His own account of the earliest awakening of his nationalistic views, identifies it as the year 1872 - the year of theexecutions of the priests Mariano Gómez, José Apolonio Burgos, and Jacinto Zamora. The poem is never mentioned by Rizal himself in all his voluminous writings, despite its apparent significance in terms of his future ideals.
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