Sabe!

I really had a good laugh last night while watching a rewind edition of Gandang Gabi Vice, of which one of the guests was the Thai superstar Mario Maurer. It was part of promotion of the movie that the Thai actor did with Erich Gonzales under Star Cinema and ABSCBN.

The Thai actor was as much fun trying to imitate the perfect utterance of popular Filipino expressionss that Vice Ganda introduced to him. One is the famous 'sabe' which is queerly pronounced by using a falsetto voice with stress on the final syllable.

One more time with more feelings. Mario Maurer uttering
"sabe" in his guesting at GGV. Click the picture to view video.

But how do we really know our colloquial expression 'sabe' as far as its origin is concerned? In the Filipino context, we know that the expression roughly means 'What can you say' or 'What do you think' or 'How do you find it'. It is, however, an informal expression that is used only in conversational speech.

The informal Filipino expression 'sabe' may have long roots to trace. Although debatable, my own gut and Spanish background tell me that it may have evolved from the Spanish verb 'sabe' which, in conjugated form, means 'to know' or 'to tell' or 'to find out' depending on the context of usage.

Thoughts on this? Sabe?