Profane language translation request

January 15, 2008 9:12 AM

During a stupid Reply-To All e-mail storm at my huge international corporation, someone responded with this (which I assume is profane):

Putang ina mga indian kayo!!!

The person later apologized and said he thought the e-mail storm was a virus and was complaining back to it. :-) Anyways, this person is from Manila so this is likely Spanish or Tagalog or some combination of the two.

Does anyone have a translation?

posted by mmascolino to Writing & Language (5 answers total)

It is tagalog, not Spanish, and I believe it says something to the effect of "you motherf**** indians",
posted by chara at 9:20 AM on January 15, 2008

disclosure: I do not speak Tagalog, but I do have google-fu.
posted by chara at 9:22 AM on January 15, 2008

Yeah, I used to live in the Philippines as a U.S. military dependent and "putang" was the worst swear word us kids knew of. I'm sure someone will have a translation shortly.
posted by crapmatic at 9:44 AM on January 15, 2008

It's Tagalog. From the little I know...

Putang = Bitch
ina = mother
mga Indian = Indian
kayo = woof, dog(?)

Something like "your mother is a bitch, you dirty Indian dogs." I'm sure of the others, less sure about kayo though.
posted by sephira at 10:16 AM on January 15, 2008

"putang ina" is "son of a whore"
"kayo" is you, plural (y'all)

So chara has it: "You Indians are sons of bitches/whores."

note: I'm not a native Tagalog speaker but I lived in Manila for a while as an adult. Swearing is fun.
posted by allen8219 at 10:18 AM on January 15, 2008