A Game of Pinoy Henyo

“A Game of Pinoy Henyo”

For two meetings, the class played a famous Filipino guessing game called Pinoy Henyo. The aim of the game is for an individual to guess a word correctly by narrowing down the possibilities using different categories. The most common categories used in the game include “tao”, “bagay”, “lugar”, and “pagkain” but of course it is still up to the individual’s cunning and own strategy to come up with words that will narrow down the possibilities. The rules of the game were pretty simple – a guesser is supposed to ask questions or categories about the word and the other players (henceforth be called the audience) can only answer with “oo”, “hindi”, and “pwede”. Ideally, the individual narrows down the word using these categories and correctly guess it but this was not always the case for the class. While seemingly an uncomplicated game, a deeper analysis of the game shows that the problem actually lies not in the mechanics itself, but on the differences of viewpoints of the players participating in it. In fact, although the game sounds pretty easy, more than half of the class were not able to guess their word correctly.

At the start of the game, the unknown words seemed pretty easy to guess. From the audience’s perspective, most of the words were totally simple, too much in fact, that even grade-schoolers will be familiar with the word. While this may seem like an advantage to the guesser, it could possibly work in a negative way as well. It could actually cause pressure to build up on the guesser as the timer ticks down, making their mind a mess and causing them to panic. There were some cases during the game where students got lucky and the words given to them were concrete things that are easier to describe compared to abstract ones.

The use of language, both verbal and non-verbal, for both the guesser and the audience plays a vital role in successfully guessing the unknown word. The three possible responses to a guesser’s questions can suggest an entirely different meaning from their literal meaning when paired with the right tone, body language and facial expression (Bulan & De Leon, n.d.).

The response “oo” does not always literally mean a yes from the audience. When paired up with different tones that can signify emotions, and body movement, “oo” can have an entirely different meaning. For example, during the game, some of the audience got excited and repeatedly answered “oo” to a question while either stomping their feet or tapping their tables as if saying that the guesser is getting really close to the word. Other times the same “oo” will be delivered with not much conviction - sometimes not even getting a uniform response from the whole audience. This may imply that the question asked was that of a vague one or the category asked is too broad and may include a whole other range of concepts not closely related to the unknown word. Crazily enough, there are also instances when the audience will answer “oo” and get reactions from other members of the audience. This makes it a lot confusing to the guesser as he may have a hard time choosing which side to believe in.

The same also goes for the responses “hindi” and “pwede”. Although “hindi” may also imply different meanings, it is actually the least complicated response to decode from the three because getting a “hindi” from the audience will eventually end up with the guesser asking a different question about the word. “Hindi” with a plain tone from the audience meant its literal meaning – the question asked by the guesser simply does not apply to the word. “Hindi” paired with the shaking of the head or the meeting of eyebrows and an abrupt change in the pitch or tone of the audience, however, can mean that the question is getting too far from the concept implicating that the guesser must ask a different question from the previous one. From what was observed during the game, the response “hindi” was actually more of a measure of proximity to the unknown word more than giving information about it.

The last possible response and quite arguably the most confusing from all three is “pwede”. Right from the start, the word “pwede” carries with it a sense of vagueness and ambiguity. The word “pwede” is undeniably confusing because it is something in between a yes and a no. It may mean, in a way, that there is no clear distinction about the word being a member of the category asked by the guesser – only the possibility of it. The endless possibilities this response provides can either get you to narrow down the word by asking another question or pull you away from it which will be counter-productive to the objectives of the game. Although facial expressions such as faces lighting up and high-pitched voices that show excitement can help increase the credibility of such response, the guesser is still left to wonder on the numerous possibilities the word presents.

The most complicated responses as I observed during the game were the “oo” and “pwede” because a lot of different combinations of tone and body movements can be employed with both to have different meanings. Getting these responses, provided that they aren’t meant literally, may also mean both good and bad news for the guesser. The good part about this is that getting these responses open up a wider range of possible questions to categorize a word but the bad news is that the guesser is then again clueless to the limits of the scope of the unknown word.

Another philosophical concept that is present in the game is the extension and intension of concepts. According to Acuña (2004), the extensions of a concept are those that are members of the domain of the concept while the intensions are the set of traits, characteristics and function that are shared but not