# Mula sa kung ano ang noon



## Angelo di fuoco

Hello folks!

Please tell me what exactly this film title means.


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## DotterKat

The official English title appears to be *"From What is Before"* but I find that to be rather awkward locution. I would prefer to translate it as *"The Origins of the Past"*. With the disclaimer that I have not seen this movie, to me the Tagalog sentence _"Mula sa kung ano ang noon"_ means the sequence of events or circumstances that led to a past condition. Such events or conditions may explain why the past was the way it was and may likely explain why the present is the way it is, the past frequently having that inexorable way of affecting current events.


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## Angelo di fuoco

Thanks. So the original Tagalog title is something like a sentence or a phrase which sounds awkward if translated into English. May I ask you to give me a word-by-word translation so that I understand it better? I have no knowledge of Tagalog whatsoever.


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## Maginoo

Angelo di fuoco said:


> Thanks. So the original Tagalog title is something like a sentence or a phrase which sounds awkward if translated into English. May I ask you to give me a word-by-word translation so that I understand it better? I have no knowledge of Tagalog whatsoever.



I think it's pretty much what DotterKat said-- "From What is Before"-- 

Mula -- from

Sa and kung have no corresponding words in the translation -- sa is an all-purpose preposition/case-marking particle that goes along with mula in this case, and kung means "if", but here just goes along with the relative pronoun "ano" (what).

Ang noon -- The past (I guess).  My dictionary only lists "noon" as an adverb, (then, at that time, formerly) but here it's being used as an abstract noun, perhaps poetically or informally.


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## Angelo di fuoco

Thank you very much!


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## DotterKat

Just a few additions to the parsing provided by Maginoo. The multifunctional _kung _can indeed be a coordinating or subordinating conjunction (_if_ or _when_) but in this instance is merely a particle that introduces an interrogative clause. This function becomes more evident once the sentence is inverted:

Ang noon ay mula sa kung ano.

_Noon_ is a general time expression meaning the past in a broad, non-specific sense. Other general time expressions include kahapon (yesterday), bukas (tomorrow), ngayon (now), etc. *Ang noon* therefore is a nominal phrase which is better translated as "the past" rather than the adverb  "before". In the official English title _From What is Before_ the adverb _before_ is forced into duty as a noun, hence the source of the awkward-sounding construction. A better translation would be: "_From What is the Past_", and even that sounds cumbersome.

[It is a natural constraint of translation that unique cultural and geographical phenomena that shape a language cannot be accurately transmuted into another without losing something in the process. Such loss becomes more acute the higher the register of the language, no matter how mundane the usage such as a movie title. Tagalog is quite poetic, even sublime at its highest levels and movie titles I recall like _Gaano Kadalas ang Minsan_, _Bituing Walang Ningning_, _Nunal sa Tubig_ and _Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang_ cannot be translated directly into English without sounding unpolished. Without impugning the artistic vision of the creators of this movie and treating it strictly as a translation exercise, I would have opted for a rhymed title like _Galing Saan ang Nakaraan?_ which by the way can translate to a more archaic-sounding _Whence Comes the Past?_​]


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## Maginoo

Actually, I'm wondering now-- since "mula" means "from", might a better translation of the OP be, "The Legacy of the Past", i.e. how do past events affect present beliefs, goals, etc.

-- the more literal translation being "From That Which is Past" or "From That which is in the Past".  So the focus is perhaps not on the origins of past events but rather their implications for the present.


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## mataripis

1.)The origin of the past- ang pinagmulan ng lumipas/nakalipas na kasaysayan. 2.)* from what is before* -- from(mula) ,what (ano),is before( ang bago pa man). The second one requires further corrections for that expression did not exist  in classical Tagalog.In my opinion the straight form is " Saan ang Pasimula?".( where + it begin).In older Tagalog it is "Nahan ang pinag ugatan?".


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## DotterKat

Maginoo said:


> Actually, I'm wondering now-- since "mula" means "from", might a better translation of the OP be, "The Legacy of the Past", i.e. how do past events affect present beliefs, goals, etc.
> 
> -- the more literal translation being "From That Which is Past" or "From That which is in the Past".  So the focus is perhaps not on the origins of past events but rather their implications for the present.



We are both guilty of putting our own spin on what we think the movie title is about, quite a separate issue from what we think the title translates to in Tagalog (cf. my first response, P#2 this thread). We share the idea that perhaps the title _Mula sa Kung Ano ang Noon _has the subtext of the past casting a shadow onto future events but we differ in how we translate the title itself. It is quite clear that given the text alone, unembellished by our own personal notions of what the title implies and by extension what the movie is about, there can be only one translation. _Mula sa Kung Ano ang Noon_, unfortunately does translate most directly to the cumbersome _From What is Before_, or my version which is only slightly less ungainly, _From What is the Past_. Try the S-P order in English and it may become clearer:

The past is from what?

Better yet, substitute another subject and see the difference:

_Mula sa kung ano ang noon_ = From what is [_the past_?] = From what is [_this great piece of literature?_] _From the mind of a great writer. _
Emphasis is the _origin_ of the subject.

_Mula sa mga nakalipas na pangyayari _= From that which [_is past/is in the past._] = From that which [_is this great piece of literature/is in this great piece of literature_], _came my inspiration to travel the world_.
Emphasis is on the _effects_ of the subject.


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## Raчraч Ŋuɲan

Angelo di fuoco said:


> So the original Tagalog title is something like a sentence or a phrase which sounds awkward if translated into English. May I ask you to give me a word-by-word translation so that I understand it better? I have no knowledge of Tagalog whatsoever.



This can be translated as: 

Mula sa = came from
kung ano = something whatever (Its not possible to combine these two words in English, but that would be the meaning in Tagalog)
ang noon = the past

And the verbose English translation would be "The (things of the)  past came from whatever (thing was there)." or "The (things of the) past came from something (in there)."


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## Angelo di fuoco

Many thanks to everybody! You were very helpful. Actually, I had asked for the precise meaning of the title because I needed to resume a newspaper article in another language and they gave the title only in Tagalog (a language I don't know anything about) and in English, the latter appearing quite strange to me.


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