Lint In Tagalog Novels & Stories

Growing up near rice paddies, I picked up the local words quickly — and 'balang' is the one most people use when they mean a locust or a big grasshopper. It's spelled b-a-l-a-n-g and said pretty much like BAH-lang: the 'a' is like the 'a' in 'father' and the final 'ng' sounds like the end of 'sing'. In everyday speech you'll hear it pronounced with a relaxed flow, so it can sound like 'bah-lang' or a quicker 'balang' depending on the speaker.

There’s also 'tipaklong' (t-i-p-a-k-l-o-n-g), which usually points to grasshoppers in general; that one's pronounced tee-PAHK-long, with the stress often on the middle syllable. If I were warning someone, I’d say 'Maraming balang sa bukid' — that means 'There are many locusts in the field.' For swarms people might say 'pagdagsa ng balang' or simply 'salot ng balang' for a locust plague. I tend to use 'balang' when I talk to older neighbors and 'tipaklong' when joking with kids who chase the hopping ones.

If you’re reading older Spanish-influenced texts, you might see references that feel a bit different because 'langosta' in Spanish historically could mean either lobster or locust; in modern Filipino 'langosta' usually means lobster, so stick with 'balang' for clarity. I still get a bit nostalgic seeing them hop across the rice — part nuisance, part childhood memory.