He never lived in the Philippines, doesn’t have Filipino relatives or in-laws, yet this Emirati speaks the Filipino language fluently — something he says he learnt through his daily interaction with kabayans in the UAE.
Meet Ali Puti, born Yousuf Ahmad Yousuf Al Selaiti, 56, a pure-blooded Emirati based in Dubai who loves Filipinos.
At a glance, it’s hard to determine his nationality. And when he speaks, it’s even harder to guess, for he speaks a number of languages — Arabic, English, Urdu, Filipino and Thai.
“My name is Ali Yousuf Ahmad Al Selaiti, a UAE national. That means, I’m a local. In Tagalog, my name is Ali Puti,” he said confidently in Filipino after showing Gulf News his UAE passport and Emirates ID.
“The Filipinos I met in the past were the first ones to call me Ali Puti. I thought they mistook me for someone else ‘cause we have Ali Butti (in Arabic). So I asked them and they said ‘They call me Ali Puti because I’m fair; And in Tagalog, puti means white.”
In an interview with Gulf News conducted entirely in the Filipino language, Ali took us back to the 1980s when he first became fascinated with kabayans in the UAE. Watch it below:
This article is an excerpt from: https://gulfnews.com/uae/watch-ali-puti-this-emirati-speaks-tagalog-as-fluently-as-filipinos-1.62514975
