A Visit to the Philippine Islands

CHAPTER XIII

LANGUAGES

The Tagál and Bisayan are the most widely spread of the languages of the Philippines, but each has such a variety of idioms that the inhabitants of different islands and districts frequently are not intelligible to one another, still less the indigenous races who occupy the mountainous districts. The more remarkable divisions are the dialects of Pampangas, Zambal, Pangasinan, Ilocos, Cagayan, Camarines, Batanes, and Chamorro, each derived from one of the two principal branches. But the languages of the unconverted Indians are very various, and have little affinity. Of these I understand above thirty distinct vocabularies exist. The connection between and the construction of the Tagál and Bisayan will be best seen by a comparison of the Lord’s Prayer in each, with a verbal rendering of the words: —

Tagál.

Примечание 115

Примечание 116

Примечание 117

Примечание 118

Примечание 119

Примечание 120

Bisayan.

Примечание 121

Примечание 122

Примечание 123

Примечание 124

Примечание 125

The following table of numerals (extracted from De Mas) will show the affinities between several of the idioms of the Philippines with one another, and with the Malay language: —

A vocabulary of the Tagal was printed in 1613 by Padre San Buenaventura; and a folio Vocabulario by Fr. Domingo de los Santos, in Sampaloc (Manila), 1794. This vocabulary consists of nearly 11,000 terms, the same word conveying so many meanings that the actual number of Tagal words can scarcely exceed 3,500. The examples of distinct interpretations of each are innumerable.

Another Vocabulario de la Lengua Tagala, by “various grave and learned persons,” corrected and arranged by the Jesuit Fathers Juan de Noceda and Pedro de San Lucar, was published in Valladolid in 1832. The editor says he would fain have got rid of the task, but the “blind obedience” he owed to his superior compelled him to persevere. Rules for the accurate grammatical construction of the language cannot, he says, be given, on account of the exceptions and counter-exceptions. The confusion between active and passive participles is a labyrinth he cannot explore. There are more books on the language (artes), he avers, than on any dead or living language! He has consulted no less than thirty-seven, among which the first place is due to the Tagál Demosthenes (Father Francis de San José), to whose researches none have the knowledge of adding anything valuable. He professes to have given all the roots, but not their ramifications, which it is impossible to follow. But the Vocabulario is greatly lauded by the “Visitador,” as “an eagle in its flight,” and “a sun in its brilliancy.” It is reported to have added three thousand new words to the vocabulary. The editor himself is modest enough, and declares he has brought only one drop to a whole ocean. The work, which had been in many hands, occupied Father Noceda thirty years, and he allowed no word to pass until “twelve Indians” agreed that he had found its true meaning. He would not take less, for had he broken his rule and diminished the numbers, who knows, he asks, with what a small amount of authority he might have satisfied himself? There can be no doubt that to find absolute synonymes between languages so unlike as the Castilian and the Tagáloc was an utterly impossible task, and that the root of a word of which the editor is in search is often lost in the inflections, combinations and additions, which surround and involve it, without reference to any general principle. And after all comes the question, What is the Tagáloc language? That of the mountains differs much from that of the valleys; the idiom of the Comingtang from those of the Tingues.

The word Tagála, sometimes written Tagál, Tagálo, or Tagáloc, I imagine, is derived from Taga, a native. Taga Majayjay is a native of Majayjay. A good Christian is called Ang manga taga langit, a native of heaven; and it is a common vituperation to say to a man, “Taga infierno,” signifying, “You must be a native of hell.”

The Tagál language is not easily acquired. A Spanish proverb says there must be un año de arte y dos di bahaque– one year of grammar and two of bahaque. The bahaque is the native dress. The friars informed me that it required several years of residence to enable them to preach in Tagál; and in many of the convents intercourse is almost confined to the native idioms, as there are few opportunities of speaking Spanish.

The blending of nouns and verbs into a single word, and the difficulty of tracing the roots of either, is one cause of perplexity, the paucity of words requiring many meanings for the same sound. Thus ayao means, enough, passage of merchandise, dearness, and is a note of admiration; baba signifies brace, beard, lungs, perchance, abscess; bobo, a net, to melt, to frighten, to spill; alangalang, courtesy, elevation, dignity. Hence, too, the frequent repetitions of the same word. Aboabo, mist; alaala, to remember; ñgalañgala, palate; galagala, bitumen; dilidili, doubt; hasahasa, a fish.

So a prodigious number of Tagál words are given to represent a verb in its various applications, in which it is difficult to trace any common root or shadow of resemblance. Noceda, for the verb give (dar, Spanish) has 140 Tagál words; for (meter) put, there are forty-one forms; for (hacer) do, one hundred and twenty-six. The age of the moon is represented by twelve forms, in only two of which does the Tagál word for moon occur.

It is scarcely necessary to say that a language so rude as the Tagál could never become the channel for communicating scientific or philosophical knowledge. Yet M. Mallat contends that it is rich, sonorous, expressive, and, if encouraged, would soon possess a literature worthy of a place among that of European nations!

A folio dictionary of the Bisayan and Spanish language, as spoken in the island of Panay, was published in 1841 (Manila), having been written by Father Alonzo de Mentrida. The Spanish and Bisayan, by Father Julian Martin, was published in the following year.

The letters e, f, r, and z are wanting, and the only sound not represented by our alphabet is the ñg. The Tagála Indians employ the letter p instead of the f, which they cannot pronounce. Parancisco for Francisco, palso for falso, pino for fino, &c. The r is totally unutterable by the Tagálos. They convert the letter into d, and subject themselves to much ridicule from the mistakes consequent upon this infirmity. The z is supplanted by s, which does not convey the Castilian sound as represented by our soft th.