| sa |
| of |
| manga-maraut |
| evil |
| ngatanan. |
| all. |
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.”