A Visit to the Philippine Islands

by John Bowring

The only Chinese word that I found generally in use was sampan, a small boat, meaning literally three planks.

Many of the sounds in the Tagal are so thoroughly English that they fell strangely on my ear. Toobig is water; and asin, salt, when shouted out to the Indian servants at table, somewhat startled me, and I could not immediately find out what was the excess denounced, or the peccadillo committed. Most of the friars speak the native idioms with fluency, never preach in any other, and living, as most of them do, wholly surrounded by the Indian population, and rarely using their native Spanish tongue, it is not to be wondered at that they acquire great facility in the employment of the Indian idioms. Most of the existing grammars and dictionaries were written by ecclesiastics to aid in the propagation of the Christian doctrine, and small books are printed (all on religious subjects) for the instruction of the people. I could not discover that they have any historical records or traditions brought down from a remote antiquity.

The more my attention has been directed to the study of the idioms of distant countries, the more I am struck by the absurd fancies and theories which have obtained so much currency with regard to the derivation and affinities of languages. The Biscayans firmly hold their Euscaran idiom to have been the tongue of Adam and Eve in Paradise, and consequently the universal language of primitive man and the fountain-head of all others. More than one Cambrian patriot has claimed the same honour for the Welsh, insisting that all the dialects of the world have been derived from the Cymri. But it would be hard to prove that a single word has descended to the present times from the antediluvian world. Intercourse and commerce seem the only channels through which any portion of the language of any one nation or tribe has passed into the vocabulary of any other. The word sack is said to be that of the most general diffusion. A French writer contends it was the only word preserved at the time of the Babel confusion of languages, and it was so preserved in order that the rights of property might be respected in the general anarchy. In the lower numerals of remote dialects there are many seemingly strange affinities, which may be attributed to their frequent use in trading transactions. Savages, having no such designations of their own, have frequently adopted the higher decimal numbers employed by civilized nations, of which the extended use of the word lac for 10,000 is an example. Muster, among trading nations, is, with slight variations, the almost universally received word for pattern; so the words account, date, and many similar. How many maritime terms are derived from the Dutch, how many military from the French, how many locomotive from the English! The Justinian code has impregnated all the languages of Europe with phrases taken from the Roman law. To the Catholic missal may be traced in the idioms of converted nations almost all their religious phraseology. In the facilities of combination which the Greek in so high a degree possesses science has found invaluable auxiliaries. Our colonies are constantly adding to our stores, and happily there is not (as in France) any repugnance to the introduction of useful, still less of necessary words. Bentham used to say that purity of language and poverty of language were nearly synonymous. It is well for the interests of knowledge that the English tongue receives without difficulty new and needful contributions to the ancient stock. The well of pure English undefiled is not corrupted, but invigorated, by the streams which have been poured into it from springs both adjacent and remote. Language must progress with and accommodate itself to the progress of knowledge, and it is well that a language clear, defined and emphatic as our own—derived from many sources, whence its plasticity and variety—having much monosyllabic force and polysyllabic cadence—condensed and yet harmonious—should be the language having now the strongest holds and the widest extension.

Among the evidences of progress which the world exhibits, not only is the gradual extinction of the inferior by the advance of the superior races of man a remarkable fact, but equally striking is the disappearance of the rude and imperfect idioms, and their supplantation by the more efficient instruments of advancement and civilization found in the languages of the cultivated nations. The attempts which have been made to introduce the phraseology of advanced arts and sciences into tongues which only represent a low stage of cultivation, have been lamentably unsuccessful. No appropriate niches can be found in barbarian temples for the beautiful productions of the refined genius of sculpture. The coarse garments of the savage cannot be fitly repaired with the choice workmanship of the gifted artisan. And few benefits can be conceived of more importance to the well-being of the human family than that the means of oral intercourse should be extended, and that a few widely spread languages (if not a universal one, whose introduction may be deemed an utterly hopeless dream) will in process of time become the efficient instrument of communication for the whole world.

The poetry of the Tagals is in quantity of twelve syllables. They have the Spanish asonante, but words are considered to rhyme if they have the same vowel or the same consonant at a terminal, as thus:—

In beautiful starlight

Heaven’s concave is drest,

And the clouds as they part

Make the brightness more bright.

So stick would rhyme with thing, knot with rob; and the Indian always chant their verses when they recite them, which, indeed, is a generally received Asiatic custom. The San tze King, or three-syllable classic, which is the universally employed elementary book in the schools of China, is always sung, and the verse and music naturally aid the memory. The music of the song sung by the Tagálas to tranquillize children, called the helehele, De Mas says, resembles that of the Arab.