II.
Authorities on Philippine Dialects.
Now a few words anent the chief authorities on Philippine linguistics—treatises, namely, bearing on the various dialects employed in that archipelago, twenty-seven in number, as observed ahead, all, however, akin in their common stock—Malay, of which these idioms, or patois, are daughters, yet with countless, sharply-marked differences between one another.
A working knowledge of the many fashions of speech so much needed as obvious, nay, indispensable to traveler or missionary, will be gained most quickly and thoroughly, it should be premised, from books of two-fold character,—(1) namely, from grammars and dictionaries of the several idioms, based on scientific rules of philology; then (2) from devotional works—books of Christian piety, very numerous in the Philippines, as are religious manuals, prayer-, sermon-, and confession-books, whereof titles abound in Retana, all pretty much from the busy pen of missionaries themselves, to whose zeal and ability in the instruction of their brown and black many-tongued wards is due largely, nay, wholly, whatever of humanizing, Christian character is found in Malaysia, as in fact is true also in other countries now civilized and enlightened, albeit once barbarian.
In his latest bibliography,[1] where the number of published works in each of the twenty-seven dialects of the Philippines is set down by Retana, you will observe from a study of his lists, that though in many dialects there are no grammars so entitled, or other scientific aids to learning a given idiom, yet there are many works of religious cast printed therein,—hand-books of practical religion, which you will find useful beyond measure to linguists. Since from these prayer-books, wherein are set down plainly the simplest and commonest rules of Christian ethical conduct, you can easily gather a working knowledge of the language itself, as the missionary who composed them was careful to put matters of every-day interest in the plain, every-day speech of the islanders. Before closing this brief digression on manuals of piety, I must observe what will prove very useful, I judge, to the scholar, that with works of the first class, as grammars and dictionaries, is to be associated on shelf and desk a goodly number of works of another class—books and treatises that bear the name Arte = Aids to Learning, whereof you will encounter very many in Retana.
The Arte of a given dialect, as will be found true also in a measure for grammars and other school-manuals, will be recognized as a compendium of not only literary rules, but of many practical maxims of daily life, whereby the pupils are urged not only to correct speech, but to upright conduct as well through sobriety, piety to the Supreme Being, obedience to rulers, respect for parents and fellows, according to the noblest ideals of refined Christian manhood and womanhood. Thus, with grammar were taught ethics; with politics, religion.
Referring here to class-books in the Philippines, where from the earliest years of the conquest every pueblo had its school of primary instruction, it will not be irrelevant to point out the fact very stoutly that though education (as admitted by well-nigh every chronicler) was primitive in character,—and in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries where was it not? yet the course of instruction given in the common schools of bamboo-thatch was (as results amply testify) deep and solid enough for the intellectual calibre of the people. Since, so far as known, Malaysia, however saintly, heroic, innocent, the same as our own aborigines, albeit now civilized for three centuries and upwards, has, despite the heartiest aid in teachers and funds, fairly lavished on them by Church and state, turned out no man of shining mark, no scholar, no artist, no genius in statecraft or commerce. The first college-institution with pretensions to higher courses of intellectual training was opened (formally at least) by the Jesuits in 1601, less than half a century, that is, after the arrival of Europeans in Luzon.
In regard to common Indian schools, so zealously guarded by the Leyes de las Indias, I have picked up here and there from old-time chroniclers scraps of many ordinances passed by the crown relative to their foundation and conduct. Among them the following bits of quaint old-fashioned oversight of the dominies in charge. Thus, in 1754, I have read that each maestro of a mission-school was to get, in lieu of support, “a peso and one caban—a measure—of rice a month.” (A caban was equal to 75 litres, about the same number of quarts, English.) Again, every mission-priest was called upon to supply (free to his pupils) “paper and ink.” Moreover, as early as the beginning of the century just closing, in 1817, it was ordained that boys’ schools were to be kept on the ground-floor of the mission-house; while the girls were to be taught at their mistress’ home. (Malaysia—thus it was ordained—was not to experiment with the “co-educational theory.”)
Now for the promised works of chief authority on Philippine linguistics,—monuments of the various dialects of that archipelago, that, along with their purely technical value to the student of idioms, will be acknowledged as useful to scholars in even far different lines of intellectual play.
Of the best works for the study of Visaya, or Bisaya, first dialect in the islands acquired by missionary and conquistador, wherein he gives 352 titles (p. xxix), Retana has the following: “Up to a few years ago the dictionary held in highest repute by linguists was the work of the Augustinian scholar Alonso de Méntrida,” a vocabulary of the Hiligueina, or Hiligayno, and Haraya tongues—two of the three chief dialects spoken in Panay, not very different from the Visaya of Cebú, used, however, by the less cultured tribes of hillsmen in that island. This vocabulary, first printed in 1637, and in 1841 republished at Manila, with diagrams of Indian alphabets, enlarged in another edition in 1842, by a brother missionary, Julián Martín, has now been supplanted by the Visaya-Spanish dictionary (in two volumes), of another Augustinian scholar, Juan Félix de la Encarnación, printed at Manila, first, in 1851–1852, then in 1866 and again in 1885.