A Visit to the Philippine Islands

In many provinces, however, of Spain, the Castilian pronunciation of z is not adopted. There is in the Tagál no vowel sound between a and i, such as is represented in Spanish by the letter e.

In teaching the Tagal alphabet, the word yaou, being the demonstrative pronoun, is inserted after the letter which is followed by the vowel a, and the letter repeated, thus: —Aa yaou (a), baba yaou (b), caca yaou (c), dada yaou (d), gaga yaou (g), haha yaou (h), lala yaou (l), mama yaou (m), nana yaou (n), ñgañga yaou (ñg), papa yaou (p), sasa yaou (s), tata yaou (t), vava yaou (v). The ñg is a combination of the Spanish ñ with g.

Nouns in Tagal have neither cases, numbers, nor genders. Verbs have infinitive, present, preterite, past, future, and imperative tenses, but they are not changed by the personal pronouns. Among other singularities, it is noted that no active verb can begin with the letter b. Some of the interjections, and they are very numerous in the Tagaloc, are of different genders. How sad! addressed to a man, is paetog! to a woman, paetag!

The Tagáls employ the second person singular icao, or co, in addressing one another, but add the word po, which is a form of respect. In addressing a woman the word po is omitted, but is expected to be used by a female in addressing a man. The personal pronouns follow instead of preceding both verbs and nouns, as napa aco, I say; napa suja, it is good.

One characteristic of the language is that the passive is generally employed instead of the active verb. A Tagal will not say “Juan loves Maria,” but “Maria is loved by Juan.” Fr. de los Santos says it is more elegant to employ the active than the passive verb, but I observe in the religious books circulated by the friars the general phraseology is, “It is said by God;” “it is taught by Christ,” &c.

Though the Tagál is not rich in words, the same expression having often a great variety of meanings, there is much perplexity in the construction. The padre Verduga, however, gives a list of several species of verbs, with modifications of nouns subjected to the rules of European grammar.

In adopting Spanish words the Tagals frequently simplify and curtail them; for example, for zapato (shoe) they use only pato; Lingo for Domingo; bavay, caballo (horse). The diminutive of Maria is Mariangui; whence Angui, the ordinary name for Mary.

In looking through the dictionary, I find in the language only thirty-five monosyllables, viz., a, ab, an, ang, at, ay, ca [with thirteen different meanings – a numeral (1), a personal pronoun (they), four substantives (thing, companion, fright, abstract), one verb (to go), and the rest sundry adjectival, adverbial, and other terms], cay, co, con, cun, di, din, ga, ha, i, in, is, ma (with eighteen meanings, among which are four nouns substantive, eight verbs, and four adjectives), man, mi, mo, na, ñga, o, oy, pa (seven meanings), po, sa, sang, si, sing, ta, ya, and yi.

Watches are rare among the Indians, and time is not denoted by the hours of the clock, but by the ordinary events of the day. De Mas gives no less than twenty-three different forms of language for denoting various divisions, some longer, some shorter, of the twenty-four hours; such as – darkness departs; dawn breaks; light advances (magumagana); the sun about to rise (sisilang na ang arao); full day (arao na); sun risen; hen laying; (sun) height of axe; height of spear (from the horizon); midday; sun sinking; sun set (lungmonorna); Ave Maria time; darkness; blackness; children’s bed-time; animas ringing; midnight near; midnight; midnight past (mababao sa hating gaby). And the phraseology varies in different localities. As bell-ringing and clock-striking were introduced by the Spaniards, most of the terms now in use must have been employed before their arrival.

Repetitions of the same syllable are common both in the Tagál and Bisayan languages. They are not necessarily indicative of a plural form, but frequently denote sequence or continuation, as —lavay lavay, slavery (continued work); iñgiliñgil, the growl of a dog; ñgiñgiyao ñgiñgiyao, the purring of a cat; cococococan, a hen calling her chickens; pocto pocto, uneven, irregular (there is a Devonshire word, scory, having exactly the same meaning); timbon timbon, piling up; punit punit, rags; añgao añgao, an infinite number; aling aling, changeable; caval caval, uncertain. Some Spanish words are doubled to avoid being confounded with native sounds; as dondon for don. These repetitions are a necessary consequence of the small number of primitive words.

Though the poverty of the language is remarkable, yet a great variety of designations is found for certain objects. Rice, for example, in the husk is palay (Malay, padi); before transplanting, botobor; when beginning to sprout, buticas; when the ear appears, basag; in a more advanced stage, maymota; when fully ripe in ear, boñgana; when borne down by the wind or the weight of the ear, dayapa; early rice, cavato; sticky rice, lagquitan; ill-formed in the grain, popong; rice cleaned but not separated from the husks, loba; clean rice, bigas; waste rice, binlor; ground rice, digas; roasted rice, binusa; roasted to appear like flowers, binuladac; rice paste, pilipig; fricasseed rice, sinaing; another sort of prepared rice, soman. There are no less than nineteen words for varieties of the same object. And so with verbs: – To tie, tali; to tie round, lingquis; to tie a belt, babat; to tie the hands, gapus; to tie a person by the neck, tobong; to tie with a noose, hasohaso; to tie round a jar, baat; to tie up a corpse, balacas; to tie the mouth of a purse, pogong; to tie up a basket, bilit; to tie two sticks together, pangcol; to tie up a door, gacot; to tie up a bundle (as of sticks), bigquis; to tie up sheaves of grain, tangcas; to tie up a living creature, niquit; to tie the planks of a floor together, gilaguir; a temporary tie, balaguir; to tie many times round with a knot, balaguil; tight tie, yaguis; to tie bamboos, dalin; to tie up an article lent, pañgayla. Of these twenty-one verbs the root of scarcely any is traceable to any noun substantive. For rice there are no less than sixty-five words in Bisayan; for bamboo, twenty.

There are numerous names for the crocodile. Buaya conveys the idea of its size from the egg to the full-grown animal, when he is called buayang totoo, a true crocodile. For gold there are no less than fifteen native designations, which denote its various qualities.

Juan de Noceda gives twenty-nine words as translations of mirar (to look); forty-two for meter (to put); seventy-five for menear (to move); but synonymes are with difficulty found in languages having no affinity, especially when any abstract idea is to be conveyed.

In family relations the generic word for brother is colovong; elder brother, cacang: if there be only three, the second is called colovong; the third, bongso: but if there be more than three, the second is named sumonor; the third, colovong. Twin brothers are cambal. Anac is the generic name for son; an only son, bogtong; the first-born, pañganay; the youngest, bongso; an adopted son, ynaanac. Magama means father and son united; magcunaama, father and adopted son; nagpapaama, he who falsely calls another his father; pinanamahan, a falsely called father; maanac, father or mother of many children; maganac, father, mother and family of children (of many); caanactilic, the sons of two widowers; magca, brothers by adoption.

A common ironical expression is, Catalastasan mo aya a! (How very clever!)

The Indian name for the head of a barrio, or barangay, is dato, but the word more commonly used at present is the Castilian cabeza; so that now the Indian generally denominates this native authority cabeza sa balañgay. The Tagal word for the principal locality of a district is doyo, in Castilian, cabazera.

The word cantar has been introduced for the music of the Church, but many of the ancient Indian words have been retained, such as Pinanan umbitanan ang patay. – They sing the death-song; dayao, the song of victory; hune, the song of birds. The noise of the ghiko lizard is called halotictic.

The following may serve as specimens of Tagál polysyllabic words: —

Odd numbers in Tagál are called gangsal, even numbers tocol.

Many Malayan words are to be traced, some in their pure, others in a corrupted form, not only in the Tagal and Bisayan, but in other idioms of the Philippines.26 Such are Langit, heaven; puti, white; mata, eye; vato, stones; mura, cheap; and some others. Slightly modified are dita for lina, language; babi, for babuy, pig; hagin (Tag.) and hangin (Bis.) for angin, wind; masaguit for sakit, sick; patay for mati (Mal.), mat (Pers.), dead; nagcasama for samasama, in company; matacut for takot, fear; ulan for udian, rain; and a few others. The Malay word tuan, meaning honourable, and generally employed to signify the obedience and deference of the speaker to the person addressed, is mostly used by the Tagals in an ironical sense. Ay touan co! Honourable man indeed! “Do not tuan me,” is equivalent to, “None of your nonsense.”

The monks have introduced most of the Castilian words of Greek and Latin origin necessary for the profession of the Catholic faith, or the celebration of its religious rites, for few of which could any representatives be found in the aboriginal tongues.

Considering the long possession of many portions of the Philippines by tribes professing Mahomedanism, the number of current Arabic words is small: I heard salam, salute; malim, master; arrac, wine or spirits; arraes for reis, captain. And among the Mussulmans of Mindanao, Islam, koran, rassoul (prophet), bismillah, kitab, and other words immediately connected with the profession of Islamism, were quite familiar.

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 starlightHeaven’s concave is drest,And the clouds as they partMake 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.

I have found a few proverbs in verse, of which these are examples: —

Note. – The chapter I had written on the language of the Philippines was, with many others of my MSS., submerged in the Red Sea by the Alma wreck, and much of their contents is utterly illegible; nor have I been able, from any materials accessible to me in this country, to present anything like a satisfactory sketch. Under the circumstances, my short-comings will, I doubt not, be forgiven.

CHAPTER XIV

NATIVE PRODUCE

The Leyes de Indias emphatically recognize the wrongs and injuries of which the Indians are constantly the victims, and seek to furnish remedies against them: they annul dishonest contracts – they order the authorities rigorously to punish acts of oppression – they declare that the transactions of the Spanish settlers have frequently been “the ruin of the Indians” – they point out the mischiefs produced by the avarice in some cases, and inaction in others, of the mestizos, who are commonly the go-betweens in bargains of colonists with natives. The local ordenanzas, which are numerous and elaborate, have for their object to assure to the Indian the fruits of his labours – to protect him against his own imprudence and the usurious exactions of those to whom he applies in his difficulties; they provide against the usurpation of his lands, declare the sovereign the rightful owner of property which there are no heirs to claim, and insist that everywhere the Indian shall draw from the soil he cultivates the means of comfortable subsistence: the accumulation of properties acquired from the Indians by ecclesiastical bodies is prohibited, notwithstanding which prohibition enormous estates are held by the monkish fraternities. There are also arrangements for setting apart “common lands” for general use, independently of private estates. Many of the provisions are of so vague a character as to insure their non-observance, and others so particular and special in their requirements as to make their enforcement impossible. The 71st article, for example, compels the Indians “to plant useful trees, suited to the soil” – to sow wheat, rice, maize, vegetables, cotton, pepper, &c., in proper localities – to maintain “every species of appropriate cattle” – to have “fruits growing in their gardens and orchards round their houses” – to keep “at least twelve hens and one cock” (a very superfluous piece of legislation), and one “female sucking pig;” they must be encouraged to manufacture cloths and cordage; and failing in these duties for the space of two years, they are to lose their lands, which, by public proclamation, shall be appropriated to others. There is, in fact, no absolute territorial right of property among the Indians. It can always be seized and reappropriated by the Spanish authorities. Lands are held on condition that they are cultivated. There are lands possessed by Spaniards and by corporations of the clergy principally, which pay a nominal rental to the crown, but the rental is so small as to be of no account. There is no difficulty in obtaining gratuitous concessions of territorial surface on the sole obligation of bringing it into cultivation. Long usage and long possession have no doubt created supposed rights, which are able to maintain themselves even against competing private claims or the obvious requirements of public utility. Questions arise as to what is meant by “cultivation,” and the country is full of controversies and lawsuits, of which land is generally the subject-matter. The larger proprietors constantly speak of the difficulty of obtaining continuous labour – of the necessity of perpetual advances to the peasant – of the robbery of the ripe harvests when raised. Hence they are accustomed to underlet their lands to petty cultivators, who bring small and unsatisfactory returns to the owners and to the market. They complain of the jealousy and ill-will of the Indians, their intrigues and open resistance to foreign settlers, and of the too indulgent character of the “Law of the Indies.” It appears to me that there is abundant field for advantageous agricultural experiments, not perhaps so much in the immediate vicinity of large and populous places, as on the vast tracts of uncared-for territory, which demand nothing but attention and capital, perseverance and knowledge, to render a prodigal return. No doubt the agriculturist should have possession absolutely and irrevocably secured to him. Once installed by the government he must be protected against all molestation of his title. I do not believe in the invincible inertness of the Indians when they are properly encouraged. I heard of a native in one of the most distant villages I visited in Pinay, who had been recommended by a friar to take to sugar-growing. He did so, and obtained five hundred dollars for the produce which he, for the first time, took down to Iloilo. He will get a thousand the second year; and others were following his example. A little additional labour produces so much that the smallest impulse gives great results, especially where employed over a vast extent. But Indian indolence is not only prejudicial from the little assistance it offers to agricultural activity in preparing, sowing, watching and gathering the harvest; it is unable to furnish any of those greater appliances which must be considered rather of public than of private concern. Hence the absence of facilities for irrigation, the imperfect state of the river navigation, the rarity of canals, the badness of the roads in so many localities. The seasons bring their floods, and the mountain torrents create their gullies; but the water escapes into the sea, and the labourer brings his produce, as best he may, amidst the rocks and sand and mud which the cataracts have left behind them. I have seen beasts of burden struggling in vain to extricate themselves, with their loads, from the gulf into which they had fallen, and in which they were finally abandoned by their conductors. I have been carried to populous places in palanquins, whose bearers, sometimes sixteen in number, were up to their thighs amidst mire, slough, tangled roots, loose stones and fixed boulders. De Mas says that the labourer absorbs three-fifths of the gross produce, leaving two-fifths to the proprietor and capitalist; but the conditions of labour are so very various that it is difficult to reach any general conclusion, beyond the undoubted fact that neither capitalist nor labourer receives anything like the amount of profit which, under a better system, would be enjoyed by both; that the cost is far greater, and the returns far smaller, than they should be; and that the common prosperity suffers from the position of each. Whatever may be said of the enervating effects of climate and the want of motive to give activity to industry, it is probable that all nations, even the most industrious and the most opulent, have passed through their stages of indolence and inactivity. China affords an example that climate alone is no insuperable barrier to energetic exertions in all departments of the field of production, and that the possession of much is no necessary check upon the desire of obtaining and enjoying more. The value of lands is very various. De Mas says that the quiñon (of 1,000 square fathoms), in Pangasinan, sells for from 220 to 250 dollars; in the Laguna, 250 to 300; in Ilocos Sur, 300; in the neighbourhood of Manila, 1,000. He seems to consider sugar as, on the whole, the most profitable investment. He gives several tables of the cost and charges of sundry tropical productions, but the many elements of uncertainty, the cost of raising, the vicissitudes of climate, the attacks of insects, the fluctuations in the amount and value of accessible labour, and all the ebbs and flows of supply and demand, make all calculations only approximative. His apuntes, however, are well worth consulting by those interested in detailed inquiry. He gives as a result of rice cultivation a minimum profit of 24 per cent., a maximum profit of 76 per cent. per annum. This would seem sufficiently inviting, especially as the Spaniards are reported to be fonder of agriculture than of any other pursuit, and fonder of being owners of lands than of any other property, according to their old refrain: —