The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898; Volume 50: Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century
History
The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898; Volume 50: Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century
Demarcation line of Alexander VI; Missions -- Philippines; Philippines -- Discovery and exploration; Philippines -- History -- Sources
[81] "The friars, in studying the Filipino languages, continually
compared them with the Latin and the Castilian, to the grammar and
genius of which they molded, whenever they could, those of the new
language which they were learning. As a result, the grammars of the
Filipino languages which they soon made created an artificial language,
very different from that actually spoken by the islanders. Educated
Filipinos distinguish perfectly this conventional language of the
friars; and the latter in their turn make the charge, when they
have noticed one of these observers, that the Indians when talking
among themselves employ a different language from that which they
use in conversations with the cura. The reverend father Fray Ramón
Martinez Vigil (now bishop of Oviedo) has not failed to notice
this difference; but in undertaking to explain it he falls into
an error that is excusable if one considers his religious calling,
which cannot admit that when there is a blunder the mistake is on
the priest's side. Speaking, then, as a priest, and doubly superior
to the Indian by being a Spaniard besides, he confidently says: 'All
who have observed their familiar conversations (of the Indians) are
agreed in affirming that they entirely lay aside the rules of grammar,
in order to make their conversation more rapid and short--speaking
among themselves a Tagálog quite different from what they use when
they address the Spanish priest or any other European who understands
their language.' (Revista de Filipinas, t. ii, 1877, p. 35.) Every
one who understands Tagálog has endured mortal torments thousands of
times while hearing from the pulpit the sermons which a great number
of religious utter in that conventional language. At present, however,
the sermons that are preached are, as a rule, written in the old style,
for the occasion, and then revised and corrected by coadjutors, or
by citizens versed [in the native language], who shape and polish
the discourse properly." (Pardo de Tavera, note 12, pp. 58, 59.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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