Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-68ccn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-13T06:37:15.295Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

On the Possible Cham Origin of the Philippine Scripts*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

Geoff Wade
Geoff Wade
Affiliation:
University of Hong Kong
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

I. The Philippine Scripts

In 1593, there was printed in Manila a most remarkable xylographic (wood-block) book, comprising Juan de Plascenia's Doctrina Christiana in Spanish, romanized Tagalog and Tagalog script (see Fig. 1). While there is still some debate as to whether this was the first book to be published in the Philippines, there appears little doubt that it constitutes the earliest extant printed example of any Philippine script.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , March 1993 , pp. 44 - 87
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Scott, W.H., Prehispanic Source Materials for Philippine History (Quezon City, 1984), p. 53Google Scholar. A photolithographic edition of the sole known copy of the work was published in Washington D.C. in 1947. Scott, in Prehispanic Source Materials, p. 164Google Scholar notes another facsimile edition published by the National Historical Commission, Manila in 1973.

2 In his introductory essay to the 1947 facsimile edition, published as Doctrina Christiana — The First Book Printed in the Philippines, Manila 1593: A Facsimile of the Copy in the Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection, Library of Congress (Washington D.C., 1947)Google Scholar, Edwin Wolf 2nd indicated his belief that the work was the earliest verifiable book to have been published in the Philippines. However, der Loon, P. Van, in his “The Manila Incunabula and Early Hokkien Studies”, Asia Major XII (1966): 1–43Google Scholar, suggests that the Hsin-k'o seng-shih Kao-mu Hsien chuan Wu-chi t'ien-chu cheng-chiao chen-chuan shi-lu, a wood-block edition of a theological and cosmographical work written in Chinese by the Dominican Friar Juan Cobo, was published in Manila in March 1593 and thus may pre-date the Doctrina Christiana.

3 In Blair, E.H. and Robertson's, J.A.The Philippine Islands 1493–1803 (Original edition published Cleveland 1903–1909, reprinted Rizal, 1973), vol. XII, p. 10Google Scholar, his dates in the Philippines are incorrectly noted as 1595 to 1602. Wolf, Edwin 2nd, in his introduction to the facsimile Doctrina Christiana adds (p. 9)Google Scholar that Chirino returned to the islands in 1606 and remained there until his death in 1635.

4 Blair, and Robertson, , The Philippine Islands, vol. XII, pp. 242–43Google Scholar.

5 Francisco, J.R., Philippine Palaeography, Philippine Journal of Linguistics Special Monograph Issue No. 3 (Quezon City, 1973), p. xiiGoogle Scholar.

6 Blair, and Robertson, , The Philippine Islands, vol. XVI, pp. 115–17Google Scholar.

7 Ibid., vol. XXIX, pp. 288–90.

8 Ibid., vol. XL, p. 49.

9 Francisco, , Philippine Palaeography, p. 93Google Scholar.

10 Boxer, C.R., “A Late Sixteenth Century Manila MS”, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (1950): 38–49Google Scholar.

11 Jocano, F. Landa, The Philippines at the Spanish Contact: Some Major Accounts of Early Filipino Society and Culture (Manila, 1975), p. 196Google Scholar.

12 Scott, , Prehispanic Source Materials, p. 53Google Scholar.

13 Francisco, , Philippine Palaeography, p. 83Google Scholar.

14 Ibid., pp. 22–31, 44–50, 97–100.

15 For diverse examples of the various Philippine scripts, see Figs. 8, 9 and 10 in Francisco, , Philippine PalaeographyGoogle Scholar.

16 Blair, and Robertson, , The Philippine Islands, vol. XII, p. 241Google Scholar.

17 Ibid., vol. XL, p. 49.

18 Crawfurd, J., A Descriptive Dictionary of the Indian Islands and Adjacent Countries (originally published 1856; Singapore, Oxford in Asia Historical Reprints, 1971), p. 348Google Scholar.

19 Francisco, , Philippine Palaeography, pp. 4–20Google Scholar.

20 Scott, , Prehispanic Source Materials, p. 61Google Scholar.

21 Francisco, , Philippine Palaeography, p. 87Google Scholar.

22 Ibid., p. 84.

23 J.R., Francisco, Indian Culture in the Philippines: Views and Reviews, Fourth Sri Lanka Endowment Fund Lecture delivered at the University of Malaya on Friday 18 10 1985 (Kuala Lumpur, 1985), p. 49Google Scholar.

24 Maspero, G., Le Royaume de Champa (Paris, 1928)Google Scholar.

25 Française, École d'Extrême-Orient (ed.), Kerajaan Campa (Jakarta, 1981)Google Scholar.

26 Ibid., pp. 297–318.

27 Boisselier, J., La Statuaire du Champa: Recherches sur les Cultes et L'Iconographie (Paris, 1963)Google Scholar.

28 Majumdar, R.C., Champa: History and Culture of an Indian Colonial Kingdom in the Far East 2nd-16th Century ad (Reprinted Delhi, 1985)Google Scholar.

29 Majumdar, R. C., “La Paléographie des Inscriptions du Champa”, Bulletin de I'École Française D'Extrême-Orient XXXII (1932): 127–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 Aymonier, E. and Cabaton, A., Dictionnaire Čam-Francaise (Paris, 1906)Google Scholar.

31 Ibid., pp. x-xxii.

32 de Casparis, J.G., Indonesian Palaeography: A History of Writing in Indonesia from the Beginnings to c. A.D. 1500 (Leiden, 1975), p. 10Google Scholar.

33 Francisco, , Philippine Palaeography, p. 91, Fig. 1Google Scholar.

34 Scott, , Prehispanic Source Materials, pp. 57, 60Google Scholar.

35 Majumdar, “La Paléographie des Inscriptions du Champa”, pp. 128–29 and Plate IX.

36 Diringer, D., The Alphabet: A Key to the History of Mankind (London, 1968), vol. II, pp. 244–45, 298Google Scholar.

37 Francisco, , Philippine Palaeography, p. 94Google Scholar.

38 Jensen, H., Sign, Symbol and Script: An Account of Man's Effort to Write (London, 1970), pp. 388, 395Google Scholar.

39 Damais, L.-C., “Les écritures d'origine indienne en Indonésie et dans le Sud-Est Asiatique continental”, Bulletin de la Société des études Indochinoises, Nouvelle Série, Tome XXX (1955): 365–82Google Scholar.

40 Holle, K.F., Tabel van Oud- en Nieuw-Indische Alphabetten, 2 parts (Buitenzorg, 1877 and Batavia, 1882), p. 47Google Scholar.

41 Holle, , Tabel, pp. 46–47Google Scholar and Diringer, , The Alphabet, vol. II, p. 254Google Scholar.

42 Holle, , Tabel, p. 43Google Scholar.

43 Ibid., pp. 42–43.

44 Francisco, J.R., Indian Influences in the Philippines, with Special Reference to Languages and Literature (Quezon City, 1964), p. 258Google Scholar.

45 Ibid.

46 Jenner, P.N. and Pou, Saverous, “A Lexicon of Khmer Morphology”, Mon-Khmer Studies, vols. IX–X (Hawaii, 1980–1981), pp. viii–ixGoogle Scholar.

47 Haas, M.R., Thai Vocabulary (Washington, 1955), p. 517Google Scholar.

48 Scott, , Prehispanic Source Materials, p. 58Google Scholar.

49 Postma, A., “Contemporary Mangyan Scripts”, The Philippine Journal of Linguistics (1972): 1–12Google Scholar.

50 De Casparis, , Indonesian Palaeography, p. 67Google Scholar.

51 Scott, , Prehispanic Source Materials, p. 54Google Scholar.

52 Postma, A., “The Laguna Copper-Plate Inscription: Text and Commentary”, Philippine Studies 40 (1992): 183–203Google Scholar.

53 See, for example, Solheim, W.G. II, “Further Relationships of the Sa-huynh-Kalanay Pottery Tradition”, Asian Perspectives 8, 1 (1964): 196–211Google Scholar.

54 Francisco, , Indian Culture in the Philippines, p. 51Google Scholar.

55 Wolters, O.W., “A Few and Miscellaneous Pi-Chi Jottings on Early Indonesia”, Indonesia, no. 36 (1983): 58–59Google Scholar.

56 Song Hui-yao Ji-gao (Beijing Zhonghua Shuju, 1957), juan 197, p. 7761Google Scholar. A translation of the full passage, as well as the Chinese text, are to be found in Scott, W.H., Filipinos in China Before 1500 (Manila, 1989), pp. 27–28 and 45Google Scholar.

57 See Wilkinson, R.J., A Malay-English Dictionary (Romanised) (Mytilene, Greece, 1932), vol. 1, p. 542Google Scholar; Huffman, F.E. and Im Proum, , Cambodian-English Glossary, 1977, p. 13Google Scholar; and Francisco, , Indian Influences in the Philippines, p. 59Google Scholar; Yule, Henry and Burnell, A.C., Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases (London: John Murray, 1903), pp. 487–90Google Scholar.

58 Richards, A., An Iban-English Dictionary (Oxford, 1981), pp. 150–51Google Scholar.

59 The b/m initial in Hokkien is discussed in Sian-lin's, Yen “Studies in the Phonological History of Amoy Chinese” (PhD dissertation, University of Illinois, 1965)Google Scholar. Yen quotes from Bodman's Spoken Amoy Hokkien as follows: “It is simpler to state that in Amoy Chinese there exists a structural contrast of plain versus nasalized vowels after all initials, and that b and m, l and n, and g and ng are merely variants of each other, depending on whether a plain or nasalized vowel or dipthong follows.” Yen (p. 34) also analyzes “m” and “b” as allophonic variants of /m/. This characteristic is frequently observed in early Hokkien representations of non-Chinese terms where characters read with an initial “b” are often used to represent the foreign initial “m”. The use of “ba” to represent the “ma” of “maharajah” is a case in point.

60 Francisco, , Indian Influences in the Philippines, p. 19Google Scholar.

61 Zhao Ru-gua, , Zhu Fan-zhi (Taiwan Bank Economic Research Office edition; Taiwan, 1961), p. 35Google Scholar. An English translation of the work is contained in F. Hirth and Rockhill, W.W., Chau Ju-kua: His Work on the Chinese and Arab Trade in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, entitled Chu-fan-chih (St. Petersburg, 1911)Google Scholar.

62 Wolters, O.W., “A Few and Miscellaneous Pi-Chi Jottings on Early Indonesia”, Indonesia, no. 36 (1983): 49–65Google Scholar. See p. 63.

63 Tuo-tuo, et al. , Song Shi (Beijing Zhonghua Shuju, 1977), juan 489, p. 14,087Google Scholar.

64 Ma Duan-lin, , Wen-xian Tong-kao, juan 332, “Champa”Google Scholar.

65 Burns, P. and Brown, R.M., “Eleventh-Century Cham-Philippine Foreign Affairs”, in Ancient Town of Hoi An, ed. The National Committee for the International Symposium on the Ancient Town of Hoi An (Hanoi, 1991), pp. 64–67Google Scholar.

66 Ptak, R., “The Northern Trade Route to the Spice Islands: South China Sea — Sulu Zone — North Moluccas (14th to Early 16th Century)”, Archipel 43 (1992): 27–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

67 Moor, J.H., Notices on the Indian Archipelago and Adjacent Countries (originally published Singapore 1837, reprinted Frank Cass and Co. Ltd., London, 1968). See pp. 46–47Google Scholar of “Mr Dalton's Essay on the Diaks of Borneo”.

68 Tarling, N., Piracy and Politics in the Malay World: A Study of British Imperialism in Nineteenth-Century South-east Asia (Melbourne, 1963), pp. 112–14, 117Google Scholar.