{"id":34894,"date":"2018-02-23T14:11:58","date_gmt":"2018-02-23T18:11:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/?p=34894"},"modified":"2018-02-26T12:03:43","modified_gmt":"2018-02-26T16:03:43","slug":"exploring-tagalog-grammar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/2018\/02\/exploring-tagalog-grammar\/","title":{"rendered":"Exploring Tagalog Grammar"},"content":{"rendered":"

By:\u00a0 Alia Levar Wegner, ARB Intern<\/em><\/p>\n

The University of Cincinnati\u2019s Archives & Rare Books Library holds a rare first edition of Sebasti\u00e1n de Totanes\u2019s Tagalog grammar, Arte de la lengua tagala y manual tagalog para la administraci\u00f3n de los Santos Sacramentos<\/em>. \u00a0Printed entirely on rice paper and bound in vellum, this book served as a Tagalog language primer for Spanish missionaries.<\/p>\n

\"Tagalog<\/a><\/p>\n

Left:\u00a0<\/em> Vellum cover of Arte de la lengua tagala <\/em>(PL6053 .<\/em>T7 1745),\u00a0 Right: <\/em>Title page<\/p>\n

Sebasti\u00e1n de Totanes (1688-1748) published his grammar in Manila in 1745 after spending 30 years as a Franciscan missionary in the Philippines. Language and empire went hand in hand in the Spanish colonies and the Spanish influence on the Tagalog language is apparent not only in what Totanes included in his grammar but also what he omitted. Excluded from the book is Tagalog\u2019s native script known as baybayin<\/em>, which Totanes references on the first page, \u201cNo se trata de los Caracteres Tagalos. (The Tagalog characters will not be treated here).\u201d Baybayin<\/em> is related to the Brahmic script and was widely used among the Tagalogs and other linguistic groups prior to Spanish colonization in 1521. \u00a0Below is contemporary rendering of the baybayin <\/em>alphasyllabary.<\/p>\n

\"Baybayin

Baybayin<\/em> alphasyllabary. (Image from: Diringer, David. The Alphabet: A Key to the History of Mankind<\/em>. New York: Philosophical Library, 1948)<\/p><\/div>\n

Instead of using the indigenous script, Totanes transliterated Tagalog words into the Latin alphabet or, \u201cCaracteres Castellanos,\u201d as he calls them. Totanes was not alone in romanizing the Tagalog language. Spanish missionaries began rejecting baybayin <\/em>as a written vernacular as early as the 16th<\/sup> century when they found the syllabary too complex and ambiguous for the purposes of missionary work. Totanes reveals the cultural impact of colonial script selection on the indigenous population, \u201c\u2026rare is the indio <\/em>who knows how to read Tagalog characters and rarer still is the one who knows how to write them. All of them read and write our Castilian characters now” (the original Spanish can be read below). Despite the efforts of Spanish missionaries to replace the indigenous script, the use of baybayin <\/em>never completely disappeared in the Philippines and survives to the present day.<\/p>\n

\"First<\/a>

First page of Arte de la lengua tagala. (PL6053 .T7 1745)<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By:\u00a0 Alia Levar Wegner, ARB Intern The University of Cincinnati\u2019s Archives & Rare Books Library holds a rare first edition of Sebasti\u00e1n de Totanes\u2019s Tagalog grammar, Arte de la lengua tagala y manual tagalog para la administraci\u00f3n de los Santos … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,13],"tags":[1481,67],"class_list":["post-34894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arb","category-uclibraries","tag-rare-book-occasional","tag-rare-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34894\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}