The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-01-10
LIMOGES IN THE PHILIPPINES.
A Missionary Writes About the Diff
culties of Acquiring Them.


- culties of Acquiring Them.
James b. Rogers, now gagged in mis-
sionary work in the Philippines, wrltes
Perhaps the obstacle that looms
most threatenngly before us at present
is the question Of the language. One
who lives in country like ours can
scarcely understand how it is possible
thatin travelling fifty miles one meets a
change of dialect, and that it is estima-
ted that among these nine million peo-
pie there are from forty to sixty differ
ent dialects.
"In the narrow circle of our own
home we have people who can speak
total of seven or eight languages. My
teacher, who comes in every day,
speaks Tagalog and Spanish. The boy
who polishes our floors, fills the lamps
and cares for the children for the sum
of five dollars a month can speak his
own language, which is Bicol, the
tongue of southeastern Luzon Tagalog,
Spanish and Pampango, the language
of his wife. Besides this, an lllocano
and Chinaman shed the light of their
countenances at times on our home. So
you see we have English Spanish, Por-
tuguese, Talalog, Ilocano, Bicol Pam
pango, Chinese eight in all. And the
gospel should be preached in every one
of the languages Fortunately, the IAN
guages are somewhat similar, being all
of the same family. The Tagalogs, who
are the strongest race, both numerically
and Intellectually, say that If one has
their language he will be able to learn
any of the others that he may need
very easily. Resting on that assurance
l am studying the Tagalog with what
seems very little success.
MY colleague, Mr.. Hibbard is still
at work on the Spanish, and is rapidly
learning to speak it.
He is, however, haunted by the feed
ing that when he gains a working
| knowledge of 1t, it will be useless be-
cause so small proportion of the peo-
pie speak Spanish and because English
will soon take the place of Spanish. All
this is a bit discouraging. | think that
he will soon take up the Visaya, the
language of the southern islands, and
of almost equal Importance with the
Tagalog, with view to opening anoth-
er station when the war is over. At
present he is visiting the southern part
| of the archipelago to spy out the land
/ iIli Liz tp~dloS iii'ciSHhii'es' pts
have so little time for study apart from
my other duties that | fear it will take
long time to conquer it. Then, again,
when one is ten years younger than |
am 1t is easier to manipulate the vocal
cords to tit new sounds. However, it is
necessary, and am sure that we shall
be able to learn the tongue of this peo-
pie.
The language is of Malay origin and
quite similar in its construction, they
say, to the Malay. 1t is a root lam
suage. Maybe the term is not soienti-
! fic, but it expresses my idea. The lam
guage Is made up of roots or short
words of elementary meaning, mostly
of two syllables. TO these roots are af-
fixed and prefixed particles, short syla-
bles, sometimes one, at others four.
There is no plural, one must use a sep
arate word to denote the plural. There
are no differences due to gender; you
speak of the female SON for daughter
and male spouse for husband
"Adjectves are formed by placing the
syllable m before the root and their
comparatives and superlatives by rep |
etition of the root. For example ma
tamis-tamis' means sweetest. The plu- |
raj of the adjectives is formed by the |
repetition of the first syllable of the |
root as in English one might say beau
beautiful when speaking Of more than
one person. Perhaps our 'goody-goody' |
comes from the same idea.
THE verbs are similarly formed, and
seem at first glance very simple There
are no moods, no numbers, no person,
an ,pIx, etx, To-,
for this, however, there are seventeen
regular ways of forming the active and
an equal number in the passive, each
with it's special particle. Then there
are three sets of particles used to form
the passives. This does not count a
fair number Of extras, also used at
times. The principle is that each of
these seventeen different sets of parti-
cles gives to the root different mean
ing, such as cause, power direction to-
ward or from, pretense, repetition, plu-
rality &c
For example the same word is used
for all these variations. The word or
root 'suat means to write, and is used
with the particle 'um as 'sumuat.'
'ManuIat' is to write as business
like a copyist. 'Maysulat' means to be
able to write 'Magpasulat means tell
him to write And there are others.
Now let some bright mathematician
calculate how many variations can be
obtained from thrty-four particles, six
lenses and three kinds Of passive.
But this is prosy, and. perhaps, I'M
to some. Fortunately one
does not have to use all these varia-
tons, for in the spoken lansua ges the
simple root forms are used to great
extent. There is pleasant ripple
about the language, and it has no {
harsh sounds. The pronunciation Is c
simple and easy, and, on the whole.
there is chance that the language will S
soon be acquired.
This large number Of languages pre- t
sents great difficulties to the transla- =,
tors and publishers of the Bible. Up to V
the war there wis only one translation S
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