page_title: Sangley
section_title: Etymology
hierarchical_section_title: Sangley / Etymology
caption_attribution_description: English: Sangleys are Chinese immigrants to Spanish colonial Philippines. Detail from the Carta Hydrographica y Chorographica de las Yslas Filipinas (1734) shows four Sangleys; the two gentlemen on the left are well-dressed and are members of the Principalia - the upper class. One is a Christian, the other a heathen - a non-Christian. The two individuals on the right belong to the working class - one is a fisherman and the other is a porter.
context_page_description: Sangley is an archaic term used in the Philippines beginning in when it was Spain to describe and classify a person of mixed Chinese and Filipino ancestry.
  Intsik is the native term used to refer to the Chinese in general.
  Tsinoy is a term currently used by some to refer to a person of Chinese descent born in the Philippines.
  The Chinese had entered the Philippines as traders prior to Spanish colonisation. That development increased some work and business opportunities. Many emigrated to the Philippines, establishing concentrated communities first in Manila, then in other cities.
context_section_description: Sangley is the romanisation of the word "生理" from either Cantonese "sang¹ lei⁵" or Philippine Hokkien "sng-lí" extract from the Boxer Codex Dasmariñas record to the King of Spain, it also contains the probable earliest romanisation of Japan as "Iapon"." The majority of Chinese sojourners, traders, and settlers in the Philippines during the Spanish colonial period came from southern Fujian and spoke Hokkien, leaving their mark on Filipino culture (especially the cuisine). Although mestizo de sangley literally means "mixed-race (person) of business," it implies a  "mixed-race (person) of Chinese and indigenous/Indio (Filipino) descent" because many early Chinese immigrants were traders and intermixed with the local population.  Outside the Philippines, the Spanish word mestizo (without the qualifying de sangley) is normally used to refer to persons of mixed European and non-European ancestry, but the lower number of European mestizos in the Philippines made the term mestizo come to mean mestizo de sangley. For example, Benito Legarda used this definition when talking to the United States Philippine Commission (1899–1900), citing Wenceslao Retana's Diccionario de filipinismos (1921).  The term chino mestizo was also used interchangeably with mestizo de sangley.
  In 16th to 19th century Spanish Philippines, the term mestizo de sangley differentiated ethnic Chinese from other types of island mestizos (such as those of mixed Indio and Spanish ancestry, who were fewer in number. Their Indio ancestry (generally on the maternal side) made the Chinese mestizos be granted the legal status of colonial subjects of Spain, with certain rights and privileges denied to the pure-blooded Chinese immigrants (sangleys).
  Today, Tsinoy (from the word Tsino or Chino in Spanish, and the word Pinoy) is widely used to describe a Sangley, a person with similar features to a Chinese native, and a person born of Chinese descent.
caption: Sangleys as depicted in the Carta Hydrographica y Chorographica de las Yslas Filipinas (1734)
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