Note 109 — The Dominicans

There is no doubt but that at this time Benavides and Cobo were the two outstanding Chinese linguists among the Spaniards in the Philippines. To Benavides has been attributed109 a Chinese dictionary, and Schilling110 uses the already quoted letter of Cobo to prove that he also wrote a Doctrina in Chinese, but, granting that such works were written by him, there is no evidence that they were written in Chinese characters, and not in Chinese transliterated into roman letters. The available evidence points to the fact that Cobo was the only one who could then write in Chinese characters. Salazar in his above quoted letter had said that “one of these two [have learned] how to write also,” and in the same letter he continued, [34] “Fray Juan Cobo, the Dominican religious—who, as I have said before, knows the language of the Sangleys and their writing, and who is most esteemed by them—is sending to Your Majesty a book, one of a number brought to him from China.”111 Further witness to Cobo’s amazing knowledge of Chinese writing is given by Aduarte: