Note 13 — Chapter II

In the same collection of voyages, I found a dictionary of only five terms which the Spaniards were able to learn in the Patagonian coast. One of those terms was Baláy13 which signifies “house” in that language; and with that same word do the Pampangos and Visayans designate house. It may be a mere coincidence which does not prove that the languages of various people are identical. But, seeing that in addition to this the names of South America sound like those of Philipinas, I tried to find some dictionary of that land. Not finding one I examined carefully the few words of the language of Chile which Ercilla has in his Araucana,14 and I found them sufficiently like the Tagálog language. The name “Chile” is not strange to this language where the cormorant is called “cachile.” It is also a pronoun which the Malays apply to the sons of kings. “Chilian,” which is a village of Chile, is a Tagálog composition, in which, adding an “an,” we have a word which signifies “place,” and we get “cachilian” which signifies “place where there are cormorants.” Mapocho, the site of the city of Santiago, is another Tagálog composition that signifies “place.” Thus from pocquiot, a kind of herb, we get mapocquiot, a place where that plant abounds. Apo is the name given to him who governs, and that name is applied by these Indians to him who has any authority in the village. In Chile, words and phrases are reduplicated: as Ytayta, Biobio, Lemolemo, Colocolo, etc. The same is done in the Tagálog and thus we say: Ataata, Bilobilo, Lebomlebom, and Colocolo. The other words are either Tagálog or very similar, and the connection that is found in so few words in these two languages is [too] great to say that it is accident, although it is not sufficient so that we can say that they are dialects of one language.