Note 14 — ANDA’S MEMORIAL, 1768

“The friars, in studying the Filipino languages, continually compared them with the Latin and the Castilian, to the grammar and genius of which they molded, whenever they could, those of the new language which they were learning. As a result, the grammars of the Filipino languages which they soon made created an artificial language, very different from that actually spoken by the islanders. Educated Filipinos distinguish perfectly this conventional language of the friars; and the latter in their turn make the charge, when they have noticed one of these observers, that the Indians when talking among themselves employ a different language from that which they use in conversations with the cura. The reverend father Fray Ramón Martinez Vigil (now bishop of Oviedo) has not failed to notice this difference; but in undertaking to explain it he falls into an error that is excusable if one considers his religious calling, which cannot admit that when there is a blunder the mistake is on the priest’s side. Speaking, then, as a priest, and doubly superior to the Indian by being a Spaniard besides, he confidently says: ‘All who have observed their familiar conversations (of the Indians) are agreed in affirming that they entirely lay aside the rules of grammar, in order to make their conversation more rapid and short—speaking among themselves a Tagálog quite different from what they use when they address the Spanish priest or any other European who understands their language.’ (Revista de Filipinas, t. ii, 1877, p. 35.) Every one who understands Tagálog has endured mortal torments thousands of times while hearing from the pulpit the sermons which a great number of religious utter in that conventional language. At present, however, the sermons that are preached are, as a rule, written in the old style, for the occasion, and then revised and corrected by coadjutors, or by citizens versed [in the native language], who shape and polish the discourse properly.” (Pardo de Tavera, note 12, pp. 58, 59.) ↑