Vocabulario de la lengua tagala
When El Adelantado Miguel López de Legazpi and his companions, including six Augustinian missionaries, arrived in the Philippines on 13 February 1565, they encountered a complex linguistic landscape.
The first missionary to focus on the study of Philippine languages was the Augustinian Martín de Rada (1533–1578), who was reported to speak Visayan and Chinese fluently.
A notable and original work published by the Augustinians is Estudio de los antiguos alfabetos filipinos by Cipriano Marcilla y Martín (1851–?
Despite arriving in the Philippines after the Augustinians, Franciscans, and Jesuits, the Dominicans were the first to publish Arte y reglas de lengua tagala in Bataan in 1610.
Francisco Blancas de San José (died 1614), who promoted the printing press in the Philippines and is considered one of the foremost experts in Tagalog of his time.
It was not until the end of the 19th century that José Hevia y Campomanes (1814–1904) published Lecciones de gramática hispano-tagala in Manila in 1872, which saw twelve reprints in a few years.
These trends attracted a growing number of Europeans—soldiers, civil servants, missionaries, and businessmen, predominantly Spanish and with higher cultural levels than previous arrivals—to the islands.
Eligio Fernández published Nuevo vocabulario o Manual de conversaciones en español, tagalo y pampango in Binondo in 1876, which was reprinted eight times.
In 1887, Método teórico práctico y compendiado para aprender en brevísimo tiempo el lenguaje tagalo appeared in Barcelona, authored by Julius Miles, a pseudonym used by a military doctor.
Wenceslao E. Retana (1862–1924), a Spanish historian renowned for his studies on Philippine history, published a pamphlet titled Los antiguos alfabetos de Filipinas in Madrid in 1895.
Plasencia, recognized for his proficiency in Tagalog, continued the tradition of linking language and culture, following in the footsteps of earlier Franciscan linguists and ethnologists in New Spain.
He arrived in the Philippines with his parents as part of Miguel López de Legazpi's expedition, settling initially in Cebu and later moving to Manila by 1572.
In 1578, Salvador's parents entrusted his education to Juan de Plasencia, who furthered his knowledge of Visayan and Tagalog, the principal languages of the Philippines.
Fray Miguel de Talavera, who passed away in Pila, Laguna, Philippines in 1622 at around sixty years old, acquired an exceptional command of the Tagalog language, attaining profound insight into its nuances.
He authored numerous catechetical and spiritual works, though only one, titled An casalanang ipinag cacasala nan onan otos nang Dios (Sins committed against the first commandment of God), was published in Manila in 1617 in a bilingual edition featuring Spanish and Tagalog.
Subsequent Franciscans continued Buenaventura's linguistic efforts, such as Agustín de la Magdalena (died 1689), who published Arte del idioma tagalo in Mexico in 1679.
The Vocabulario of Fray Pedro de San Buenaventura represents the culmination of a project initiated during the Custodial Chapter in Manila in 1580, developed over nearly thirty years of missionary effort by the Franciscan Order in the Philippines.
Fray Pedro acknowledged the challenges he faced during its compilation, stating, "This Vocabulario, Señora – said Fray Pedro in the dedication to the Virgin Mary – cost me a lot (as you well know), because when I started it, bored with the hard work and the thought that it was going to cost me any, I put perpetual silence, but considering my innumerable obligations, I turned on myself and determined to continue and bring it to light only for God and for you...".
Initially dissatisfied with xylography used in 1593, Father Francisco Blancas de San José introduced movable type printing to the Philippines.
