Vocabulario de Lengua Tagala Celebration

The Pila Historical Society Foundation Inc. is organizing the 400th celebration of the printing of the Vocabulario de Lengua Tagala by Father Pedro de San Buenaventura. Interested parties who want to be part of this important celebration may contact the Foundation thru this email address.

As part of the commemoration preparation, the Foundation will post on this website various articles about the Vocabulario.

Interested parties may download the draft English and Tagalog version of the El VOCABULARIO DE LENGUA TAGALA DE PEDRO DE SAN BUENAVENTURA, OFM Valor historico y linguistico de un importante incunable hispanofilipino written by Cayetano Sanchez Fuertes of Ibero-Oriental Franciscan Archive, Madrid. The English translation was done by Virgil Reyes while the Tagalog translation was provided by Father Emmanuel Marfori.

Antoon Postma gave us a copy of an article he wrote in 2001 describing the seven Tagalog vocabularios written during the Spanish period. Of the seven vocabularios, only four were printed while the remaining three are currently being edited by Antoon Postma.

Antoon Postma is the editor of the Ruiz Dictionary and San Antonio Dictionary, both were published by the Ateneo de Manila University. He is now busy editing the Blancas de San Joseph dictionary and will be published by the same university soon. Download Tagalog Vocabularios article.

San Antonio Dictionary is the second dictionary written in Pila, Laguna.

How much was the Vocabulario de Lengua Tagala by Pedro de San Buenaventura in 1613? Antoon Postma gave us a microfilm copy of the tasado(appraised) and it cost 30 reales! It is worthwhile to note that the cost was edited out in the 1994 reprint of the vocabulario.

The first printed book in the Philippines, the Doctrina Christiana, the tasado was only 2 reales.

Download pdf of both 1994 reprint and microfilm copy of the tasado and compare! Please note that the British Museum seal is also absent in the 1994 reprint.