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A notice of the Alphabets of the Philippine Islands. Translated from 

 the " Informe sobre el Estado de las Islas Filipinas," of Don 

 Sinibaldo de Mas, Madrid January 1843. Vol. I. p. 25. By Henry 

 Piddington, Sub-Secretary Asiatic Society, %c, $c. With a plate. 



The Indians were not strangers to the art of reading and writing. 

 I give (fig. 1. of the annexed plate) some Alphabets of different pro- 

 vinces which I have procured. It will be seen, at once, that they have 

 all a common origin, or rather that they are one and the same. The little 

 communication amongst these people for many years or ages, intro- 

 duced alterations in their caligraphy as in their language, which was 

 also probably at first but one stock. 



Father Juan Francisco de San Antonio says, that they write like the 

 Chinese, in perpendicular lines, and this error was copied by Father 

 Martinez Zuniga, M. Le Gentil and others, who have written on the 

 Philippines. Nevertheless, by documents which I have had in my pos- 

 session, particularly from the archives of the convent of St. Augustin, 

 in Manilla, I have ascertained that it is read from left to right, like our 

 own. In fig. 2, is represented a fragment of a transfer of landed property, 

 written in Bulacan in 1652, on Chinese writing paper : 



And in fig. 3, two signatures with their equivalent renderings of the 

 names, in our characters. To this same family of written characters 

 would appear to belong (fig. 4) an inscription cut on a plank, which was 

 found in 1837, by a detachment of Troops, in the mountains inhabited 

 by the savage tribes called Igorrotes. 



But withal, no books nor any kind of literature in this character are 

 to be met with, except a few amatory verses written in a highly hyper- 

 bolical style, and hardly intelligible. It would appear, that their letters 

 partook of this oriental redundancy. 



