PITFALLS OF THE VOCABULIST. 47 
of Christie’s vocabulary of the Sindangan river mouth with many 
additions. 
c. Without mark of division begins a second English alphabetiza- 
tion of common vocables amounting to 206 items. ‘This is based on 
Christie’s vocabulary of Nueva Reus. 
d. In the same abrupt fashion begins yet a third English alpha- 
betization amounting to 88 items. 
e. A brief supplement of 11 entries without order. 
The sum of the items contained in this material is 881. 
3. A collection of Subanu words typed on 28 folios closely spaced. 
Each folio has four columns, respectively Subanu, Visayan, Spanish, 
and English. ‘This collection also exhibits two efforts. 
a. The earlier 8 folios are words and phrases chosen at random, 
301 word items, 47 phrases ranging in relative utility from “give me a 
drink”’ to the ultimate theology of “good and wicked people will be 
well distinguished on the day of judgment.”’ 
b. Beginning at the top of the ninth folio the material is alpha- 
betized by the Spanish column of equivalents. This alphabetization 
goes only as far as the Spanish initial m and but briefly into that 
section, for the last entry is under malgastar. In each initial the colla- 
tion has been done very lazily. For example, the entries under a cease 
at acumular, 65 entries in all. Turning next to b, the compiler has 
entered 43 items, under c 44, under d 46, under e 67, under f 39, under g 
43, under h 44, under 1 86, under j 22, under 1 47, under m 24. The 
sum of this section is 570 entries and the sum of the whole collection is 
918 items. Including the sum of the manuscript material with that 
which has been typed, we have 1,799 items, many of the items contain- 
ing four or more Subanu vocables. 
It is this third group of Subanu material which makes it pertinent 
to give here some detailed attention to the pitfalls which lie in wait for 
the unwary and the untrained vocabulist. ‘These pitfalls are many 
and well hidden; it is not until a language has become well studied that 
its terrain becomes free of such dangers, and even then it is but a small 
group of the persons born to any speech who may be trusted to employ 
it without risk to themselves and to their hearers. Far worse, then, is 
the plight of the one who, without a safe guide, endeavors to thread the 
way of reason through an ill-comprehended speech. 
Here we must take under consideration the problem of what trans- 
lation really is. Is it sufficient to take this or any sentence, to seek in 
the French, the German, the Ural-Altaic dictionary, as you will, the 
recorded equivalent of each word in turn? Have we done all when we 
have associated these equivalent vocables in accordance with thesyntax 
of the language into which we are supposably translating? 
Who eats cherries? It will make a large Teutonic difference 
whether one translates wer isst or wer frisst. 
