Vocabulario de la lengua Tagala : primera, y segunda parte.

En la primera, se pone primero el Castellano, y despues el Tagalo. Y en la segunda al contrario, que son las raices simples con sus acentos. Compuesto por nuestro hermano, Fray Domingo de los Santos ex-Definidor de la Santa Provincia de San Gregorio de Religiosos Menores Descalzos de la regular observancia de nuestro Serafico Padre San Francisco en estas Islas Filipinas. Y dedicado a la misma provincia. [Manila] : Reimpreso en la imprenta nueva de D.J.M. Dayot por T. Oliva, 1835. Small folio (295 x 200 mm), modern red crushed morocco with gilt ornament, spine with raised bands, gilt lettering and ornament, gilt inner dentelles, silk endpapers; all edges speckled red; title with early ownership inscription of Lieutenant Crawford Pasco, of the survey ship HMS Royalist, dated Manila, May 7th 1851; pp [viii], 739, [1], 118; printed on rice paper; text in double columns; a fine copy; with a loosely inserted manuscript note by Crawford Pasco which describes the Tagalog language, the extent of literacy among the indigenous population, and the usefulness of the Vocabulario for the ‘Romish priests’.

Originally compiled by Fr. Pedro de San Buenaventura in 1613, this important work was the first dictionary of the Tagalog language. It was enlarged and revised by the Franciscan Fr. Domingo de los Santos, who arrived in the Philippines in 1665 and, after administering parishes mainly in La Laguna, died in Majayjay in 1695. The first edition of the Vocabulario of de los Santos was printed in the town of Tabayos in 1703, eight years after his death. Only a handful of examples of the 1703 edition have survived. These include the copies in the library of King’s College, London, the Biblioteca Nacional de Mexico and another in the archives of the Franciscan order. The dictionary was reprinted in Sampaloc in 1794; and a third edition, of which the present copy is an exceptional example, was issued in Manila in 1835. Pardo de Tavera notes that the 1835 edition is almost as rare as the second edition of 1794.

Provenance: Lieutenant Crawford Pasco (1818-1898) of HMS Royalist, obtained by him in Manila in 1851 after a survey expedition to the Palawan archipelago.

Pardo de Tavera, Biblioteca Filipina, 2578