Hokkien Spanish Historical Document Series IDictionario hispanico Sinicum arte de la lengua Chio Chiu

Abstract

The Hokkien Spanish Historical Document Series I contains two manuscripts from the 17th the Dictionario Hispánico Sinicum held in the archive of University of Santo Tomas in the Philippines, and the Arte de la Lengua Chio Chiu held in the Library of the University of Barcelona, Spain. Both manuscripts were joint works written by 17th century Spanish Dominican missionaries and Hokkien Chinese who lived in Manila. The Dictionario Hispánico Sinicum has more than 1,000 pages, 27,000 Hokkien vocabulary, and stores words and idioms that covered the all-inclusive details of Hokkien daily life in the Philippines 400 years ago. They presented a concrete image of Hokkien people interacting with Spanish culture in the Philippines in the Age of Discovery. The Arte de la Lengua Chio Chiu is the earliest extant Hokkien grammar book written by Europeans. From a Spanish perspective, it introduced Hokkien, the most important business language in East Asian seas at that time, to the Europeans.A proud collaboration project initiated by scholars from Taiwan, Spain, Germany, and the Philippines, the publication of these precious documents provides a vivid picture of the history of Hokkien-Spanish exchange in the Philippines in the Age of Discovery.