Essay name: Indian influences in the Philippines
Author:
Juan R. Francisco
Affiliation: University of Madras / Department of Sanskrit
This essay explores Indian cultural influences on the Philippines, focusing on language and literature. It aims to fill a largely unexplored gap in this area, addressing the misinterpretations from previous studies that lacked tangible evidence.
Chapter 1 - Sanskrit in the Philippine languages
87 (of 132)
External source: Shodhganga (Repository of Indian theses)
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Indian origin.
This may be assumed through the pre-sup-
position of an Indian contact, which actually occurred at
a period early enough for the languages of the Indian
archipelago to assimilate the numeral within a reasonable
time. 167
But it has been pointed out that the word is
"derived from Austronesian 'DUWA' (Jav. ro, Hova rua, Fiji,
Futura and Samoa, lua) which has been treated by Otto Demp-
wolff as a native Austronesian word".168 A reconstruction
of duwa or dewha, "two" has been attempted by Isidore
Dyen. 169
Earlier, R. Brandstetter 170 showed that "the re-
semblance of dua to the corresponding Indo-European (Sans.)
numeral is merely fortuitous," for it also occurs in the
languages that have not borrowed from Sans. 171
The numerals that were actually borrowed from Sans.
begin with "ten thousands" and reach the highest possible
figure, i.e., "one hundred millions". A Table of Numerals
p. 137.
1670f. I. Dyen, "Malay Tiga, Three", Language, xxii,
168 Loc. cit.
169" Malayo-Polynesian Word for TWO", Language,
Language,
xxiii,
p. 50-55.
1700p. cit., p. 129.
171cf. Saleeby-2: that Mag. numerals "one" to "ten",
and "one hundred" are derived from Sans. Saleeby's deriva-
tion is not acceptable.
