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ENGLISH by Oona Thommes Paredes Oona Paredes is completing her Ph.D. in Anthropology at Arizona State University page
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time, but the norms of abbreviation can easily be studied and memorized. By starting out with the Pastells collection, I was able to read real text from the 16th and 17th century – and therefore learn its peculiar orthography, language, and flow – but transcribed in the consistent and easy-to-read late 19th century hand of Pastells. After studying the Pastells transcriptions for a good month, I learned what to expect in terms of abbreviations and other norms, and was therefore able to make the transition to primary sources without serious problems. From then on, all that remained was to apply the paleography I had learned in order to decode what letters the squiggles represented. A final practical word about this particular skill: it is like a muscle that requires regular exercise. Otherwise, the words again dissolve into squiggles. But the degeneration of this skill is mitigated by knowing the norms of transcription. Armed with this knowledge, you will need only a few minutes, rather than hours, to get acclimated and unsquiggle the texts. Language A working knowledge of Spanish might seem an obvious part of one’s archival toolkit, but I’ve since learned that quite a few researchers make do with relatively minor reading ability. The historian Peter |
Schreurs, for example, began his graduate research on Limasawa and Caraga armed only with knowledge of Latin, French, and Italian. With his lucky combination of great intellect and extensive historical knowledge, he worked past this limitation to learn both Spanish and Portuguese “on the job.” But most of us are not so blessed. For those who grew up in the Philippines speaking a Philippine language, Spanish will seem a familiar enough language, leading to the belief that one is able to read and understand it – as I believed as well. Certainly every Spanish word or phrase mentioned in this article will be comprehensible to most Filipinos, and at some level, we can get away with relying on instinct. But to work extensively with primary sources you will need at least an intermediate level of Spanish to do your work – viz., if you are unable to read and understand every word of a short novel or a long academic article (with a dictionary of course), then your level remains insufficient, for two reasons. First, you will have to deal with an infinite number of subtleties in the primary sources, the things that are implied between the lines or by the use of particular tenses. For example, the subjunctive is not only used for making polite requests, and the imperfect doesn’t automatically indicate that something happened in the past. There will be emotions (disbelief, outrage, sarcasm, resignation) conveyed in the documents
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that may be relevant, even critical, and even if you do not fully comprehend what is going on, you should at least be able to determine that something special is happening. It might also be important to know not only how or when something happened, but also whether it actually happened. To this end, even those who (like myself) test at a high-intermediate level will find the following book useful:
Second, given that all languages change over time, Spanish orthography or spelling has also undergone many transformations over the centuries. Don’t forget that some of the “Spanish” writers were non-native speakers of Spanish (e.g., Portuguese, Catalan, Basque), and would have spelled things “their” way. The same goes for regional accents such as the very distinct Andaluz speech pattern of southern Spain (more on this later). Other writers may have been functionally literate but not literary geniuses and would have written as they spoke, phonetically. This is not such an issue by the 19th century, but you cannot depend on your dictionary in terms of early colonial orthography; you must be able to deduce the modern and unabbreviated form of the word. Here is a snippet from an account (dated 1565) of Legazpi’s voyage: |
Here is what it looks like written in modern (dictionary) spelling: ...también les dijo el General que les vendiese algunos bastimentos de arroz y puercos y gallinas que dijeron tener de lo cual el maestre de campo vio en el Pueblo cantidad prometieron de traerlas y no lo pusieron ni volvieron más ni volvió el que se ofreció de ir a Tandaya y ellos quisieron cumplir con solas palabras sin ninguna obra. Note with dixo (dijo) and puxieron (pusieron) that you cannot simply replace every “misplaced” x with the same letter. Many “misspellings” are relatively easy to decipher, such as: rrio=rio; hedad=edad; caygamos=caigamos, qual=cual; hize=hice; muger=mujer. But often it is a whole phrase that has to be deciphered, such as: andicho=han dicho; asido=ha sido; edado=he dado; evisto=he visto.
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In addition, if you studied Spanish in the United States or elsewhere in the Americas, you will almost surely be missing the familiar second person plural or vosotros form, which is used in Spain but not in the Americas. If so, you must start paying attention to it. Beyond the academic part of the equation, you will need to know the language well enough to deal with the practicalities of your stay and your research. In the archives you will need to comprehend and communicate in Spanish to place an order for a document or request a photocopy. Such tasks are not always straightforward, and I was surprised by how complicated it sometimes became. And even if, like me, you constantly forget your vocabulary, the staff will still appreciate your effort; it may mean the difference between your copies being available today or next week, when your visa has already expired. When you have ordered to view a document that does not materialize, it may mean the difference between the staff answering with a diligent “I’ll see what the delay is about” or a haughty “It will get here when it gets here.” I say this only because I had heard from others that the staff of the Archivo Histórico Nacional in Madrid were surly and unhelpful. After my own very positive experience there, I would emphasize that any effort to communicate matters greatly, because even the most sophisticated, cosmopolitan Spaniard will grow tired of dealing with an English-only speaker. Beyond such basics, you need to take advantage of the expertise of others working in the archives (staff, fellow researchers) when you cannot decipher a word, or |
can’t figure out where to find something, which will happen very often. It will allow you to form friendships with colleagues there, the majority of whom will be from Spain and the Americas; it will allow you to attend academic lectures at local universities and institutes; and ultimately, it will expand your horizons regarding your own research. Considering the solitary nature of archival research, being able to follow a conversation in Spanish will, at the very least, make your life more bearable socially. I would like to direct an additional note on language to Filipinos in particular: Our indigenous language skills will make it relatively painless to pronounce modern Spanish (with the possible exception of the verb desarrollar). But there is also a distinct disadvantage to this because, with your ease in pronouncing the language, people will assume you know more than you actually do, and that you are either pretending to be dull or are in fact not very bright (maybe even mentally retarded). This will be on top of the inevitable issues of cultural difference you will already be dealing with. Ironically, I found that explaining my limitations got me nowhere. No one will believe you, especially if you manage to blurt out a well-practiced (and therefore flawless) Lo siento pero no puedo hablar muy bien. Eventually I decided to try changing my pronunciation to sound more “unnatural,” and the strategy yielded immediate results. People began using simpler, less colloquial words and were noticeably more patient in that I was not expected to know things only native speakers would know. Bear this in mind before you obsess about perfecting your pronunciation. |
Special Equipment If you wear prescription glasses for everyday use, consider getting a pair of reading glasses with anti-glare coating to minimize the potential for headaches from staring closely not only at paper documents but also at digitized documents on a computer screen several hours at a time. Another piece of equipment you might find handy is a large magnifying lens, preferably in a rectangular shape. Digitized documents can usually be zoomed to facilitate reading, but paper documents will not do that of course. If you are using a laptop computer, please take a few minutes to make sure that your keyboard can easily insert diacritic marks on top of and underneath letters, like this: à, í, ü, ñ, ç. You should be able to do this by pressing the equivalent mark followed immediately by the letter, e.g., for an umlaut (ü), you use the double quotation marks (A). It does not matter what word processing program you use because this is a function of the keyboard itself: you cannot program it differently. If your keyboard cannot do this in any program, you must find a different computer. Otherwise you will waste a lot of time going into the “insert character” utility of your word processing program over and over again. Diacritic marks are a key component of Spanish as a written language, and the wrong keyboard will be a big hassle. Also take note that computer keyboards in Spain are configured differently and will take some time to get used to. |
The final preparation to consider is knowing what is available in each collection. It is our great fortune that in this day and age internet technology permits us to examine catalogs and sometimes even the documents themselves from another location. With the exception of the private Religious archives, i.e., the Jesuits’ microfilm library and the Recoletos’ Provincial archive, the archives discussed below can be searched online from anywhere in the world – all you need is a stable internet connection. The “url” for each catalog is provided below under the individual archives. The online catalogs were invaluable to me in terms of general preparation as well as in writing my research and grant proposals. They were also immensely helpful in determining how much time to spend at each archive. Moreover, the online catalogs will allow you to work more efficiently, because you will have a list of documents to request the day you arrive. The gem of all online catalogs is that of Spain’s state-run archives, which is known as the AER or Archivos Españoles en Red, which is discussed the next section. The State Archives of Spain The Archivos Estatales or state archives form a vital part of Spain’s national patrimony and cultural legacy. Researchers from all over the Americas and elsewhere go to Spain to study their histories. One day at the
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Archivo General de Indias (AGI), after reflecting on the rows of Andean and Amerindian faces in the sala de investigadores or researcher’s reading room, I had to ask one of the staff archivists how he felt as a Spaniard, seeing all these Americanos studying how his people had colonized theirs, studying their revolutions against people like him. He said he tried not to think about it too hard, but that Spain had no choice but to reckon with its own past, and that there was still much to learn. I mention this to remind Filipinos of the obvious: a considerable part of our own national identity is wrapped up in those archives as well. It is my hope that eventually more and more Filipinos and Philippinists make the journey to lay claim to that legacy, if only to come to terms with the totality of our historical legacy. Think of it as an academic hajj. When you do make that hajj, you will need a Tarjeta Nacional de Investigador or National Researcher Card, which is your research permit. It is referred to in print as the TNI, and verbally as the carnet de investigador (researcher I.D.). You apply for it in person at the first state archive you visit, and if you bring the right materials with you, the application process itself will be easier than buying a train or airline ticket. There is a form to fill out, and you will be issued a temporary permit, valid until your permanent research permit has been processed and approved, which normally takes a day. If it is not too busy, someone should take you to the Sala de Investigadores (the reading room) and introduce you to the staff, who will show you how to log into, search, order and/ or view documents, and request copies from “the system.” |