Ancient Philippines

Calderón, Sofronio G., 1878-1954？Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.5

Word count: 144K words
Chapters: 15

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Dating Pilipinas by Sofronio G. CalderónAuthor: Calderón, Sofronio G., 1878-1954?,Language: Tagalog, Class: DS: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Asia, Release Date: Feb 18, 2006

Editor's review

Dating Pilipinas is by Sofronio G. Calderón (1878–1954?), with the main text in Tagalog; Project Gutenberg classifies it under Asian History (DS). Judging from the title and classification, it is a work written in Tagalog dealing with Philippine history and local accounts, a historical source text by an early twentieth-century Filipino author writing in the national language. Its value lies first at two levels, language and historical source: on the one hand, it provides a freely available electronic text of a Tagalog historical manuscript, making it convenient to observe the usage of early Tagalog written language in historical narrative; on the other hand, it records how a Filipino author of the time organized the narrative of his country's history and which places and events he chose to include, which is of reference value for studying Philippine historiography, the local chronicle tradition, and national-language publishing. When reading, note that the author's birth and death years are marked with a question mark and that biographical information is limited, so one should not over-infer his motives or the circumstances of composition; at the same time, it should be regarded as a narrative of a particular era rather than a neutral, comprehensive history.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Academic readers studying Philippine history and Southeast Asian local chronicles
Language learners of Tagalog who need corpus material in historical style
Scholars of book history interested in national-language writing and early local publishing
Librarians and archivists collecting public-domain electronic texts of Southeast Asian historical sources

Not a good fit for

General readers unfamiliar with Tagalog who have no parallel translation to rely on
Readers wanting an introductory, comprehensive, and well-structured Philippine history
Readers expecting critical historiographical analysis from a contemporary perspective

Reading tips

First confirm the language and typesetting of the edition at hand, and prepare a Tagalog dictionary or parallel materials before entering the main text.
Compare the book's narrative with contemporary Spanish- or English-language Philippine historical sources, noting the author's selections and narrative stance.
Make index cards by place name and event to sort out the geographical scope and time span covered in the book, facilitating later verification.
If used for language learning, choose short passages for close reading and copy high-frequency historical vocabulary rather than plowing through the whole book.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book in English or Tagalog?

According to the Project Gutenberg record, the main text is in Tagalog, not English. Readers unfamiliar with the language need a dictionary or parallel materials; if you are only looking for English-language books on Philippine history, this book is not suitable.

Is it a novel or a historical work?

Project Gutenberg classifies it under DS, i.e., Asian History; given the title and the author's background, it is closer to a historical and local-account text than a novel. The exact format should still be determined from the main text; before reading, you can look at the table of contents and preface to judge how it is organized.

Is the author's biographical information reliable?

The record gives the author's birth and death years as "1878–1954?", with a question mark after the death year, indicating that the relevant information is not fully certain. When reading and citing, one should not infer his complete career or motives from this; claims about the author's background should be verified against authoritative bibliographies.

Is the electronic edition suitable for research citation?

The Gutenberg edition can be used as a free electronic text for searching, excerpting, and preliminary reading, but academic citation should verify edition information and page numbers and compare it with the print or authoritative electronic edition. For judgments about historical facts, other contemporary sources and secondary research are also needed.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Calderón, Sofronio G., 1878-1954？ Author · Filipino · 1878–1954

Sofronio G. Calderón (1878–1954) was a Filipino writer and language scholar. He is best known for compiling the English–Spanish–Tagalog dictionary Diccionario Ingles-Español-Tagalog, a work that earned him a place in the field of Philippine reference and language works. Besides the dictionary, he also wrote Dating Pilipinas, which deals with Philippine history and language and culture. Public information about his life is limited, and the question mark after his year of death indicates that the record remains uncertain, so his biography should not be over-interpreted. Overall, his writing focuses on language organization and historical narrative, reflecting the multilingual cultural situation of the Philippines during the alternating Spanish and American influences, and offering reference value for later language learning and research.