海外华人文化 Chinese Cultures Abroad WWW VL Back to Chinese in Southeast Asia

SOURCES: Maps and other documents summarized in "Eastern Central and Southern Asia 1141 A.D.," pp. 38-39, sectors H-5/H-6; "Asia under the Mongols 1290 A.D.," pp. 42-43, sector G-4; and "Asia During the Ming Dynasty — Boundaries of 1415 A.D.," In Albert Herrmann, An Historical Atlas of China, new edition (General Editor: Norton Ginsburg), (Cambridge: Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph series, vol. 1, 1935/Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1966), pp. 38-39, sectors H-5/H-6; pp. 42-43, sector G-4; and pp. 46-47, sector G-4, respectively. Provenance of these maps is documented at ibid., pp. xxxi-xxxii, and the Chinese characters, at p. 87, item #1653. NOTES: (1) As transliterated in the Atlas cited above, the Chinese name for the Philippines is pronounced Ma [1st {high, level} tone] - i [4th {falling} tone] Ma-id. If the final consonant of that transliteration is correct (and this is disputed!), perhaps Mai was intended as a near-homonym for the first syllable of Maynilad, the Tagalog name of the settlement later known as Manila, with the final corresponding to the final d of Maynilad. Etymologically, Maynilad is derived from two words — may ("has" or "there is") and nilad ("flower[s]"). Thus, Maynilad may be translated "[the place] where flowers grow." (2) In contradistinction from Ginsburg's rendering, Pluvier latinizes the Chinese name simply as "Ma-i," apparently referring only to the island Luzon but not to the entire archipelago. See Jan M. Pluvier, "Maritime South-East Asia in the Mid-14th Century," Historical Atlas of South-East Asia, Handbuch der Orientalistik/Handbook of Oriental Studies: Dritte Abeteilung Südostasien/South-East Asia (Leiden, New York and Köln: E.J. Brill, 1995), Map 10, pp. 14-15. Unfortunately, Pluvier does not provide Chinese characters for place names. While that omission doesn't necessarily provide that his definition is overly broad, it does not facilitate comparison with Ginsburg's Luzon-focused interpretation. Patricio Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso lend support to Pluvier's interpretation. Citing Sung Shih (Sung History) Monographs, 1345, chap. 139, as quoted in Henry Scott, Prehispanic Source Materials for the Study of Philipine History, rev. ed. (Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 1984), p. 65, they write, "Chinese records refer to 'Ma-i,' probably Mindoro, which brought goods directly to Canton [Guangdong] for the first time in 982" (State and Society in the Philippines [Lanham, Boulder, New York, Toronto and Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2005], pp. 35 and 39, n. 18). (4) Different from the above characters, the Pinyin and tones for pronouncing the syllables in 菲律宾 the contemporary Chinese characters for "The Philippines" are fi (1st tone) lu (4th tone) bin (1st tone).

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