Thomas KDeKolonizationAntiColonial 2007

K Is for De-Kolonization: Anti-Colonial Nationalism and Orthographic Reform
Author(s): Megan C. Thomas

Source: Comparative Studies in Society and History , Oct., 2007, Vol. 49, No. 4 (Oct.,
2007), pp. 938-967
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4497712
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Comparative Studies in Society and History 2007;49(4):938-967.
0010-4175/07 $15.00 ?C 2007 Society for Comparative Study of Society and History
DOI: 10.1017/S0010417507000813
K is for De-Kolonization:
Anti-Colonial Nationalism and
Orthographic Reform
MEGAN C. THOMAS
Department of Politics, University of California, Santa Cruz
In the 1890s, the initials "KKK," and sometimes just the letter
emblems of the revolutionary brotherhood that challenged the Span
state in the Philippines. The letters stood for the longer formal nam
"Kataastaasan Kagalang-galang na Katipunan ng mga Anak ng
[Highest and Most Respectable Society of the Sons of the Country
group was generally referred to simply as the "Katipunan" [So
appeared as a kind of logo on flags, seals, pledge forms, and other d
and markers of the revolutionary organization.' Though the langu
revolutionaries, Tagalog, had been written with Roman letters for
it had never used the letter "k" until a few years before the revo
waged under the banner of that very letter-instead, the hard
was usually represented with either a "c" or "qu," according t
spelling conventions. Why, then, was this radical organization's nam
"Cataastaasan Cagalang-galang na Catipunan"? Why "KKK" rather th
Acknowledgments: To Ben Anderson I am enormously indebted for guiding my rese

tirelessly reading and pushing me to continue to work on the predecessors to this a
Anderson, Susan Buck-Morss, Katherine Gordy, Derek Hall, Eva-Lotta Hedman, Isaac
Dean Mathiowetz, Adam McKeown, Radhika Mongia, Vince Rafael, Vanita Seth, a
ovich have all read and provided helpful comments on different incarnations of diff
this work, including a dissertation chapter in which I began to treat some of this ma
presented some of this material at meetings or workshops sponsored by: the So
Program at Cornell, the Harvard University Humanities Center, the Northeast A
Asian Studies, and the Institute of European Studies and Center for Southeast Asia St
keley. I thank the organizers and audiences of those events. In addition to those named
benefited from conversations on the subject with Judith Aissen, Phillip Angermeyer (wh
the title), Jeffrey Hadler, Hendrik Maier, Ambeth Ocampo, Maria Theresa Savella, and
each of whom brought helpful readings to my attention. Finally, I am grateful to thr
reviewers, whose incredibly rich suggestions, questions, and criticisms have challenge
that extend beyond what this result captures. Any errors that remain are my respon
I thank Sherwin Mendoza for reminding me that the letter "k" appeared on the f
Katipunan; see Agoncillo, 1996.
938

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K IS FOR DE-KOLONIZATION 939
The answer that we will find is both particular and general. At a ge

the answer has to do with the power of orthography to represent a l
just literally, but also emblematically and politically. In this way
different from other letters, alphabets, or scripts that might stan
markers of a language, banners of its being, proof of its uniquenes
cal moments where a spoken language can be represented by mor
script, that visual difference between the scripts generally mark
difference as well. A script represents something more than just
or words of a language; it represents a political identity that can
by the choice to employ that script over another. The story of th
Philippines has to do with this more general phenomenon: ortho
script, is politically contested.
More specifically, however, we will find that the use of the "k" as
for the revolutionary movement of the Philippines is one of a num
where the "k" is used by a group to mark its assertion of autonomy f
powerful group that has historically dominated it. That the "k" in
common to these struggles has to do in part with the different but
histories of two groups of languages which come to be represented
of the Roman alphabet: those which represent the hard "k" sound
"k," and those which represent the same sound with either "c" or
we will find is that in part because of the histories of colonialism
languages attaching to them, the letter "k" in particular is a site o
anti-colonial contestation in areas dominated by Latin-language s
tutions, or peoples. Here, the letter "k" itself comes to represent
difference and distinction of a language whose viability, legitimac
omy is in question.
This investigation into the story of "k," then, is local and glob
about the interactions between those worlds. At a local level in the
late-nineteenth-century Philippines, my research shows that we might be a
to connect different moments and movements in nationalist politics b
tracing the use of the letter "k." The contestation over the use of "k" in t
late-nineteenth-century Philippines emerged from local desires and conflict
but enlisted theories, models, and expertise from across the globe. In this
apparently first, and comparatively quite early, example of an anti-coloni
"k," we see a particularly rich controversy surrounding its introduction,
controversy in which local and global, indigenous and foreign, authent
and imposed, were categories whose meanings were contested and shifting
My argument begins with an investigation into some of the early uses of t
letter "k" in written Tagalog. Though "k" is now in standard use, when it w
adopted for the first time in printed Tagalog published in Manila, in a biling
paper in 1889, a controversy erupted that was expressed in terms of sever
different competing historical, cultural, and especially political meanings.
The new spelling system was alternatively lauded and vilified; praised

52.74.166.170 on Thu, 25 Jan 2024 13:52:01 +00:00
940 MEGAN C. THOMAS
rational and derided as senseless, promoted as a tool for the progress

nation and attacked as an agent of foreign forces. These heated disagr
were primarily between young men who self-identified as "natives"
Philippines, each of whom claimed authority to judge the worth of the p
changes, though not all of them were native Tagalog speakers.2 This
one of complex political alliances and differences in which argument
purity, utility, and rationalization were mobilized both for and agai
new orthography.
Once we understand the terms in which the argument over the letter "
waged, we will turn our attention to explaining why the "k" has been
cular subject of attention of orthographic reform in other times and p
other words, why "k" stands for decolonization. The argument will
both formal qualities of orthographies and the spoken languages tha
represent, and the historical-political context in which those languag
spoken and spelled.
A NEW TAGALOG ORTHOGRAPHY
In 1889, a new bilingual newspaper appeared in Manil

articles both in the official language of government,
education (Castilian), as well as in the language in
surrounding Manila (Tagalog). At the time, other new
only in Castilian, with the exception of one other bil
only begun its run about six months earlier. Casti
mother tongue to many in the Philippines; few Penin
outside of the walled city of Manila, and friar orders
convert in local languages rather than to teach th
tongue. The appearance of a number of bilingual new
1889, then, marked the beginning of an effort amon
beyond the Castilian-language readership (peninsul
foreigners, and highly educated natives and mestizos
public that was not literate in Castilian. This new
Espanja Oriental [Eastern Spain], was also distinctive b
in orientation, and sought to "transmit to the ind
which is within the reach of their intelligence and u
political state,"3 including lessons in agriculture, com
2 I use "natives" rather than "indigenous" because the latter term, in t

indicates groups other than those from whom these young men cam
refer to "indio," which in the late-nineteenth-century Philippines w
term as well as a re-appropriated identity for some of the young Fil
3 "Nuestros Prop6sitos," 1889. All translations are the author's unl
the source is bilingual, translations derive primarily from the Castil
space considerations, only translations can be printed; please contac
the original language.

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other practical sciences. One of its editors and primary writers was
los Reyes, a young Ilocano man (not a native speaker of Tagalog), w
few years later be imprisoned by the Spanish authorities on suspicio
involved with the revolution. That suspicion was based in part on h
efforts to publish secular bilingual newspapers during the years lea
the revolution.4 The secular thrust of Eastern Spain is more notic
we compare it to the religious orientation of its bilingual compet
Revista Catolica de Filipinas (Catholic Review of the Philippines).
Though the Catholic Review was pioneering as a bilingual newspap
part of a much older tradition of printed Tagalog texts that were alm
religious in character. Given this difference in orientation betwee
newspapers, we might expect the Catholic Review to have obje
secular aims of Eastern Spain and its neglect of religious themes.
the Catholic Review took issue with the way that the new paper s
Tagalog language. The editors of Eastern Spain had introduced a n
graphy in a footnote, writing that they would "use the orthograph
introduced by ... learned Orientalists ... believing that it bette
and represents the words of the Tagalog language."5 The foot
briefly outlined the features of the new orthography, of which w
on one: the introduction of the letter "k."6
Before we can understand why the "k" was proposed and what i
cance was, we need to review briefly a few features of the h
grammar of the Tagalog language. A member of the Austronesian
family, Tagalog has changed very little, grammatically, since the
century, but its appearance has changed dramatically.7 Before the
the Spaniards in the Philippines in the sixteenth century, Tagalog h
script, as did several other related languages of the islands.8
Spanish arrived, they recorded the sounds of Tagalog in the Roman
4 Elsewhere I demonstrate the extent of de los Reyes' work in the newspapers durin
which has hitherto been underestimated (Thomas 2006).
5 "Nuestros Prop6sitos," 1889.
6 Another significant feature of the new orthography was the "w," whose place in the
particular orthographic reform effort is quite similar to that of "k." The new orth
dropped the "u" from Hispanized Tagalog vowels of "gue" and "gui" (with a har
which in the new orthography became simply "ge" and "gi" (Tagalog has no equivale
tilian soft "g"). I focus here on the "k" to the exclusion of the others because it is par
minent as a symbol, in this case as well as in other cases of contested orthographic r
7 Wolff tells us that despite the dramatic number of Spanish, and more recently
words which have displaced older Tagalog roots, "the language itself ... has remained
stable over the past four centuries" (2001: 235). The significance of Spanish loa
become important to my argument, below.
SThere is much disagreement over the questions of how widely this script was in
kinds of texts were written with it, disagreements further fueled by the fact that n
texts survive. The oldest documented examples of pre-Hispanic scripts are those
Spanish friars (Lumbera, 1986: 22-27).

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942 MEGAN C. THOMAS
using Spanish rules of spelling and pronunciation. This Spanish, roma

orthography became standard for printed texts and the older, pre-Hi
alphabet fell into disuse. Thus late-nineteenth-century Tagalog was sp
like Spanish languages were, and the fricative glottal stop (pronounce
or less as "k" is in English) was spelled with either a "c" or "qu" (the f
before an "a," "o," or "u," and the latter before an "i" or "e.") The new
graphy used by Eastern Spain represented this sound always with a "k
Though Castilian and many other European languages conjugate verb
changing their endings, Tagalog conveys much more of its gramm
information than they do by using prefixes and suffixes, as well as i
(particles that are added in the middle of a root rather than at its begi
or end). The result of the combination of Spanish orthography with T
grammar was a plethora of spelling irregularities. As an example, if w
the letter "k," we can represent the common Tagalog verb root "kain
eat") and its relative "kinain" ("was eaten") with the same initial letter
latter being exactly the former with the addition of the infix "in." U
Spanish orthography, the root "cain" had to exchange its first let
become "quinain." The new orthography was presented by the edi
Eastern Spain as a reform to rationalize and regularize spelling in a w
would make it easier to identify the root and the grammatical insert
appendages of Tagalog words.
IS "K " A FOREIGN AGENT?

Soon after this first issue of the bilingual Eastern Spain hit the streets of
with the new orthography, the Catholic Review ran a series of articles atta
the orthography, to which Eastern Spain replied with a series of article
defense. Pascual H. Poblete, a writer, editor, and translator for the Ca
Review, attacked the credentials of those who developed the new orthog
writing that "I am not a philologist, but I am a Tagalog, by which I mean
that with respect to my native language, I can say, without bragging, that
Tagalog better, simply much better than any Orientalist gentleman (Europ
filipino not being pure Tagalog)."9 None of the cited "Orientalists" were
Tagalog speakers, and their supposedly expert authority was suspe
Poblete because, as he argued, "Tagalog is not learned in any book put t
by academic authorities of language, because up until now it has not oc
to us to form a nucleus of individuals who would [and here he echoed th
of the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language] standardize, purify, an
splendor to our words. Each Tagalog is an academic of his tongu
9 Poblete 1889. Poblete is another interesting figure; a writer in his own right, he often
rated with Isabelo de los Reyes. He was also the first translator of both the Bible and Rizal'
tangere
Ibid.into Tagalog.

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For Poblete, the new orthography was imprecise and impractical; he

if it were implemented, "almost all the Tagalogs" would read the s
incorrectly, "since they aren't Orientalists by virtue of anything ot
having been born in the Orient, nor are they learned philologists."
colleague at the Catholic Review, Pablo Tecson, also assailed the new
graphy, and the authority of those who had developed it, charging
tamper with the spelling of the language was to tamper with the
itself, that to find fault with the orthography that was commonly u
accuse the language itself of being illogical and inferior.12 Tecson
himself as a champion of the Tagalog language and invoked ag
"Orientalists" the authority of a "classic" Tagalog author, the great n
century poet Francisco Baltasar (Balagtas).13 Baltasar's Tagalog, the
authoritative language, and Poblete and Tecson suggested that in ad
the new orthography Eastern Spain was in effect insulting the grea
all Tagalogs.
If the Catholic Review appealed in its articles to its readers' patriotism
towards the Tagalog language, it did so in a way that rendered that patriotism
as also directed towards Spain and the Spanish language. The new orthography
was both impractical and unpatriotic because Tagalog was, they argued, a
Spanish language, and so must be spelled accordingly. This was most clear
in the way that the letter "k" in particular was singled out for criticism on
the basis of its being "foreign," particularly "German." Poblete protested that
Tagalogs did not know the letters foreign to Castilian, "because their first
teachers in the reading and writing of the Phoenician alphabet ... were the
Spanish, and not the English or the Germans," and he appealed to his
readers' patriotic feelings both for Tagalog and for Spain when he wrote:
"Furthermore, Tagalog compatriots: If our religion, our laws, our customs
and our entire mode of being are Spanish, why do we have to use some
letters that are not genuinely Spanish? Are the letters that have been taught
to us not enough for us to express our ideas and thoughts? Then let us
invent those that would be precise: better yet, let us revive our primitive
alphabet, before we use a letter of origin foreign to our Mother country."'4
In Poblete's rendition, his "Tagalog compatriots" were profoundly Spanish,
and Tagalog was a Spanish language. This claim could be made in the context
of a multilingual Spain; Castilian was the language of the state, but the nation of
Spain was multilingual, and so to the list of Castilian, Asturian, Basque, and
Catalonian, one might add Tagalog. Poblete's suggestion to "revive the
" Ibid.
12 Tecson y Santiago 1889b. Tecson himself is a prominent historical figure; he became secretary
of the Revolutionary Congress in Malolos at the end of 1898.
3 Francisco Baltazar (Balagtas) was author of the epic poem "Florante at Laura," probably the
first widely printed piece of Tagalog writing to be considered literary. See Lumbera, 1986.
14 Poblete 1889.

52.74.166.170 on Thu, 25 Jan 2024 13:52:01 +00:00
944 MEGAN C. THOMAS
primitive alphabet" rather than use "foreign" characters can not have
serious, given the practical difficulties of using characters which were n
familiar to anyone at this point, nor available in any existing typeset
his suggestion should be read as a claim of hyperbolic absurdity, to und
just how offensive the "German" letter was. By labeling the letter
"German," Poblete thus marked it as politically subversive to Spain, app
to anxieties about the declining status and power of Spain as a global em
contrast to the ascendant Germany (unified 1871; first colony 1884) th
recently challenged Spain in the Carolinas. Madrid's anxiety over Germ
colonial appetite had inspired its 1887 Philippine Exhibition, inten
tighten the strings of empire that bound the Philippines to the peninsu
The Catholic Review writers Poblete and Tecson, then, attacked
"foreign"-that is, non-Tagalog, and non-Spanish-origins of the new or
graphy. They claimed the orthography was suspect both because the p
who developed it were not authentically Tagalog, and because the spel
that it employed-particularly the use of the "k"-were traitorous to T
and to Spanish. In contrast, the Catholic Review writers invoked the aut
of the native speaker and classic poet's text, as well as patriotism toward
Tagalog and Spanish. As we shall see, protestations of patriotism direc
both the Philippines and Spain also underwrote political claims that w
more controversial than a single letter might indicate, claims that a st
regionalized Spanish state should include the Philippines as a reg
Spain, not a Spanish colony. The writers of the Catholic Review thus en
into ongoing and quite delicate political arguments about the relat
between the Philippines and Spain and about the potential threats
political bond between them. The "k" was significant for many in
debates who disagreed about what it represented.
ORTHOGRAPHIC REFORM AS POLITICAL REFORM
How should we understand the Catholic Review's vitriolic attacks on the new
orthography? We have already seen how a "German" label could resonate with
the prospects of Spain's decline. "German"-ness, and accusations of "foreign"
influence, also carried more particular associations, however. To understand
these, we will have to take a closer look at the history of the new orthography,
and its association with a group of young reformers. One of the "Orientalists"
credited by Eastern Spain for developing the new orthography was T. H. Pardo
de Tavera, a medical doctor, scholar of languages, and member of one of the
few filipino Spanish creole families (his with some Tagalog parentage) for
whom Spanish was a mother tongue. Pardo de Tavera had studied at the
School of Oriental Languages in Paris, and a result was his pioneering 1884
15 Sinchez G6mez 1987: 165-66.

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scholarly work, published in Spanish, comparing pre-Hispanic scripts of

indigenous languages of the Philippines. Studying the ancient alphab
Philippines gave Pardo de Tavera ideas about how to improve on the
system of romanization then in use. He saw in the old syllabic alphabet
spelling that more naturally fitted the languages of the Philippines
Hispanized Roman orthography, which, he later noted, "disfigure[d] t
gnomy of many words."'16 Reverting to the pre-Hispanic script, howev
have been impractical, whereas the Roman alphabet had clear advan
was already in use in typesets in Manila (for Castilian, Tagalog,
native languages of the Philippines), it was familiar to those who c
and write, and it was the alphabet shared not just with Castilian, b
other important European languages. The way forward, then, seeme
improve the system for romanizing Tagalog.
Pardo de Tavera publicly introduced his new orthographic sy
Tagalog in his next contribution to the study of Philippine languages
in the Tagalog Language." The body of this work consisted o
Tagalog words that he believed had a Sanskrit origin; each entry id
the word's Sanskrit root and briefly traced its likely transformatio
the Tagalog in both the old spelling and the new one. Pardo de Taver
the work with a brief explanation of the new spellings, which we
"with Latin characters that correspond more accurately to the orth
the word, according to the ancient Tagalog characters, than do the
now used according to Spanish orthography."'8 Pardo de Tavera wa
recognize the structure of Tagalog and suggest a new orthography f
because he studied Tagalog to the exclusion of other languages, but
because he studied Tagalog in comparison with foreign languages. T
spellings originated in his knowledge of foreign languages made th
Pardo de Tavera, no less "natural" for Tagalog; instead, they were m
rate or true to Tagalog's internal logic. For him, the linguistic princ
letter for one sound was objectively beneficial. He saw no need to p
older spellings of Tagalog, whether for the sake of consistency wi
spellings, or for the sake of using spellings immortalized by Baltasa
Pardo de Tavera's 1884 book inspired similar study and conclusions
Rizal, a broadly educated young native-Tagalog-speaking doctor, w
Europe pursuing advanced studies and working to promote politica
in the Philippines, along with other Filipinos about whose projects
hear more below.19 When Rizal first read the book on ancient alph
16 Pardo de Tavera 1887: 12.

17 Ibid.
s Ibid.: 12-13.
19 Rizal would later become immortalized as "father of the Filipino nation" when he was put to
death at the hands of Spanish after being charged as a "subversive." The literature on Rizal is vast.

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946 MEGAN C. THOMAS
too, was inspired to work out and promote a new orthography that would be
"more rational and logical" than that then in use, and independently of Pardo
de Tavera, he developed some of the same spelling reforms.20 He used the
new orthography when he translated into Tagalog Schiller's Wilhelm Tell as
well as some stories of Hans Christian Andersen, and was inspired in part, as
he was to explain later, by "the study that I was making at that time of the
primary schools in Saxony where I saw the great efforts of the teachers to
simplify and facilitate the education of the children."21 Rizal hoped that his
own efforts to develop a simpler orthography would "alleviate the work and
facilitate the first steps of the children," because he, like the publishers of
Manila's bilingual newspapers, thought that the future success of the country
lay in education.22 He had admired the educational system and progress of
the German nation, and he hoped Germany's successes could be duplicated
in the Philippines.23
Rizal first published the new orthography in Noli me Tangere (1887),
capturing in this Castilian-language novel, set in the contemporary Philippines,
the occasional interruptions of Tagalog into the Castilian spoken by some
native Tagalog speakers. Rizal later wrote that he used the new orthography
in this printed work, "hoping that the Philippine public would adopt it after a
reasonable discussion of its usefulness and convenience." 24 That Rizal used
a new orthography in this novel is often invisible to its students of today;
because the spelling that was new at the time has since become standard, its
newness disappears before the eyes of the reader of modem Tagalog.
The new orthography was for Rizal part of the forward-looking project of
the novel: a project to expose the problems of the Philippines in order to
inspire its people to solve them, and to garner political support to do so from
contemporaries of any nation.
Most recently, he appears as a central figure in two intriguingly contrasting studies (Anderson 2005;
Rafael 2005).
20 Rizal 1890b: 88. This piece has been translated and reproduced in the 1996 set of volumes
reproducing the entire run of La Solidaridad. I have consulted but modified that translation.
21 Ibid. For Rizal's Guillermo Tell, see Rizal 1961.
22 Rizal 1890b: 88.
23 Rizal spent much of 1886 and the first part of 1887 in Germany, where he wrote much of Noli
me Tangere. For examples of Rizal's admiration of Germany and things German see the letter to
him from his brother Paciano (dated 16 June 1885), and the letters from him to his sister Trinidad
(11 Mar. 1886) and to Jose Maria Basa (21 Sept. 1889) in Rizal 1930. See also his letters to Blu-
mentritt (12 Jan., 13 Apr., 24 Apr., 6 June, and 20 July 1887) in Rizal and Blumentritt 1961. Rizal's
first novel, whose title refers to the biblical passage in John 20:17, began with a quotation from
Schiller and was originally published in Berlin in 1887. The novel features a young hero who
himself admires certain advances that Germany has made, and the educational system it provides
for its youth (Rizal 1958). Rizal's admiration of Germany had already been a point of public pol-
itical accusations by a conservative peninsular Spaniard, Vicente Barrantes (Rizal 1890a: 32).
24 Rizal 1890b: 88.

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Without being aware of each other's work, then, both Pardo de T

Rizal developed a new orthographic system that each believed
more appropriate for the present and future needs of the Tagalog
and its speakers. Through Rizal's efforts, the new orthography ca
used and advocated by many of the young men who were workin
in the Philippines or in Europe, to promote liberal and secula
reforms in the Philippines.25 By 1889, members of this internation
of progressive Filipinos had begun La Solidaridad ("Solidarity"), a fo
published first in Barcelona and then in Madrid, to promote the cau
political reforms in the Philippines by proposing to bring its laws
istration in line with those of Peninsular Spain. While the newspape
ters often had political leanings more radical than those publicly p
the paper, the paper promoted liberal bourgeois ideals of political
and social development in the Philippines. It proposed that Spain re
unique power and influence that the friar orders had over political
the Islands, power and influence that was quite unlike anything t
enjoyed in the Peninsula. Aiming to secure the sympathies of pot
in peninsular Spanish political circles, La Solidaridad was consisten
of any administration in Madrid or Manila that it saw as bending to th
interests of friar orders, and it was often officially prohibited from c
the colony. Many of those involved with the paper were those who
worked to promote the new orthography, including Mariano Ponc
Serrano Laktaw, and Marcelo del Pilar, in addition to Rizal and
Spain's de los Reyes.
In 1889, the same year that Solidaridad appeared and just a coup
after Rizal's novel and Pardo de Tavera's Sanscrito, Pedro Serrano
schoolteacher and one of the young men working to promo
reforms, published the first volume of his Spanish-Tagalog dictio
work was both the first dictionary that used the new orthograph
first book ever published in which Tagalog prose appeared in the
graphy in whole phrases and sentences, rather than as just single
The author announced in the work that he "hope[d] to make a cont
philology by adopting the orthography employed by learned Orien
In this manner, it is easy to distinguish the root and the affixed c
25 As Rizal later wrote, by 1887 he had urged his friends to adopt the new ortho
apparently at least some of them had already done so (ibid.). See also Rizal
46-47. The standard work on the Propaganda Movement is Schumacher's book
name (1997). Also particularly useful on the movement's relationship to penins
are Schumacher's volume of collected essays (1991), Anderson (2005) and Sark
The politics of language, particularly, in this movement have been recently analy
(2005) in a way quite different from that I pursue here.
26 Serrano Laktaw 1889. For a contemporary's account of its innovations, see Pard
1994: 406.

52.74.166.170 on Thu, 25 Jan 2024 13:52:01 +00:00
948 MEGAN C. THOMAS
of each word, writing is less complicated, and the spoken word is represented
more accurately, none of which is true with the orthography which has been
used until now."27 Serrano Laktaw hoped that by simplifying the process of
reading and writing, the new orthography would improve instruction in the
Philippines; if it was easier for students to first learn to read and write in
Tagalog, he thought, it would also be easier for them to learn to read and
write in Castilian. These themes were echoed in the book's prologue, written
by Marcelo H. del Pilar (more famously known for his political agitation and
writings in Solidaridad), who emphasized the importance of teaching Castilian
to students in the Philippines; he hoped that the book would "contribute to the
diffusion of Castilian in this archipelago, which [being] a part of Spain, should
be Spanish in its language, just as it is Spanish in its government, Spanish in its
religion, in its sentiments, in its habits and in its aspirations."28 Del Pilar
professed patriotism to Spain and Spanish law, while simultaneously professing
respect for the Catholic religion (when in its proper sphere, outside of that law),
strategies he commonly pursued in La Solidaridad. Del Pilar promoted
teaching the Spanish language in the Philippines because it was through that
language that the more secular, liberal laws and administration of peninsular
Spain could be brought to the colony. Friar orders had traditionally opposed
teaching Castilian in the islands because they exercised political power there
in part through keeping Castilian, and so the texts, ideas, civil liberties, and
contested politics of Peninsular Spain, out of reach to all but a very few of
the islands' elites.29 For del Pilar, Serrano Laktaw, Rizal, and the rest of the
young propagandists, Spain was a place where they had more liberties and
more opportunities for debate and criticism than they did in their home
country, and Castilian was the language through which they were able to
access those liberties.
It was in the pages of La Solidaridad that Rizal outlined his position on the
new orthography and articulated its political meaning, in his 1890 "On the New
Orthography: A Letter to My Countrymen." In this piece Rizal responded to the
Catholic Review's Tecson and Poblete, both by addressing their criticisms, and
more broadly by explicitly discussing the issues of patriotism and language the
two authors had raised. Rizal encouraged his readers to think of the question of
orthography as a political question, but he encouraged them to reach different
conclusions from those of the Catholic Review. Eastern Spain had also
responded to the criticisms of Tecson and Poblete, but its response had
focused on the logic of the new orthography and its utility; Eastern Spain
did not overtly push the political implications of their position perhaps
27 Serrano Laktaw 1889.

28 del Pilar y Gatmaytan 1889.
29 See Rafael (2005) for theorization of this power of Castilian.

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because of the censorship of the Manila press. Rizal had more room t
certain political positions, however, in La Solidaridad.
Rizal opened his appeal with a picture of a classroom in the Phili
painted to accentuate problems that he thought were holding back th
When you were attending the town's school to learn your first letters, or when
teach them to the littler ones, your attention must have been drawn, as mine w
great difficulty that boys encountered when they got to the syllables ca, c
because they didn't understand the cause of these irregularities or the reas
sounds of some consonants change. Whips rained down, punishments we
and repeated ... . And finally I considered that those syllables, that cause
such tears, would be of no use to them at all, since in our spoken language
ancient orthography, [we do not have some of these] syllables that belonged to
Inviting his readers to identify both with the suffering boys and wi
reminded his "countrymen" that he was a native Tagalog speaker, ass
authority of authenticity that The Catholic Review had denied Pardo
Noting that both he and Pardo de Tavera had simultaneously worked
orthography, without knowledge of each other's work, he wrote tha
found out afterwards, he "rejoiced because I saw that I was not th
with that idea, that it had appeared almost simultaneously in our
The scientific validity of their work was confirmed by their havin
the same results independently.
After a long section where he detailed the technical features of th
the new orthography, he came to the question of patriotism, and wh
had (and had not) to do with it. Again, he invoked the Tagalog
sympathy for their former selves, as boys struggling in the class
for their own sons, actual or imaginary, who would continue to to
mountain unless a new orthography was adopted:
Why torture the boys into learning [Spanish syllables] when they have to sp
other than Tagalog, because Castilian is completely forbidden to them? If lat
occasion to learn this latter language, then they will study these combinatio
do when we begin to study French, English, German, Dutch, etc. No one in
as a child the French or English syllabary: Why, then do the children of the to
kill themselves in learning the syllabary of a language that they will never hav
The only thing that they can gain is a hatred of their studies, seeing that they
and useless.32
In contrast to others' claim that the new orthography would help Tagalog
speakers learn Castilian, Rizal made it clear that he thought it was not primarily
for the sake of the privileged few who studied the Spanish language and who
went on to study other languages that the reforms should be introduced. Instead
it was for the sake of most Tagalog children, who would likely never become
30 Rizal 1890b: 88.

3 Ibid.: 88-89.
32 Ibid.: 91.

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950 MEGAN C. THOMAS
literate in Castilian. What he proposed, he stressed, was that Tagalog

be made easier for Tagalog children to learn to read and write. Tagal
linguistically distinct from, but equal to, Castilian, and the logic of ortho
dictated that it follow that distinct nature.
Rizal rebuked the provincialism of Tecson and Poblete that objected
supposed "foreign-ness" of the letter "k," writing:
It is, then, exceedingly childish ... to reject the use [of the letter "k"] saying th
German origin and taking up the issue in order to make boasts of patrioti
patriotism consisted of characters of the alphabet. "We are Spaniards above
its opponents, and with this they think that they have performed an act of
"We are Spanish above all! And we reject the "k" of German origin!" I am s
nine-tenths of these patriots of my country's alphabet wear hats that are g
German and perhaps genuinely German boots, too! What? Then where
patriotism? Do Germany's exports rise when we use the "k," more than w
import and wear German things? Why not wear a chambergo [a Spanish fe
salakot [a native Philippine hat], or a hat made of buntal [palm fibers], if
such protectionists? Does the "k" impoverish us? Is the "c" a product of our c
It is very easy to be a patriot thus.33
Mocking the shallowness of the professed patriotism of his opponent

teased that even the absurd suggestion of a millinery patriotism would
logically sound than an alphabetic patriotism. (Though such patriots mi
ridiculous in their unfashionable hats, at least their hats would have a
connection to Spanish agriculture and manufacture in a way that letter
alphabet lacked.) He closed his piece with an invitation to those who we
tical of the new orthography, inviting them to join the men who are inte
"the free sphere of scientific facts."34 He was confident that "in the
reform] will come to be generalized ... we are sure that, convinced of it
tages, [the skeptics will] have to consider it to be nothing but the n
rational, and easy writing of our harmonious language."35
Rizal's article took on the writers of the Catholic Review for having
on the foreign and especially the allegedly German influence of the
graphy. It may have been that those writers knew something of the sc
social, and political connections of those promoting the new orthogr
Pardo de Tavera's linguistic training in France, though "foreign," do
seem to be the primary target; the interloping letter "k," the focus o
anxieties, was German. Their criticism included both the repeated cl
the letter "k" was particularly German and that it was definitely not
(and therefore not Tagalog). They gleefully reminded their readers o
supposed German origins of the new orthography, signing one of the
with a pseudonym "hindi aleman" ("not German"), and demonstr
33 Ibid.: 90.
34 Ibid.: 92.
35 Ibid.

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point about conjugating Tagalog verbs by using the Castilian

"German" ("aleman") as if it were a Tagalog verb root, coining
"to do German" ("umale-aleman"), "was made German" ("inalem
"to be made German" ("alemanin").36 Germany might have been a
target both because of the anxieties about rising German power in
Pacific world, and because Rizal, already a controversial figure at
had at times admired Germany and compared it favorably both to
the Philippines, as we have already noted. It is also possible that c
between Isabelo de los Reyes, the editor of Eastern Spain and
much of its content, and those who were more visibly memb
reform movement, including Ponce and Rizal, were either known or
and that the Catholic Review wanted to taint its competition by ass
with the more controversial newspaper La Solidaridad. In claim
simultaneously loyal to Tagalog and to Spain, the writers of th
Review invoked Solidaridad's own claims to be motivated by l
Spain and concerned to preserve Spanish sovereignty in the Philip
Catholic Review's invocation of Spanish loyalty both echoed the r
own protestations, and, perhaps, challenged them.
The heated exchanges between Eastern Spain and the Cathol
continued for several months. Nevertheless, in January of the foll
(1890), the two papers merged, apparently because neither could a
continue publishing in competition with the other. This merger r
not only a failure of the bilingual publications, in the sense that th
public could not support both papers, but it also indicated that de
fierce debate in the pages of these publications about Tagalog orth
and the differences between the two papers' positions on the role o
some of the main goals of the two papers were similar. Both c
themselves advocates of Tagalog education and vehicles for upl
Tagalog people; the argument about orthography underscored a de
how they believed these goals could best be achieved, but that
merge into one bilingual paper is testament to the urgency that b
felt for the project of having a bilingual paper, no matter what the or
it employed or the status it accorded religion. Indeed the staffs of the
had overlapped, despite that certain members of each had attacked t
virulently. The new bilingual publication, La Lectura Popular [The
Reader or Popular Reading], was run by de los Reyes, the mov
behind Eastern Spain, but who had also worked on the Catholic Re
major figures from the Catholic Review became contributors to T
Reader as well.37 In the pages of the new paper, some of the Taga
36 Hindi Alemin (pseudonym) 1889; Tecson y Santiago 1889a.

37 Thomas 2006.

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952 MEGAN C. THOMAS
used the new orthography (or certain aspects of it), and some used the old.
inconsistency in its own pages seemed not to trouble the staff.
Whether the fight had been the occasion for expressing personal rival
which then resolved themselves, whether the respective parties simply tir
of polemics, or whether those concerned became focused on other, m
pressing projects, we do not know. In this brief period, however, the or
graphy had been introduced and fought over, in terms of its political an
patriotic merits. While all of those involved in the debate agreed that th
was political significance to orthography, they differed over that significa
Noticeably, however, the new orthography would resurface in the Philipp
a few years later as a different kind of symbol, one that was distinctly
German, but also and primarily, distinctly not Spanish.
"K" FOR KATIPUNAN
The new orthography was not immediately adopted

months following the controversy that I have describ
not consistently used by bilingual periodicals in Manil
(even those which were associated with de los Reye
promoted it in Eastern Spain). By 1892, however (t
wrote about the orthography in the pages of La So
clearly and consistently re-emerge as a symbol of the
brotherhood, the Katipunan, the organization that began
tion.38 As early as its first year, official Katipunan doc
been written using "k." Once they got their own pres
lengths to acquire the letter types essential for com
special difficulty acquiring some of the letters "nee
type, including the letter "k."39 Sometime in 1896, ju
was discovered by the authorities (a discovery that sp
the Katipunan was using membership forms printed wit
close look at this form reveals that this letter is of a d
that of the other letters, showing that the "k" was ap
enough in typescripts in Manila to easily produce a pa
using it, something confirmed by historian Agoncillo
and the deliberate nature of the Katipunan's use of "k
38 This section relies on Agoncillo's Revolt of the Masses (1996), wh

many of the manuscripts and documents to which he refers, including m
k is clearly illustrated. The examples that follow in this section are al
name of the organization itself is significant: Ileto also notes that there w
"katipunans" besides the revolutionary Katipunan, but in the names of al
punans" that he gives, the word is spelled, tellingly, with a "c," catip
39 Agoncillo 1996: 81-85.
40 Ibid.: 59-60. One can see a similar phenomenon in the pages o
confirms that "k" was among those letters that the Katipunan press h
of, because of how commonly it is used in Tagalog (Agoncillo 1996

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KKK
K*K*K*
FIGURE 1 Three of the many different Katipunan flag designs. The figure in the middle of the
bottom flag is the pre-Hispanic Tagalog script for "ka." (Author's drawings, with help from
Robeson Bowmani, based on those in Agoncillo's Revolt of the Masses [1996]).
was considered to be significant. Even more telling is the way that the letter "k"
itself came to symbolize the Katipunan, which we can see by briefly looking at
a few different versions of their flags. The Katipunan commonly used as a
symbol the initials of the first three words of the name: "Kataastaasan
Kagalang-galang Katipunan," or "K.K.K." Not every Katipunan flag used
the letter "k," but many did, and, notably, the letter was on some flags the
only figure (see Figure 1).41
41 These and other flags are described and depicted in Agoncillo (1996). One particularly inter-
esting flag, for our purposes, is that adopted by the "Magdalo" faction in Cavite, which used the
character of the ancient Tagalog script that corresponds to the letter "k." Given that almost no
one was familiar with the pre-Hispanic script, and that we have no evidence that it was used to
write the Tagalog language during this period, its appearance on the flag suggests both that it func-
tioned primarily as a signifier of difference from Spanish (and Spain), and that there might have

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954 MEGAN C. THOMAS
The prominence of the letter "k" in the Katipunan imagery and docume
has at least two important implications. First, while the Katipunan is gener
taken to be the movement of the people, or the masses, as opposed to the e
nationalist movement of the propagandists who we have met in the page
above, their orthographic choices suggest a continuity between those wh
advocated the new orthography in 1889, and those who founded and direc
the new society of the Katipunan a few years later.42 This continuity sugg
that the ideology of the Katipunan, at least at the higher levels of the pop
but hierarchical organization, might have been quite directly related to
work of the propagandists and ilustrados, not divorced from it.43 W
research remains to be done to better understand these connections, that
Katipunan adopted the "k"-when it had only recently been introduced an
had quickly disappeared from public use-requires explanation.
Second, that the Katipunan did adopt the letter "k" and that they used
emblematically suggests that the imagery or visual difference from wr
Spanish might have been part of the reason it was adopted. While the "k
may well have been embraced by this revolutionary organization for
pedagogical benefits, its use as an emblem exploited its symbolic significa
That the letter "k" appeared on the flags of the revolutionary society highlig
one of the functions of orthography: that of signifying, or "flagging,"
nation.44 As Woolard has written, "In countries where identity and nation
are under negotiation, every aspect of language, including its ... forms o
graphic representation, can be contested. This means that orthogra
systems ... are symbols that themselves carry historical, cultural, and pol
meanings."45 How a language is represented visually in writing-its ortho
graphy-helps to render that language as distinct from another in a way t
been connections between those following the linguistic studies that produced the reformed o
gra?hy and the Cavitefio Katipuneros.
Both Agoncillo (1996) and Ileto (1979), in perhaps the most important books on the Rev
tion, characterize the Katipunan as a movement of the masses as opposed to the elite nation
movement of the propagandists. May (1991) argues with this thesis, using evidence from Bat
to assert that support for the Revolution was strong among local elites, and that the eviden
unclear about how enthusiastic support "from below" was. Anderson (2005) emphasizes th
tinction between Katipunan and ilustrado projects, though he carefully details evidenc
might be helpful in tracing connections between them.
Though further research is needed to confirm this, my best guess is that one of the Katipun
founding members, Deodato Arellano, was at least one of the links between the "elite" proje
orthographic reform and the "plebian" society of the Katipunan. Arellano, in whose house the
Katipunan meeting took place, was also a member of the Liga Filipina (an organization form
Jose Rizal), and the brother-in-law of del Pilar (editor of La Solidaridad). Arellano had
initiated into masonry by Lopez Jaena in 1890. See Agoncillo 1996: 37-48, and Fajardo 1
93-94.
44 I refer here to Billig's 1995 use of "flagging," which he adopts in part from a reading
Anderson (1991). It is Billig's phrasing that I borrow in the section heading below.
45 Woolard 1998: 23.

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is politically meaningful. In this case, the banner of the letter "k" mig
to indicate the way that the distinctiveness of the language-its diffe
Spanish-was part of the claim of the revolutionaries to self-rule. W
own language; we should have our own government. This work of di
often part of the nationalist work that orthographies can do; that in
letter of the alphabet actually became a symbol for the flag suggests t
particularly effective as a symbol of that distinction.
FLAGGING THE NATION
This work of the visual representation of a language

(and the related political claim to sovereignty) has been
struggles. The look of a language can be held as a point
symbol of national identity. This can be seen perhap
script of a language is entirely unique to that langua
distinctive han 'gtl script of Korean. Fouser tells us, "[
and early twentieth centuries, the han 'gtil [script] has b
symbols of Korean national identity and pride. A
perceived as an attack on the sovereignty and pride
But more commonly, the script of a language is cont
script that is shared with no other language, but bec
be written in either of two ways, each of which has d
cance. The visual representation of a language is m
ways that it might be differentiated from its neighbors
and ideological reasons, as Irvine and Gal have shown
visible form of differentiation (quite literally), which
employed, it is worth considering this particular kind
own.47
Consider what the stakes can be when a language can

two different kinds of writing systems: the Cyrillic
alphabet is what distinguishes Serbian and Croatian fr
neither alphabet is unique to either language, in this
comes to be iconic of one language in contrast to the
the associated political identity.48 In the Dutch East In
romanize Malay languages (written in Arabic script p
might be read as an effort to distance the archip
world.49 The orthographic distinction need not be thi
even minor changes can be taken as emblematic and
46 Fouser 1999: 151.

47 Irvine and Gal 2000.
48 Franolic 1983.
49 For a wonderfully rich historical and theoretical discussion of o
angkabau and of Malay languages more generally, see Hadler 2000. Fo
reforms and the creation of Indonesian/Malay, see Viker 1988.

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956 MEGAN C. THOMAS
of distinguishing a language. For example, as Vikor has shown us, as early as

the sixteenth century strong political tensions between Denmark and Sweden
led to orthography becoming a medium of distinction between the two other-
wise quite similar languages. The resulting Swedish d and 6, versus the
Danish ce and 0, constitute "a difference which even today it seems impossible
to abolish, because it still serves as an identity marker."50 That the dominated
group (the Swedes) were those most interested in distinguishing their language
from that of the dominating group (the Danes) resonates with our revolution-
aries in the Philippines, and indeed, as we shall see, the work of orthographic
distinction has often been particularly attractive to those who perceive them-
selves to be asserting self-sovereignty against foreign, colonial, or imperial
domination.
In post-colonial contexts, discussions of orthography tend to focus on the
relationship between the (newly) national language and the language of the
former colonizer, even (and perhaps especially) when those languages
would appear to be the same. For example, in the nineteenth-century Spanish
American states, intellectuals argued over whether there were distinct
American Spanish languages (or an American Spanish language), which had
rules of pronunciation and spelling different than those of the peninsular
(Castilian) tongue.51 For these new American republics, defining the unique-
ness of an "American" language (or languages) was part of a project of defining
and codifying differences between the nation (or nations) of the Peninsula and
those of the Americas. These differences were made both more difficult and
more pressing to specify because of the creole nature of the nations and nation-
alisms. The discussions addressed both the nature of the language (was the
American language Castilian, or its own distinct language?) and its represen-
tation (should it look Spanish, or should it use different spelling conventions?).
A similar discussion took place in the English-speaking North American
colonies as they became a post-colonial republic, when some favored "a new
language for a new Republic-a 'Federal' language, as it was called."52
Though the movement lost steam, one of its legacies is that Americans go to
the "theater" rather than to the "theatre," thanks to Noah Webster's persever-
ance. Though orthographic differences between American English and
British English are minor, they constitute "by far the most wide ranging
reform of the English language ever successfully carried through, and there
is little doubt that it owed its success to a spontaneous desire to reinforce the
new national identity by means of a new national language."53
50 Vikr 2000: 109.

51 Bello 1890; Bello and Jaksic 1997; Velleman 2002.
52 Ayto 1983: 94; see also Edgerton 1943.
53 Ayto 1983: 95.

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Webster's reforms to the English language bring us back to an im

aspect of orthography, and orthographic reform movements, whi
us if we focus only on representational qualities. Orthographic ref
appeals to the value of rationalizing languages. Webster, for exa
earlier hoped to introduce more radical changes to English, b
wanted "to perfect regularity," and Rizal had written that he wante
Tagalog spelling "more rational and logical."54 In a linguistic world
rationality and therefore status were accorded to European languag
less so to languages of other places, a rationalized orthography for
might highlight what was thought by some linguists of the era, i
Pardo de Tavera, to be Tagalog's highly developed state, one w
close to "perfection" as a language, and thought to accompany a com
high state of civilization.55
But a more practical consequence of rationalizing spelling was the
it could give to literacy efforts. In Rizal's words, one of the aims of ra
the language was "to simplify and facilitate the education of the ch
Del Pilar and Serrano Laktaw, too, promoted the aim of makin
spelling more rational, regular, and simple by emphasizing the pos
for more widespread literacy.57 The push to widespread literacy w
significant factor in the process of both the rationalization and the
ation of major European languages, and these, in turn, were often
desires to standardize across variants of a language. In France,
Weber has shown us, literacy efforts played a part in promoting a
national identity in the nineteenth century: a standard orthography
of the arsenal which the state used to make Frenchmen out of pea
And though appeals to standards of English had been made long be
nineteenth century, it is in that century that the notion of a standa
is deployed in the name of mass literacy.59 Though in both of the
standardization was largely about privileging a uniform spoken
over regional variants, English orthographic reformers of the nin
century, like their Filipino counterparts, were concerned to find
perfect alphabet" for the English language.60
54 Webster 1786, as quoted in Ayto 1983: 95; Rizal 1890b: 88.

5s Pardo de Tavera 1887: 10.
56 Rizal 1890b: 88.
57 Note that this distinguishes these authors from Pardo de Tavera, whose justifica
more toward the side of scientific accuracy, and legitimacy in view of the linguistic
58 Weber himself is little interested in orthography per se, but the problem of mas
intimately bound with it, as revealed by a report that he quotes, complaining that s
"fail[ed] to understand what they read, or to recognize in writing some words th
whose orthography is alien" (Weber 1976: 337).
59 Crowley 1989: 102.
60 Transactions of'the Philological Society 1842-44, as cited in Crowley 1989: 8

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958 MEGAN C. THOMAS
It makes sense that the claims of literacy, rationalization, and standardization

would be made by the would-be reformers of Tagalog, both because their
interests in national modernization were in line with those of linguistic
reformers elsewhere during the nineteenth century, and because these aims
were, at face value, congruent with their broader claims to be pursuing
reforms for the Philippines within Spanish administrative structures. As the
later anti-colonial revolutionary Katipunan shows us, however, the orthography
itself suggests another reading, one which could not be made within the
publicly reformist stance of the propagandists. In our original example, then,
despite the protestations of those who advocated the orthographic shift to the
letter "k," in fact the "k" did and does become a sign of difference, a marker
that distinguished visually the local language from the language of the
colonizers: the Tagalog language, rendered according to Castilian orthography,
was filled with "qu" and "c," whereas in the reformed orthography, it is riddled
with "k." Even more particularly, however, the shift to the letter "k" not only
changed the shape of Tagalog words, but it helped obscure the Spanish
origins of some Tagalog words.61 As we will see, "k" promotes the same
kind of amnesia in other post-colonial orthographies, but before we turn to
other examples we need to understand how that erasure is performed in
Tagalog.
FROM CASTILIAN TO TAGALOG
As with most languages, the origins of many of Tagalo

traced to other languages. In the Tagalog that is spoken
traced at least to Sanskrit, Malay, Arabic, Chinese (
Castilian, but the great majority of the foreign roots in
These are sometimes terms that have no pre-Hispan
(such as relo or relos for "watch," from the Castili
technological terms were not the only Castilian words
roots. It is difficult to distinguish visually the Spanish
most common words of informal spoken Tagalog, th
success of the new orthography: the Castilian gCdmo e
has become kumusta, for example. While the Castil
would not have been considered by more conservative
the Tagalog language until relatively recently, they
version of the spoken language by the time of our story
It is instructive to look at how Castilian words were treated in the
Tagalog text of Eastern Spain. Many of those for which there were no
Tagalog equivalents were printed in italics, which had the effect of marking
them as "foreign." To take examples from the first page of the first issue, we
61 Thanks to Ben Anderson for drawing my attention to this aspect of the orthography.
62 Wolff2001.

52.74.166.170 on Thu, 25 Jan 2024 13:52:01 +00:00
find "prensa" (press), "Evangelio" (gospel), "gobierno" (gover

"administracion" (administration), and "ciencia" (science). But
other Castilian words and words of Castilian derivation in t
column of the same page of text that the translators chose not t
"kastilang" (meaning "Castilian," from "Castilla"), "arteng" (mean
from arte), and "industria" ("industry"). In contrast to the italic
these Castilian words blend into that text-some of them with suffixes added
according to rules of Tagalog grammar-in a way that suggests that they
could already be considered to be Tagalog. The first of those examples is the
most instructive: the new orthography changed Castilla to kastila.63 While
the new orthography might have made it easier to identify the Tagalog root
of a Tagalog word (to paraphrase Pardo de Tavera's characterization of its
utility), it did not make it easier to identify the Castilian root of a Tagalog
word. Instead, the "k"s worked to mask the Spanish origins of Tagalog
words: Spanish roots, rendered with the "k" in the new orthography, no
longer looked Spanish. The new orthography accepted Castilian words, but it
accepted them as Tagalog words, hiding their Spanish origin. It made it
easier for Tagalog, a language that borrowed words from Castilian, to have
its own vocabulary, different from the Castilian (in spelling, at least), and
equal to it. By severing the very real links between Castilian and Tagalog
that had been visible in the shapes of words, the new orthography enacted a
separation between the two languages. In this sense, the new orthography
was a "traitor" orthography, a traitor to Spain and to the Spanish language.
The writers of the Catholic Review protested that the new orthography was
disloyal to Spain, but they never complained about this kind of separation.
They complained that under the rules of the new orthography, the language
became more like the foreign languages of German, French or English,
but perhaps the bigger threat was that Tagalog became itself a language
foreign to Spain-not more like German, French, or English, but just less
like a Spanish language. Why did the writers of the Catholic Review, so
loyal to Spain and the Spanish-ness of the Tagalog language, and eager to
question their competitor's loyalty, not lodge this complaint? Perhaps they
thought that imputing German connections to their competitors-those who
advocated the new orthography-would be more damning than calling
them anti-Spanish.
But a different possibility is worth considering: perhaps it was their
patriotism to Tagalog that kept them from calling attention to how the "k"
disfigured the Castilian words that were increasingly part of the vocabulary
of Tagalog. To complain that Spanish words would no longer be recognizable
63 "Kastilang" also takes the more general meaning of"Spanish." This reminds us that the differ-
ence in spelling, in this case and others, may also signify a difference in meaning between the loan
word and its indigenized version. I thank David Akin for calling this to my attention.

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960 MEGAN C. THOMAS
as Spanish would, after all, implicitly acknowledge that Spanish words were an
important part of the Tagalog language-"pure" Tagalog did not express the
range of terms that one would need as an educated Tagalog in the advanced
and cosmopolitan city of Manila. Tagalog was no longer "pure" Tagalog,
and could not remain "pure" in a world of technological change and economic
development. The Tagalog so loved by the writers of the Catholic Review was
the Tagalog of Baltasar's "Florante at Laura"-"classical" Tagalog, fit for
metrical romance poetry, but not for describing the new penal code for the
Philippines or the latest agricultural techniques. To dwell upon the
de-Hispanization of loan words in Tagalog, then, might be to call attention to
the limitations of "pure" or "classical" Tagalog; if a language was the
essence of its speakers, then Tagalogs might also be marked as pre-modem,
simple, or unsophisticated.64
"K" IS FOR DE-KOLONIZATION
The tension enacted between the writers of the Catholic

advocated the new orthography is one which we fin
ways, in other times and places where orthographic re
The writers of the Catholic Review took a position th
the historical continuity of existing written Tagalog
debate claimed that their position was that which w
Those who advocated the new orthography touted the
and consistency in rendering sounds into writing. But p
cant aspect of the new orthography was its distinctiv
letter "k," particularly, working similarly in the
languages of would-be post-colonial, or newly post-c
which the language of the colonizer became embedd
in the local language.
For example, an explicit object of discussion, and sub
1983 conference on Quechua and Aymara Writing w
indigenous languages of Peru as much as possible fro
both of the former European colonizer, and the l
formation which dominated these indigenous gro
nation.65 One of the resolutions of the congress was
words with words devised from indigenous Quec
when this was not possible, the loan words were to
64 Irvine and Gal describe how nineteenth-century European ling

the specific characteristics and relationships of"' three different Seneg
the "putative hierarchy of racial essences" of which their respective sp
sentatives (2000: 55). The editors of the Catholic Review might have
bility of a deficient language being associated with a deficient essen
Manila's more obnoxious and racist Peninsular Spanish journalists m
65 Hornberger 1993: 243-49.

52.74.166.170 on Thu, 25 Jan 2024 13:52:01 +00:00
Quechua and Aymara orthographic rules.66 In other words, the orthography

was explicitly meant to distance the look of the written languages from the
look of Spanish. Specifically, the congress resolved to use the "k" rather
than "c" or "qu," a decision which, along with others, emphasized the aim
for autonomy of Quechua and Aymara speakers, and their "struggle[s] for
their material, political and social recovery."67 Similarly, discussions about
Mayan languages have revealed the importance of the symbolic representation
of the "k" in relation to the legacy of Spanish colonialism.68 In a 1987 confer-
ence of Mayan language speakers, the representation of "k" versus "c" and
"qu" was among the most controversial topics; the system chosen by the
conference was one which retained Roman letters (for the sake of availability
of technology to reproduce it), but which adopted the "k" in place of "c"
and "qu," "because it demonstrated less overt influence from Spanish ...
eliminat[ing] obvious and imposed Spanish correspondences."69 The confer-
ence delegates rejected the orthographic and political conclusions of an
earlier 1949 conference of linguists, in which "c" and "qu" were retained in
an explicit effort to "use ... Spanish orthographic symbols ... as a vehicle
for national integration."70 In these cases, then, when the "c" and "qu" were
retained, it was for the sake of conforming to Spanish; in contrast, when the
letter "k" was used, it was justified in part by the desire to lessen the influence
(whether lexographical or political) of that same colonial language. For speak-
ers of these indigenous languages, Spanish is a doubly colonial language: the
language both of the conquistadores and of contemporary nation-states.
Tagalog, Quechua, Aymara, and Mayan languages are examples of
languages that existed before Spanish conquest, which have selectively
adopted words from the language of the colonizer. In these cases, the ortho-
graphic shift from "c" and "qu" to "k" has particular resonance as a marker
of a pre-Hispanic language. However, the orthographic move away from the
language of the colonizer might be even more pronounced in cases where
the language itself is taken to be born of colonialism, for example, with
Haitian Creole (krey6l). As Schieffelin and Doucet have noted, kreyol as a
language is generally taken to have a grammar derived largely from West
African languages, with a lexicon largely from French.7' By changing the
orthographic rules of krevol, then, the language becomes in its visual represen-
tation recognizably distinct from French, in a way which is illustrated by the
66 Ibid.: 248-49.
67 Ibid.: 249.
68 Lenguas Mayas 1988; Richards 1993.
69 Richards 1993: 214; see also Lenguas Mayas 1988: 33.
70 Richards 1993: 208; see also Lenguas Mayas 1988: 27.
71 Schieffelin and Charlier Doucet 1994: 178. Phillip Angermeyer called to my attention the
similarities of this case to that of the Tagalog one, and this article, which originally inspired me
to look for the use of"k" in other cases.

52.74.166.170 on Thu, 25 Jan 2024 13:52:01 +00:00
962 MEGAN C. THOMAS
name of the language itself: Creole, in the French orthography, becomes kreyol,
in the otografofisyel (official orthography) of Haiti.72
One more example might help us to see the significance of the visual
separation and so political distinction that the "k" can perform. In 1960s
New Caledonia, an emerging independence movement, based on a new
pan-Melanesian identity, named itself "Kanak." "[T]he new name," Clifford
tells us, "is a critical appropriation of the generic French colonial label
'Canaque."'73 Here, the "k" indicates the critical re-appropriation of the
French, and the difference between a term that indicates how the colonizers
did not distinguish among the various ethno-linguistic groups of the area,
and a term that indicates a strategy of political and cultural affinity employed
by members of those groups against colonial domination.
As far as I know, in none of these cases did those advocating the reforms cite
a precedent in the example of another language that had similarly shifted from
"c9" or "qu" to "k"; whether they were aware of such precedents, I do not know.
It is no coincidence, however, that the struggles over orthography in all of these
cases involve the same letter. In all of these cases, the letter "k" was foreign to
the language of the colonizing power, whether French or Spanish. By the time
that these European countries were in the business of colonization, the letter "k"
was not native to either French or Spanish orthographies (which preferred the
"c"), while German preferred the "k" to the "c," and English, ever irregular,
used both.74 By the time our anti-colonial orthographers came around, then,
the "k" could itself symbolize something not Spanish, or not French. By way
of comparison, we might consider current disagreements about Cornish.
Advocates of reviving the Cornish language are divided over which spelling
system is best; one of the significant issues is whether or not to use the letter
"k." The advocates of the "k" (like their nineteenth-century predecessors in
the Philippines) are champions of a system based on rationalized representation
of basic phonetic units, and argue that the spelling is simpler and more
accurately follows pronunciation.75 What the advocates of the "k" lack in
this case, however, is both the same political urgency to standardize and
distinguish their language, and the ability to clearly distinguish it visually
from the language of a "colonizer" (English) by using the "k." Cornish, then,
is unlikely to become Kornish for more than a few.
It is a combination of historical accidents and circumstances, then, that
seems to make "k" a particularly rich site for orthographic contestation; the
predominance of French and Spanish colonization in much of the globe
72 Ibid.: 193.
73 Clifford 2000: 106.
74 How this came about is a complex story, interesting in its own right, but to tell it would require
more detail than space allows here. I refer the reader, for a start, to the entries for "K," "C," and "Q"
in the Oxford English Dictionary, 1989.
75 Lyall 2005.

52.74.166.170 on Thu, 25 Jan 2024 13:52:01 +00:00
gave many languages "c"s and "qu"s during the colonial era, which have since
adopted, as part of a move toward decolonization, an orthography based on the
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). Itself a child of modem linguistics and
movements for language reform, the IPA was devised in 1888 (just before "k"
was introduced in Tagalog) as a tool to allow every language to be recorded
according to a common standard. The IPA grew out of some of the same scho-
larly activity in which Rizal and Pardo de Tavera developed the comparative
skills which gave them the idea to use the letter "k;" that letter was in use in
the works on Sanskrit with which Pardo de Tavera studied Tagalog in compari-
son. Though the IPA was first introduced in France (a "Latin" language
country), the alphabet reflected, in part through its use of the letter "k," the pre-
dominance of English and German contributions to the science of linguistics.
Indeed, one of those linguistic scholars, the Prussian Lepsius, had developed
a Standard Alphabet decades before the IPA itself was codified, which was
intended to make it possible to record every language in the world with a
uniform alphabet regardless of the orthography of one's mother (presumably
Western European) tongue. The introduction of his work illuminates yet
another important aspect of orthographic standardization and reform that is par-
ticularly relevant to the "k."
Lepsius explained that a standard alphabet had become necessary because
the diversity of orthographies of what he called the "principal European alpha-
bets" were hindering the work of linguistic science. The letter "c," he noted,
was one which "especially" was "not to be admitted into a general alphabet,"
because it had "a different value in the principal European alphabets."76
Thus the "k" was preferred to the "c." While Lepsius was concerned that differ-
ent European orthographies prevented European scholars from using each
other's texts, more practically and probably more significantly, he thought,
the standard alphabet would make it possible for European missionaries to
share texts.7 Thus the IPA was as much, perhaps, a product of missionary
activity as it was of comparative linguistic science. This point can help us
remember that the story of the "k" is one that is limited to particular colonial
contexts for reasons of the histories of both linguistic and religious conquest.
Though Tagalog, Quechua, Aymara, and Mayan languages have shifted to
the "k" in an effort to differentiate themselves from Spanish, we might do
well to remember that the colonization of these areas and peoples was as
much Catholic as it was Spanish. For many African languages, romanization
was also a tool of Christian missionaries (hence Lepsius's concern that the
alphabets be standardized), but in that continent those missionaries were
largely Protestant, eager to translate the Bible into local languages.78 Those
76 Lepsius 1855: 32.

77 Ibid.: 1-8, 32.
78 See, for example, Chimhundu 1992; and Hair 1987.

52.74.166.170 on Thu, 25 Jan 2024 13:52:01 +00:00
964 MEGAN C. THOMAS
Protestant missionaries, often speakers of English, German, or Dutch, would

have used the "k" according to the orthographies of their own mother
tongues, and so that many African languages use "k" is as much a product
of European and Christian colonization as is the "c" and "qu" in areas colonized
by Spain and France.
Clearly, "k" does not stand for de-colonization in all times and places. If the
"k" is visually distinct from the look of Romance languages, and this is part of
what is at work for anti-colonial nationalist orthography, we might note that
even in English-which does often, though not always, use the "k,"-that
letter can be visually distinct in ways that appeal both for politics and market-
ing. Product names sometimes use "k" to make an English word into a distinc-
tive brand name ("Krazy Kom"). More weightily, while the "k" of "Ku Klux
Klan" is probably from the Greek letter (not German), the visual distinction
of "k," and the distinction of Klan terminology (its chapters are "Klavems,"
for example), may work in some of the same ways to encourage members of
the group to feel themselves to be distinct from outsiders. The association of
the letter "k" with the Klan was strong enough that, beginning in the 1960s,
those on the left in the United States could comment on their country's injustice
by referring to "Amerika."79 However, in places colonized by "Latin"
languages (and peoples associated with them), we often see that, through a
combination of historical circumstances and formal properties of spoken and
written languages, a kind of orthographic nationalism and decolonization has
been brought to us by the letter "k."
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Thomas KDeKolonizationAntiColonial 2007

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K Is for De-Kolonization: Anti-Colonial Nationalism and Orthographic Reform

Author(s): Megan C. Thomas

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4497712

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Department of Politics, University of California, Santa Cruz

Acknowledgments: To Ben Anderson I am enormously indebted for guiding my rese

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The answer that we will find is both particular and general. At a ge

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rational and derided as senseless, promoted as a tool for the progress

A NEW TAGALOG ORTHOGRAPHY

In 1889, a new bilingual newspaper appeared in Manil

2 I use "natives" rather than "indigenous" because the latter term, in t

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using Spanish rules of spelling and pronunciation. This Spanish, roma

IS "K " A FOREIGN AGENT?

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For Poblete, the new orthography was imprecise and impractical; he

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ORTHOGRAPHIC REFORM AS POLITICAL REFORM

15 Sinchez G6mez 1987: 165-66.

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scholarly work, published in Spanish, comparing pre-Hispanic scripts of

16 Pardo de Tavera 1887: 12.

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Without being aware of each other's work, then, both Pardo de T

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27 Serrano Laktaw 1889.

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30 Rizal 1890b: 88.

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literate in Castilian. What he proposed, he stressed, was that Tagalog

Mocking the shallowness of the professed patriotism of his opponent

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point about conjugating Tagalog verbs by using the Castilian

36 Hindi Alemin (pseudonym) 1889; Tecson y Santiago 1889a.

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"K" FOR KATIPUNAN

The new orthography was not immediately adopted

38 This section relies on Agoncillo's Revolt of the Masses (1996), wh

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FLAGGING THE NATION

This work of the visual representation of a language

Consider what the stakes can be when a language can

46 Fouser 1999: 151.

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of distinguishing a language. For example, as Vikor has shown us, as early as

50 Vikr 2000: 109.

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Webster's reforms to the English language bring us back to an im

54 Webster 1786, as quoted in Ayto 1983: 95; Rizal 1890b: 88.

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It makes sense that the claims of literacy, rationalization, and standardization

FROM CASTILIAN TO TAGALOG

As with most languages, the origins of many of Tagalo

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find "prensa" (press), "Evangelio" (gospel), "gobierno" (gover

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"K" IS FOR DE-KOLONIZATION