Yasmien C. Iroy

1. Identify the writer's thesis and purpose
2. Analyze the structure of the passage by identifying all the main ideas
3. Has the article been presented clearly, accurately, and with order and coherence? Why?
4. How is Philippine Literature presented by the author?
5. Discuss the significant developments in the history of Philippine Literature from pre-colonial to colonial periods according to Blake.

          It is undebatable that the Philippines has a rich history even before being colonized for hundreds of years by different nations. The Philippines is a country made of diverse groups of tribes. We had our literature and wrote stories that are still well-known up to the present (Culture of The Philippines, n.d.). The diversity in the country gives rise to a wide range of literature pieces all around the country. However, Philippine literature adopted and acquired diverse literary qualities from other countries due to colonialism in many nations. Not only that, but throughout many generations, the literature we had was passed on orally- in other words, through word of mouth (Godinez-Ortega, n.d.). Because of this, it changed our way of writing and how we build our written and oral literature. 

          Frank R. Blake wrote "Philippine Literature" in 1911 in the English language. We can see Blake's work through the American Anthropologist book that Wiley and the American Anthropologist Association later digitalized to preserve. The passage is nine pages long, incorporating pages 449 to 457 of the book. He discussed almost the entirety of Philippine literature in all its forms. However, he focused on the various dialects in the Philippines. The author explained his point clearly, and concisely and made his point. With Philippine Literature being the thesis of his entire piece, his purpose of writing the passage is to identify the different characteristics of Philippine literature throughout generations that passed.

          The article analyses the many types of literature in various native Philippine languages. Blake depicts the Philippines as separated into three distinct individuals: agnostic families, the Mohammedan Moros, and the Christian clans. Every line has its language; some are composed. Blake starts with the nonreligious families and clarifies how the more significant part of their dialects is not collected. Large numbers of crafted by the writing of these individuals write in Roman sort, and most of the writers are teachers who have attempted to change over them. Hence a large portion of the writing in this area revolves around religion as the fundamental subject. Blake gives instances of writing from each family and some concise foundation data on each.

          Articles, essays, and academic papers all follow a similar pattern. It begins with an introduction, the body or middle text, and a conclusion. The passage written by Blake followed the typical structure with his introductory paragraph discussing or highlighting the three primary ethnic tribes present in the Philippines. Blake begins his work with the accompanying assertion, "The dialects of the Philippine Islands, to the extent that they are known, structure a firmly related gathering of tongues having a place to the Malayo-Polynesian family...". Then, at that point, proceeds to layout different linguistic elements that distinguish the country's dialects from each other. Then, Blake examines the Moro individuals who have two primary dialects utilized in their space, Sulu and Maguindanao. These dialects have both Malay and Arabic starting points. The principal Moro compositions are original and cover historical chronicles, lawful codes, religion, and fictitious stories. Generally, all Moro books are composed by Moros. The last individuals are the Christian clans of the Philippines. They had different local dialects before the Spanish triumph of the sixteenth century; however, these were not composed and are, for the most part, neglected. They disseminated a few books in local dialects such as Tagalog and Bisayan. Blake recounts in detail how these refrains were phonetically structured. The subject that many of these types of writing center around are religion.

          For people to clearly understand particular works of literature, there must be an organization of ideas. It's part of the different elements of literature. Given that the author showcased his points and paragraphs specifically, he presented his ideas and topics accurately and coherently. He was able to do so by showing examples and providing information referenced from credible sources. In writing the piece, the author used literary devices that helped convey what he meant. As an example, he used simile in comparing Moro manuscripts and Arabic books. He made it easy for the readers to understand that the Moros took inspiration by deriving their learning from Arabic and Malay sources through literary devices. Also, taking note of the fact that the author used a specific structure in making this piece helped the readers understand the goal as to why the author wrote the article. The author's system of writing or just the form of the whole article, in general, is also why the entire written work is orderly. Though I must admit, there were lapses in the division of the paragraphs making some points hard to understand; it was probably an error while digitalizing the book. We can use this type of error to explain how our literature has been altered in many versions while our ancestors preserved it. In terms of the author's information accuracy in the article, he cited sources and referenced credible sources of information. Even though the author was native of American nature, he researched his facts and took his time to cite his references. While doing so, he also added his opinions about the topics he discussed.

          Philippine literature represents pre-historic stories or works and the colonial heritage of the Philippines and stories up to the present. It has different periods: The pre-Colonial Period, and Colonial Period, which had three eras- American Colonial Era, Spanish Colonial Era, the Japanese era, and the Post-Colonial Period. However, the author focused on the pre-Historic era of Philippine literature. He presented it in a way that he started at the very roots of our literature. Talking about how influenced the different Philippine languages and dialects are by almost all the islands of the Pacific. However, he also spoke about how each prominent tribe in the Philippines has its distinct language. Later, though it was not specified, he discussed the Philippine literature during the colonial period. He talked about the Spanish discovery and conquest in the 1600s and how the Christianized Filipinos possessed native alphabets. Regardless, it's not prominent anymore and, maybe at this age, is already forgotten. He also focused on the Moros, the natives of Mindanao who have been prominent or living in the area ever since the pre-colonial period. He expressed that the speech of such a tribe is the most powerful address in Mindanao. He listed the classification of their writings and then compared it to that of Arabic script.

          The possibility of the Philippine dialects framing a particular gathering separated from different dialects has gone on down to the current day, with the idea of the Philippines broadly acknowledged also contended. Philippine dialects share numerous lexical things that people find in different dialects outside the Philippines. There have been no changes in the framework or linguistic examples of Philippine dialects. The everyday verbal things are the outcome, not changes in the country. Still, instead, structures have been shared the effect of millennia exchanging to what is in the Philippines.

          Blake shows what Philippine literature has come to after its developments since the prehistoric period. He expressed his take on Philippine literature to show people the scope and the personality of works in the various languages in the country. Looking at his take on Philippine literature, it is evident how much our vocabulary, style, and wording have changed. From the influences of our colonizers to our developed style, there was one goal in writing- to express ourselves. No matter how diverse the people and the different dialects in our country are, we are all connected through our history and literature. Blake concluded the piece by mentioning how people were amazed by the similarity of each dialect in the Philippines. The possibility of fusing these languages into one so that we would have our national language was acknowledged by Blake, not knowing that years after the publication of his work, Filipino is our national language (Valdeavilla, 2018). However, he did acknowledge that Filipino is a language wonderfully fitted for academic growth due to its richness of form and enormous flexibility and requiring only the master touch of some great native writer to bring its latent capabilities to bloom. All in all, the article that Frank Blake wrote has proved its point and expressed its purpose. With a very diverse country, from its culture to its different dialects, Frank Blake did an excellent job talking about this country's literature.