2023.07.25

National Tsing Hua University (NTHU) in Taiwan received recognition from the Spanish royal family and was awarded the first prize from the Duke of Soria International Hispanic Studies Seminars for discovering important historical documents dating from the Age of Discovery over 400 years ago.
 
The discovery was made by a multinational team led by NTHU's Associate Professor Fabio Yu-chung Lee (李毓中) from the Institute of History. The documents found by the team reveal exchanges and mutual language learning between the Spanish and Hokkien people. Based on these documents, the team has published several research papers and books.
 
The Seminars were organized by the Duke of Soria Foundation for Hispanic Science and Culture, which was established in 1989 by Duchess Margarita de Borbón (the aunt of the current Spanish King Felipe VI) and her husband Carlos Zurita. The foundation aims to promote Spanish language research worldwide.
 
Based on the 9-volume Hokkien Spanish Historical Document Series they have published in recent years, Lee's multinational team presented their research under the theme—"The First Contact of Two Imperial Languages: Chinese, Spanish, and Hokkien Manuscripts in the Southeastern Coastal Region of China during the First Globalization.” Their research earned them the first prize in the Seminars. The second place went to the team from Algeria, and the third place to the team from Cuba.
 
On behalf of the research team, Lee traveled to Spain earlier in July to receive this honor from the Duke of Soria, Carlos Zurita, and also held a three-day seminar exchange. Lee presented the 9-volume of Hokkien Spanish Historical Document Series published by the NTHU Press as a gift to the Duke.
 
The Duke carefully examined the 17th-century Hokkien-Spanish dictionary reproduced and published by the team. He was pleasantly surprised to see annotations made by Spanish people at that time which read "Ca Goa Ta Tung Lang Oe" (Teach me to speak the language of the Chinese), indicating their efforts to learn Hokkien. This series of books will be held at the Duke of Soria Foundation for Hispanic Science and Culture.
 
In addition, the team also donated this series of books to the National Library of Spain, and they were personally received by the library director, Ana Santos Aramburo. Ambassador José María Liu (劉德立) of the Republic of China (Taiwan) also attended the ceremony to witness this grand event of cultural exchange between Taiwan and Spain, and he praised it as a highly successful example of people-to-people diplomacy.
 
In 2017, Lee and the international research team made a significant discovery at the archives of the University of Santo Tomas (UST) in the Philippines. They found the world's oldest and largest extant Spanish-Chinese dictionary, the Dictionario Hispánico Sinicum, which contains more than 1,000 pages with nearly 30,000 Hokkien lexical entries. This dictionary provides insights into various aspects of life during the Age of Discovery, and it is considered one of the most important resources for the study of the ancient Hokkien language today.
 
Lee recalled that this manuscript, which was buried among other files, was marked as "of little value" (Vale muy poco) by a priest who did not know Chinese characters. However, this seemingly dismissive comment only piqued his curiosity. Upon delving deeper into its contents, he was astonished to discover that it was, in fact, a precious document that contained a collection of vocabulary and slang essential to the daily life of overseas Hokkien-speaking people who lived over 400 years ago.
 
The manuscript included terms such as "雞籠淡水" (Ke-lâng, present-day Keelung; Tamsui, present-day Tamsui District), indicating that the Spanish had learned some Hokkien during their occupation of northern Taiwan.
 
Lee's team undertook a comprehensive investigation of the text, including research, compilation, and editing work, which spanned several years. They collected valuable documents such as the Grammar of the Zhangzhou (or Hokkien) Dialect, and the Philippine Chinese Manuscripts in the Herzog August Library from places like Spain and Italy. Currently, the Hokkien Spanish Historical Document Series stands at nine volumes, making the team a global leader in the field of Hokkien-Spanish research.
 
Lee, who has a deep passion for Spanish and maritime culture, pursued his doctoral degree at the University of Seville in Spain. His research focused on Latin American history, the history of Spanish maritime development, early Taiwanese history, and Philippine history.
 
Lee mentioned that while many Taiwanese researchers tend to study the early colonial history of Taiwan under Dutch rule, there is actually a wealth of historical materials from the Spanish colonial period that remains largely unexplored. He views this unexplored territory as a cultural treasure waiting to be thoroughly discovered and appreciated.
 
"I've always believed that when the whole world knows you are conducting this research, historical materials will somehow come to you," said Lee. He began receiving little-studied historical texts from all around the world, including the Philippine Chinese Manuscripts in the Herzog August Library from Germany.
 
At the time, all scholars believed it was a Cantonese-Portuguese dictionary. However, with his understanding of Manila's history, Lee immediately recognized from the terms "澗頭" (jiàntóu) and "澗尾" (jiànwěi) in the manuscript that they referred to the Pariáns district, which is the residential area of the Chinese in Manila. This revelation confirmed that it was, in fact, a Hokkien language dictionary.
 
Currently still in Spain for research and intellectual exchange, Lee noted that the Hokkien Spanish Historical Document Series will continue to expand. He expressed hope that the research achievements of NTHU will be included in the UNESCO Memory of the World program alongside other ancient Hokkien and Spanish documents from the 16th and 17th centuries.
 
The members of Lee's team come from various regions, including Taiwan, Macau, mainland China, the Philippines, Spain, Germany, and others. Among the researchers from Taiwan are Professor Emeritus Chinfa Lien (連金發) from the NTHU's Institute of Linguistics, Professor Ying Cheng (鄭縈) from the Institute of Taiwan Languages and Language Teaching, Professor Luisa Shu-ying Chang (張淑英) from National Taiwan University's Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Research Fellow Tsung-jen Chen (陳宗仁) from Academia Sinica's Institute of Taiwan History, and Ph.D. student Louis Ianchun NG (吳昕泉) from NTHU's Institute of History.
 
The team also expressed their gratitude for the long-term support received from various institutions, including the NTHU's Research Center for Humanities and Social Sciences and Office of Research and Development, Academia Sinica's Institute of Taiwan History, the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, the Tsao Yung-Ho Foundation of Culture and Education, the National Museum of Taiwan History, and the National Science and Technology Council's Research Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences.