Category Archives: education

by | 12 September 2026 · 6:39 am

Silesian: Pō Naszymu

This week’s edition of Culture.pl contains an article by Agnieszka Warnke titled Pō Naszymu: A Linguistic Portrait of Silesian. Here are some excerpts.

The complexities of Silesia begin with the very origin of its name. Its turbulent history, marked by shifting borders and Polish, Czech and German influences, is reflected in the region’s distinctive speech – but is Silesian a language, a dialect of Polish, or something in between?

Difficulties already begin with the etymology of the word ‘Silesia’ itself. The popular theory in the interwar period about the word’s link to the Old Germanic tribe of Silings was rejected by Polish researchers. They almost unanimously opt for the Old Slavonic etymology: the name of the Silesians tribe and the entire region originates from the name of the Ślęza River or Mount Ślęża. Additionally, the morpheme *slęg– (meaning ‘damp’) was retained in the cant word ślęgnąć (‘to get wet’).

With time, history divided the region into two parts: Lower Silesia and Upper Silesia (with the latter appearing in the 15thcentury). While we rarely hear the Silesian vernacular in and around Wrocław, the Silesian language has survived in Opole, Rybnik, Katowice and Cieszyn, where the inhabitants use the language they grew up speaking. Officially, Silesian has the status of a dialect comprising a group of Silesian dialects, but there’s an ongoing fight – currently unsuccessful – for it to be recognised as a regional language. It’s currently used by nearly half a million people. One needs only to glance at the past to understand the important role of a common language with regard to integrating Silesians with each other but also with the Polish state.

…

Silesian Rej

The linguistic rift is fully reflective of the geopolitical situation of medieval Silesia, which then constituted an object of a feud between Poland and Czechia. As early as in the 16th century, when the Silesian land was already under Habsburg rule, Łukasz Górnicki asserted in Dworzanin Polski (Polish Courtier) that the region was dominated by Czech. One should not forget, however, the prominent Silesian pressmen (such as Hieronim Wietor and Jan Haller), working in early Renaissance Kraków. They modernised medieval spelling, laying the foundations for contemporary Polish orthography.

While one can talk about the visible weakening of cultural ties between Silesia and Polish lands at the brink of the 15thcentury – especially when compared with previous centuries – they weren’t broken completely. The Renaissance Polish language of Mikołaj Rej and Jan Kochanowski is full of turns of phrase now present in different dialects. Those who then worked to preserve the Silesian vernacular were evangelicals, notably Adam Gdacjusz of Kluczbork (also known as the ‘Silesian Rej’). The charismatic preacher was a fervent opponent of Germanisation, who introduced Silesian into literature, and his sermons, collected in a volume titled Postilla Popularis, presented the difficult life of the Silesians and the deterioration of morality after the Thirty Years’ War. In 2019, the Academic Publishing House ‘Śląsk’ (Silesia) reprinted his most popular work.

Another, earlier noteworthy text, one that remained forgotten for years, is Walenty Roździeński’s poem Officina Ferraria (1612). The simple smelter manager and forge owner described the state of his industry, listing practical information while following the conventions of poetics and versification. It was the first ever text concerning the work of a miner and steelworker written in the Polish language. It was found in Gniezno 300 years later and translated into English in 1976.

Idiotisms & beauty

The 19th century was not only a time of progressing Germanisation but also a time of uprooting dialects at schools and a ban on cultivating Slavic customs. Polish-language newspapers were released alongside German-language press, and mid-19th century was a time when Polish-language Silesian literature started to develop (by authors such as Józef Lompa, Karol Miarka, Konstanty Damrot).

At the beginning of the 1930s, after the 1921 Upper Silesia plebiscite mandated by the Versailles Treaty to determine ownership of Upper Silesia between Weimar Germany and the Second Polish Republic and the Silesian Uprisings, Zofia Kosak-Szczucka wrote in Nieznany Kraj (The Unknown Country): ’It’s a large area inhabited by around million people, speaking not another language like Polish but rather a beautiful Silesian dialect, dignified with its archaic, preserved forms.’

The reality, however, wasn’t quite as colourful. As early as 1849, Dziennik Górno-Szlązki (The Upper-Silesian Daily) included a column titled Idiotyzmy i Germianizmy szląskie (Silesian Idiotisms and Germanisms), aimed at polonising the language of the Silesians. They admonished the readers for saying siadłocha instead of kwaśne mleko (sour milk) and jata instead of szopa.. What was lacking, however, were tips on which regionalisms should be preserved. In 1880, in Gazeta Górnoszląska (Upper-Silesian Gazette), one would read:‘we don’t say kopidoł but grabarz (undertaker)’, even though it’s the allegedly Polish version grabarz that has German origins.

In Głosy znad Odry (Voices of the Odra River), released between 1918 and 1924, a the ‘Kącik Językowy’ (Language Corner) column appeared several times, contrasting the ‘weed-grown speech’ of the Upper Silesians with ‘pure language’. However, on top of German and other borrowed words and -isms, they also noticed ‘relics of Old Polish’ – words no longer present in the common literary language but preserved in that region. In issue 3/4 of Głosy from 1922, P. Piast insisted:

An Upper Silesian doesn’t use the German ‘lichtarz’ because they have the native ‘świecznik’ (candlestick), they don’t need the Greek ‘inkaust’ or the Latin ‘atrament’, already having the Polish ‘czernidło’ (ink). […] They don’t look into a ‘zwierciadło’ but rather a ‘zdrzadło’ (mirror). When they accept an invitation, it’s not for a ‘kolacja’, as ‘wieczerza’ (supper) is better. […] For a fair, a holiday or a ‘radośnik’ (‘chrzciny’; christening) they will bake a ‘kołacz’ (kolach) rather than ‘placek’ (cake), cook a tasty bite of ‘owięzie’ meat (‘wołowe’; beef) with ‘moczka’ (capitalists only know the French ‘sauce’) and a calf ‘pieczonka’ (‘pieczeń’; roast).

The post-war changing of borders and forced resettlement resulted in the Silesians having to reassess their identity. Before that, they had strongly identified with a particular town or region, but all of a sudden were required to declare their nationality. The communist regime emphasised the development of official culture, excluding regional varieties. It was only after 1989 that democracy and freedom of speech allowed us to rediscover local histories and accept language variety.

…

After the political transformation, the disputes concerning the status of Silesian were rekindled in Poland. Many would consider Silesian a regional language, confirming the linguistic (rather than national) separateness of the area. The proponents of this idea emphasise that without appropriate education, the possibility of obtaining national and EU funds for the development of Silesian press, literature or theatre, the Silesian language won’t survive. Such an opportunity was granted to Kashubian – so far Poland’s only regional language, officially acknowledged as such in 2005. Since then, it’s been taught at schools and one can even take the matura (matriculation) exam in Kashubian. There are radio and TV shows in this language (not to mention press) and there’s Kashubian literature of all genres. Why not create similar development opportunities for Silesian? In June 2019, the Sejm decided against discussing a legislation project – the fifth one since 2007 – regulating this issue.

Among linguists, opinions differ. Professor Jolanta Tambor, leading the works of the Silesian language codification group, believes that, considering the benefits of ‘a minority group having their own language, there’s no reason not to consider the speech of the Silesians a regional language’. At the same time, one ought to remember all its types: Upper Silesian, Cieszyn and Opole. Meanwhile, Professor Jan Miodek, born in Tarnowskie Góry, sees no need for a top-down codification and highlights that ‘the literary variety of Silesian is Polish’. Professor Bogusław Wyderka, who has edited the multiple-volume Słownik Gwar Śląskich (Dictionary of Silesian Dialects) since 2000, proves in his research papers that historically, the Silesian dialect was a variety of Polish, although nowadays it’s impossible to stop the Silesian language movement.

The arguments related to different linguistic traits of Silesian are either non-existent or successfully challenged. The vocabulary and phonetic features characteristic for the region are to a large extent shared by other varieties of Polish. What mostly distinguishes the inhabitants of Silesia who use their native vernacular is the strong sense of Silesian identity, the willingness to preserve and develop their own tradition and culture. Professor Tambor emphasises that today, recognising Silesian as a regional language is an exclusively legal-political issue.

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Filed under Czechia, education, Germany, language, Poland

by | 9 September 2026 · 5:34 am

Widespread Literacy in Nusantaria

From Empire of the Winds: The Global Role of Asia’s Great Archipelago, by Philip Bowring (I.B. Tauris, 2018), Kindle pp. 294-296:

As elsewhere in the maritime zone, Chinese and Europeans alike were surprised at the prominent economic role of women, particularly in trade. But even more remarked was widespread literacy, of women in particular, albeit their literacy was used only for transient or practical purposes, for messages and personal letters rather than the reading and writing of literature. Spanish priest Pedro Chirino, writing in 1604, noted: ‘So accustomed are all these islanders to writing and reading that there is scarcely a man, still less a woman, who cannot read and write.’ Similarly, de Morga wrote, of the Tagals at least: ‘Almost all the inhabitants, both men and women, write in this language, and there are very few of them who do not write it very well.’

The legacy of the Indian cultural influence which had come via Srivijaya and Java had left behind scripts which were in widespread use when the Spaniards arrived in the sixteenth century but gradually died out over the next 300 years. Although they varied according to location, all were derived from Kawi, hence arrived from Java, Sumatra or possibly Champa.

The spread and usage of Kawi-derived scripts across Nusantaria is one of the lesser-known facts of the era before Islam and European dominance brought about the supremacy of Arabic then Roman scripts. The diversity of Kawi-derived scripts was such that Bali and Madura scripts both differed from each other and from Javanese, even if largely stylistically, and Sunda had its own script. So too did the Minangkabau of Sumatra and the Bataks, the latter writing on bark rolls. Makassar and the Bugis also had their own [Lontara], as did Palawan, whose Tagbanwa script resembled Tagalog Baybayin, and Mindoro, whose related script was known as Mangyan [or Buhid, or Hanunoo]. There is debate over whether Baybayin was the result of Bugis influence – with which its script shares some unique features – or from Sumatra or elsewhere. But the essential point is that basic literacy in a local script was common throughout the archipelago.

The arrival of paper to replace palm leaves and other traditional media, and the coming of printing, undermined the position of the traditional scripts. An additional source of weakness was that they were used mainly for transient purposes such as brief letters rather than for recording laws or literature. There were important exceptions to this, notably Javanese poems and epics, and Makassarese annals. Spanish priests made some effort to translate Christian doctrines into Tagalog using Baybayin, and elsewhere some Muslim texts were written in local languages using their scripts. But the weight of religious orthodoxy and then of administrative demands, plus the commercial use of Malay written in Jawi, proved too much. The result was that Nusantaria, which in 1500 had perhaps been the most literate place in the world, at least if central Luzon is a guide, lost what could have been a singular advantage for a future era when mass literacy became a necessity for economic progress.

Nor was pre-Hispanic Luzon unique. Elsewhere, old writing systems survived for centuries. There is evidence of high levels of basic literacy in Bali, and the same may have applied to much of Java and parts of Sumatra. As late as the 1930s a survey found that the most literate province in the Dutch East Indies was Lampung in south Sumatra, where schools were few. Male literacy was 45 per cent, female 33 per cent, but the literacy was mostly in the local Lampung script, not Roman or Jawi. It was particularly used in the exchanges of poetic verses between courting couples – just as described by Alcina in the Visayas. Literacy was higher among older people, indicating that the knowledge was handed down through families, not formally taught, and was by then slowly dying.

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Filed under China, language, Philippines, education, literature, Southeast Asia, Netherlands, Portugal

by | 5 September 2026 · 6:13 am

Flowering of Malay Law and Literature

From Empire of the Winds: The Global Role of Asia’s Great Archipelago, by Philip Bowring (I.B. Tauris, 2018), Kindle p. 224:

Melaka did not just become a renowned commercial centre. It also saw the flowering of Malay law, governance and literature. Long after the sultanate had ceased to exist, it remained the embodiment of all that was noble in the Malay world. This was the product both of its own Palembang-Melayu origins and of the multi-ethnic character of a city where Tamils, Gujaratis, Chinese, Javanese, Arabs, Persians, Ryukyans, Buginese and others could all be found. ‘In the port of Melaka alone very often 84 languages have been found spoken […] In the archipelago which begins at Singapore and Karimun up to the Malukus there are 40 known languages.’ Traders from Egypt, Persia and Arabia, and others such as Turks and Armenians were also there. They could not reach Melaka in a single monsoon but came via Gujarat with trade goods ranging from arms to pearls and including opium from Jeddah and Aden.

At its height prior to the Portuguese conquest, it had four syahbandars, or trade superintendents. The syahbandars were responsible for managing markets and warehouses and checking weights and coinage. There was one for (mostly Muslim) Gujaratis, the biggest group, one for Tamils and Bengalis, one for the archipelago including Java, Luzon and Maluku, and one for China, Champa and the Ryukyus. The syahbandar trader groups show that trade with India and points west was extensive while the Chinese role by the early sixteenth century, following official restrictions on trade by the Ming, was relatively modest. Disputes between trading communities were settled by the ruler. The reputation for good governance further increased Melaka’s role. No one did more for Melaka than Sultan Mansur (reigned 1459–77). In 1468 he wrote to the King of the Ryukyus, which were almost equally trade-dependent: ‘We have learned that to master the blue oceans people must engage in commerce even if their countries are barren […] Life has never been so affluent in previous generations as it is today.’ Likewise, in 1515 the Portuguese ruler of Melaka would write to his king: ‘Melaka has nothing of its own and everything of the world.’

Melaka gave birth to the Sulalat al-Salatin (Genealogies of the Sultans), which became the Sejarah Melayu (Malay Annals), a semi-historical work which aimed to entertain and inspire new generations with edifying stories of past monarchs, their trials and achievements. It traced the Melaka kings back to Alexander (Iskandar) the Great, via India and a sacred hill in Palembang. The dynasty, according to the Sejarah, prospered and long resisted Javanese domination, but was eventually driven out by treachery, forcing its move to Temasek, which it renamed ‘Singapura’, and eventually to Melaka.

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Filed under China, economics, education, Japan, language, migration, nationalism, religion, Southeast Asia

by | 26 August 2026 · 7:09 am

Hindu and Buddhist Texts in Nusantaria

From Empire of the Winds: The Global Role of Asia’s Great Archipelago, by Philip Bowring (I.B. Tauris, 2018), Kindle pp. 98-101:

Both Hindu and Buddhist beliefs benefited over time from gifts of land made by the pious. Gradually and with royal support temples and communities of monks and priests expanded and became centres of crafts and religious art. However, adoption of Indian ideas remained selective. For instance, though societies became more hierarchical as wealth and sophistication increased, the Indian caste system was not followed. Throughout the region women played a more active role in economic life – as they still do – than in India. Balinese Hinduism always displayed different characteristics from that of India as the imported religion adjusted itself to fit existing beliefs and practices. Nusantaria borrowed writing and many words, but imported languages never supplanted the various Austronesian tongues.

Despite the rise of direct links to Java and Sumatra from India and China, the isthmus trade remained important, providing links between eastern India and the Mon, Siamese and Khmer mainland. Trade also brought Buddhism, which made inroads in competition with both Hinduism and older beliefs, though both were probably still confined to the courts and surrounding townships. Buddhism was also spurring pilgrims and missionaries to travel on merchant ships.

…

Elsewhere, too, the adoption of Indian ideas was selective rather than wholesale. While writing systems were borrowed and Indian languages used for the earliest local writing, the languages both of the court and the common people remained the local Austronesian or Khmer ones. Sanskrit for a while may have served the same priestly and official role as Latin in medieval Europe. But in time Indian Pallawa script was used to write local languages, the oldest found so far being in old Malay dating to the seventh century in Sumatra. The following century saw the development of Kawi script, derived from Pallawa but used to write old Javanese.

This script became the basis for other scripts including later Javanese and Balinese, which are still in use today. The first writing in Khmer also dates to the seventh century and uses an adaptation of Pallawa script. Six hundred years later this became the basis of Thai writing. The origin of Indian language influence also varied. Only Sanskrit words, those of religious and classical texts, not Prakrit or other common Indian speech, entered early writing in Java, but Tamil ones appeared in Sumatra. Despite the import of Indian religions, social structures appear to have remained indigenous. The maritime cultures borrowed Indian ideas in art and architecture but then adapted them so that they have distinctive aspects which are readily recognizable.

Apart from religion and script, the biggest influence was on legal and governance issues. The Indian text on statecraft, Arthashastra, and the ancient Brahman legal code, Manusmriti, were widely studied by ruling elites and had a major influence on the development of state systems. The Arthashastra, written in the fourth century BCE during the north India-based Maurya empire, which supposedly followed the peace-loving Jain religion, required rulers to be ruthless in protecting the interests of the state but disciplined, hardworking and learned. It was a secular recipe for enlightened despotism applicable to rulers of any faith. The Hindu notion of divine kingship was especially attractive to rulers, seeming to make the exercise of power something higher than mere personal leadership: a mandate from above. Buddhism on the other hand (and also Jainism) was more sympathetic to merchant interests and the accumulation of wealth. Its practitioners were also less constrained by caste issues and religious rituals, which for the devout were an obstacle to long sea journeys.

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Filed under economics, education, language, migration, religion, South Asia, Southeast Asia

by | 18 August 2026 · 5:01 pm

Overseas Filipino Workers

From The Making of the Modern Philippines: Pieces of a Jigsaw State, by Philip Bowring (Bloomsbury Academic, 2022), Kindle pp. 157-158, 164:

Economic and social failures combine with demography to create the issue for which Filipino people are world-renowned – migration. Of all the populous nations of the world which rely heavily on migrant remittances – Bangladesh, Egypt, Mexico, etc. – none equals the Philippines either in its contribution to GDP (9 per cent) or in the diversity of its migrants or the range of the locations where they make their livings. Even the range of their occupations may come as a surprise to those overseas who may tend to identify them with specific occupations such as domestic helper or seafarer.

There are indeed plenty – 20–25 per cent each – in both of those categories but at least until the pandemic, the world had witnessed nearly five decades of steady expansion in both numbers and locations. By 2019, the total employed overseas and on ships had reached about 2 million. In addition, there has been a steady stream of permanent migrants, mostly to the US and Canada but also to Australia, and, more recently, Japan, the United Kingdom, Italy and other European countries. The US community has been growing steadily for decades and now totals some 4.1 million, roughly half migrants and half locally born. There are about 1.6 million in California though at 13 per cent, Hawaii has the highest percentage of the state population, partly reflecting the migration of agricultural workers in the 1930s (see Chapter 3). The established communities of settled migrants in high income countries have been as important a source of remittances as those of the OFWs on contracts. Permanent migrants also on average have higher qualifications than OFWs. Although their links to the motherland may gradually weaken, higher incomes ensure continuing large scale financial support.

…

As for permanent migrants, the relative ease with which they have melded into their new nation works against developing strong community organizations. They are for example far less visible than Chinese in California, though their numbers are only a little less. The organizations that they create among themselves are mostly based on province or other local identity not on the notion of Filipino. Further complicating their self-identity is the reluctance of many to be identified as Asian, which many, at least in the US, associate with being Chinese, Korean or Japanese. Culturally, many feel closer to Latinos or South Pacific Islanders because of Church and language links. That most permanent migrants have gone to English-speaking countries has had an impact back home. It helps sustain some of the links and cultural affinities created by 350 years of Spanish and American rule. Awareness of common linguistic and cultural bonds to Malay neighbours, Indonesia and Malaysia, is weak despite the legacy of Rizal and of Macapagal’s Maphilindo proposal.

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Filed under economics, education, labor, language, migration, nationalism, Philippines, religion

by | 18 August 2026 · 8:48 am

Duterte’s Response to COVID

From The Making of the Modern Philippines: Pieces of a Jigsaw State, by Philip Bowring (Bloomsbury Academic, 2022), Kindle pp. 109-110:

The last two years of Duterte’s presidency were dominated by the pandemic. Although blame for what, at least by the standards of its Asian neighbours, was a disastrous outcome did not fall on Duterte in particular, but it did show up the weakness of the Philippine state and the low quality of many of Duterte’s political appointees to important ministries and operational departments – not least a chaotic and overburdened Department of Health. Duterte’s own inclinations added to the problems of the pandemic. His instinct was for controls and lockdowns over testing and tracing. The country was very late in acquiring vaccines – and Duterte’s seeming preference for China’s Sinovac rather than Western ones. The severity of lockdowns in 2020 caused the economy to shrink 7 per cent, far higher than elsewhere in southeast Asia, and brought particular hardship to the millions in the informal sector. The lockdowns were no more successful in curbing the virus than less stringent ones in Indonesia. The Philippines also kept its schools closed for longer than almost any country.

The disastrous GDP performance in 2020 was followed by recovery of only about 5 per cent in 2021 due to renewed lockdowns. Meanwhile, the government debt burden was expected to rise 11.6 trillion pesos in July 2021 from 9.6 trillion a year earlier, despite the efforts of a conservative fiscal policy team to restrain spending. Given the low debt level in 2019, the rise was not especially alarming, particularly as only one-third was in foreign currency. However, the speed of the rise showed the compounding cost of lockdowns.

Duterte took his style of government from Davao to Manila, but the nation was a more complicated place and he had little time for details or issues other than a few such as the drug war. On those details he expected immediate obedience. Cabinet meetings were largely irrelevant and ministerial access to the president was difficult. Competent ministers could get on with their jobs but incompetents often stayed in place if they were unquestionably loyal. Appointments were weighted towards associates from Davao, and to retired generals, men accustomed to following orders In Philippine politics, as elsewhere, friends and benefactors were rewarded with positions and deals, but Duterte raised this to a level well above that of his predecessor. He behaved as one seeing himself as above the law, ruling from a bully pulpit.

As the 2022 election loomed, Duterte saw a need to protect himself from prosecution should the opposition win.

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Filed under China, democracy, disease, drugs, economics, education, nationalism, Philippines

by | 11 August 2026 · 5:43 am

Rise of Religious Nationalism in Philippines

From The Making of the Modern Philippines: Pieces of a Jigsaw State, by Philip Bowring (Bloomsbury Academic, 2022), Kindle pp. 29-31:

The nineteenth century saw a sustained clash between the religious needs of the Filipinos and the colonialist views of the Spanish Church, the friars in particular. Nationalism had its roots in this conflict.

Tension between the Spanish-led Church and peasant Catholics led to the creation of the all-Filipino Cofradia de San Jose in Central Luzon by Apolinario de la Cruz, better known as Hermano Pule, who had wanted to join the Dominican order but was barred because of his race. Becoming a lay preacher, he and a Filipino priest established the Cofradia de San Jose, attached to a hospital. It gradually attracted several thousand followers and only admitted Spanish and mestizos personally approved by Pule. It combined Catholic teaching with some pre-colonial ideas. Refused recognition by both State and Church, it was seen by the governor-general as implicitly political and was violently suppressed. In a battle with followers, troops killed several hundred and Pule and other leaders were captured and executed; Pule was just twenty-seven years old. Madrid was shocked and eventually the Supreme Court admonished the governor-general saying the Cofradia was not political but had merely committed an ecclesiastical offence, but the damage had been done.

The country was in the curious position of having become devout believers in Christ while increasingly despising the Church’s principal agents the friars, the mendicants who had grown rich and greedy. In 1858, a British visitor was entertained to a dinner which would have ‘satisfied a Parisian gourmand’ meanwhile also noting that local Spanish ‘newspapers were more pre-occupied with the lives of saints than the most stirring events of the political world’.

At the same time, the Church saw growing divides between its mostly Spanish clergy and both the local priests and their flocks. The government did make efforts to extend primary education with its own schools in addition to the clerical schools but with a focus on teaching Christianity. The friars tended to ignore government demands that they teach Spanish to the Indios fearing that it would give them access to new, often secular, ideas.

In 1870, of 792 parishes, 611 were administered by the orders while the rest were controlled by secular priests, most of whom were Filipinos. The confrontation between the two sparked a surge of local identity. Political swings in Madrid exacerbated issues as a liberal governor was replaced by a conservative. A minor uprising in a Cavite shipyard was used by the government, egged on by the friars, to accuse three outspoken local priests – Fathers Burgos, Gomez and Zamora – to be tried for plotting rebellion and executed. Others were imprisoned or exiled to the Marianas. Well-to-do supporters exiled themselves to Spain.

The deaths of the three priests were a landmark. Burgos, the son of a Spanish officer and a local mestiza, was highly educated, so too were Gomez and Zamora, mestizos educated at the University of Santo Tomas. All deeply resented the inferior position of the non-Spanish clergy.

This episode fuelled the wrath of an upcoming generation of prospering new class of mestizos, elite Indios and creoles (local born Spanish) who could be educated in Europe but who at home felt the heavy hand of racist officials and the Guardia Civil. From this elite, known as ilustrados (the enlightened) emerged the Propagandists, a movement aiming not for independence but for equal treatment as citizens and representation in the Cortes (parliament) in Madrid as Cuba and Puerto Rica had been given. They also demanded the ending of the friars’ role in government, their replacement by local priests, more mass education, the curtailment of foreign – notably Chinese – economic power and a fairer tax system – the Spanish did not pay tax.

Gathering gradual momentum from 1880, by 1889 the movement was embedded among young ilustrados in Spain who published La Solidaridad, a fortnightly newspaper. The names of those involved are celebrated by street names throughout the country – Marcelo del Pilar, a lawyer, who wrote tracts in Tagalog as well as Spanish, Mariano Ponce, Juan Luna, a painter, and his brother Antonio, a future general, but most noted even then was Jose Rizal, a mestizo from Calamba near Manila whose elder brother had been a friend of Father Burgos. Rizal, a name he adopted, was fluent in several languages, a medical doctor and a writer whose first novel, Noli Me Tangere published in 1887, was a searing attack on the regime in Manila and on the friars.

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Filed under education, migration, nationalism, Philippines, religion, Spain

by | 19 July 2026 · 8:44 am

Translating for the Royal Society

From The Traveler: One Man’s Quest for Humanity from the South Seas to Revolutionary Paris, by Andrea Wulf (Knopf, 2026), Kindle pp. 51-53:

At the end of 1770, the Forsters moved back to London, taking lodgings next to Reinhold’s old school friend Woide, who had moved to Somerset House Stable Yard near the Thames. On 13 December, three days after their arrival, father and son went to the Royal Society, the nexus of British scientific enquiry where, since its foundation in the 1660s, fellows met to learn about new scientistic discoveries and exchange ideas with like-minded men. Reinhold Forster knew the Royal Society well, having attended the weekly meetings during their first stay in London. But now he wanted to introduce his son and present George’s translations (though Reinhold’s name was on their covers). So they made their way to Crane Court, a short fifteen-minute walk from their lodgings in a little cul-de-sac off Fleet Street, where the fellows met every Thursday. The president directed the meetings from a large armchair at one end of a long table, with a bust of the Society’s first royal patron, King Charles II, behind him, while the fellows sat on green-upholstered benches around the table.

At only sixteen George now found himself in the same room with some of the greatest minds in England. Almost every Thursday he accompanied his father to the Royal Society, where he sat under the watchful eyes of the portraits of illustrious previous fellows: the periwigged former president and mathematician Isaac Newton; the philosopher Francis Bacon in a lace ruff and embroidered velvet coat; and the architect Christopher Wren, who rebuilt London after the Great Fire of 1666. At these meetings George heard scholars talk about the physics of light, rare birds in the East Indies, new comets, the latest telescopes, tumours in pregnant women and subterranean geological formations. He saw animals preserved in spirits, pinned insects, a stuffed sea lion and a 24-foot snake, as well as the skeletons of a crocodile and an ostrich. He was receiving instructions unlike any other sixteen-year-old. As father and son attended the weekly meetings and published translations, their names soon spread across the scholarly world. Then, in February 1772, a little more than a year after their return to London, Reinhold was elected a fellow of the Royal Society and became officially part of the British scientific establishment.

George continued to work, translating eight volumes in total, while his father wrote and published numerous essays on botany, insects, zoology, antiquities, geography and mineralogy. ‘If I didn’t have a son of seventeen who helped me with translating,’ Reinhold admitted, ‘I couldn’t possibly do all this work.’ George began to feel like a ‘translation-machine’, but the reviews were glowing. ‘He writes our language,’ the Critical Review applauded (praising Reinhold, since only he was credited), ‘with propriety; always with perspicuity, the great requisite in the communication of scientific learning’. Another critic even declared George’s translation of Bougainville’s A Voyage Round the World ‘superior to the original’.

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Filed under Britain, education, language, science, travel

by | 18 July 2026 · 8:15 pm

George Forster’s Early Youth

From The Traveler: One Man’s Quest for Humanity from the South Seas to Revolutionary Paris, by Andrea Wulf (Knopf, 2026), Kindle pp. 27-28:

George Forster was ten when he went on his first expedition.

He was a slender boy, small for his age, but what he lacked in physical strength he made up for in tenacity during the five months that he and his father travelled through Russia. In charge of collecting and identifying plants, the ten-year-old would wander off alone, eyes wide open, searching for new discoveries—sometimes climbing trees, at others keeping his head near the ground to study the vegetation with a magnifying glass. When he returned to the tent with full bags, he would press the samples he had found between paper, carefully arranging blossoms and leaves so that he could classify them later. Soon his collection had risen to 700 specimens.

While other children sat on hard benches in orderly rows at school, learning by rod and rote, George found himself galloping on small Kalmyk horses across the Russian steppes and wading through marshes on the banks of the Volga river. He watched a violent wildfire race across the vast grasslands to the east, its ravenous flames consuming everything in its path. He remembered the terror he felt that day for the rest of his life. Instead of studying arithmetic or conjugating Latin verbs, he observed flocks of black herons, wild boars and wolves, and huge Bactrian camels used by the nomadic Kalmyks as pack animals, which evoked the stories of the Arabian Nights and Ali Baba. He met Muslim Tatar traders along the Volga, fierce Cossack warriors from the open steppes to the east who wore sheepskin hats, baggy trousers and colourful caftans, and German settlers so destitute that they lived in earth dugouts in the ground. Near today’s Russian border with Kazakhstan, he marvelled at Lake Elton, a huge shallow salt lake with a shoreline encrusted in a thick white layer like snow, against water which algae had turned blood red. And in the Ryn Desert just north of the Caspian Sea, he felt piercing winds whip across the dunes, as wild as the land itself.

Russia was on a different scale from the flat gentle countryside where George had been raised near Gdansk, in today’s Poland. Everything here was vaster and emptier. The skies, lakes and land were bigger, the distances immense, and the weather extreme. He feasted his eyes and tasted new foods. He ate wild asparagus, drank fermented mare’s milk—‘of a nauseous or disagreeable Taste’—and enjoyed the refreshing juice of bog cranberries mixed with water and honey after the long dusty days on horseback.

This was not like learning from the books he loved. He could see, smell and feel that he had entered another world. The food had a different flavour, the languages were unfamiliar, and the people looked nothing like those at home. In Russia, he absorbed a new and very foreign country for the first time. At the age of ten, he became a traveller.

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Filed under education, Germany, language, migration, Russia, science, travel, Ukraine

by | 5 July 2026 · 2:45 pm

Romanian Realia: Online Investing

This flyer is from a bank in Moldova:

Ai Grijă unde investești ONLINE!
Take care where you invest ONLINE!
Nu te lăsa păcălit de promisiuni false.
Don’t let yourself be fooled by false promises.

STOP investițiilor false
Stop false investments

STOP! Informează-te înainte să accepți oferte “atractive” de învestiții online.
Stop! Inform yourself before accepting “attractive” offers of online investment.

Cănd sună prea frumos să fie adevărat, e momentul să te OPREȘTI.
If it sounds too attractive to be true, it’s the moment to STOP.

VERIFICĂ! Dacă ai dubii, consultă o persoană de încredere sau un angajat bancar.
Verify! If you have doubts, consult a trusted person or a bank employee.

EVITĂ completarea sondajelor care cer informații sensibile și nu oferi datele tale personale sau bancare pe site-uri necunoscute.
Avoid completing surveys that ask for sensitive information and don’t offer personal or bank data on unfamiliar sites.

Ferește-te de “juriștii” de pe internet care promit că îți recuperează banii rapid. În realitate, poate fi doar o altă înșelătorie.
Protect yourself from “lawyers” on the internet who promise that you can quickly recover your money. In reality, it may be just another scam.

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Filed under economics, education, language, Moldova, Romania