TheHokkienSpanishHistoricalDocumentSeriesIcontainstwomanuscriptsfromthe17thcentury:theDictionarioHispánicoSinicumheldinthearchiveofUniversityofSantoTomasinthePhilippines,andtheArtedelaLenguaChioChiuheldintheLibraryoftheUniversityofBarcelona,Spain.
Bothmanuscriptswerejointworkswrittenby17thcenturySpanishDominicanmissionariesandHokkienChinesewholivedinManila.TheDictionarioHispánicoSinicumhasmorethan1,000pages,27,000Hokkienvocabulary,andstoreswordsandidiomsthatcoveredtheall-inclusivedetailsofHokkiendailylifeinthePhilippines400yearsago.TheypresentedaconcreteimageofHokkienpeopleinteractingwithSpanishcultureinthePhilippinesintheAgeofDiscovery.TheArtedelaLenguaChioChiuistheearliestextantHokkiengrammarbookwrittenbyEuropeans.FromaSpanishperspective,itintroducedHokkien,themostimportantbusinesslanguageinEastAsianseasatthattime,totheEuropeans.
AproudcollaborationprojectinitiatedbyscholarsfromTaiwan,Spain,Germany,andthePhilippines,thepublicationofthesepreciousdocumentsprovidesavividpictureofthehistoryofHokkien-SpanishexchangeinthePhilippinesintheAgeofDiscovery.
HokkienSpanishHistoricalDocumentSeriesI(《閩南—西班牙歷史文獻叢刊一》)收錄兩份十七世紀的手稿,分別是菲律賓聖多瑪斯(SantoTomas)大學檔案館的《西班牙─華語辭典》(DictionarioHispánicoSinicum),與西班牙巴塞隆納大學圖書館的《漳州話語法》(ArtedelaLenguaChioChiu)。
兩份手稿都是西班牙道明會神父與馬尼拉閩南人(唐人)合作編寫。《辭典》共計一千餘頁,二萬七千個閩南語詞條,收羅四百年前海外閩南人日常生活所需、包羅萬象的詞彙與俚語,具體呈現大航海時代閩南人在菲律賓與西班牙語世界交流的成果。《語法》為現存最早歐洲人所寫的閩南語文法書籍,以西班牙人的角度,向歐洲人介紹如何學習當時東亞海域最重要的商業語言——閩南話。
這些珍貴文獻的出版,具體呈現大航海時代菲律賓閩南人與西班牙語世界交流的歷史,也是台灣、西班牙、德國及菲律賓等地學者共同合作的出版成果。