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THE ALPHABET
E. E. W. G. Schræder, Der Ursprung der altesten Elementen des Austronesischen Alphabets, Medan, 1927.
R. C. Majumdar, Champa, Lahore, 1927; Kambuja-Desa or An Ancient Hindu Colony in Cambodia, Madras, 1944.
A. Schramm, Kurze Einfuehrung in die Schrift der Toba-Batak, "ARCHIV FUER SCHREIB- UND BUCHWESEN," I, 1927.
B. R. Chatterji, Indian Cultural Influences in Cambodia, Calcutta, 1928. R. Halliday, Les Inscriptions Mon du Siam, "BULL. DE L'ÉCOLE ETC.," 1930. N. J. Krom, Hindoe-Javaansche Geschiedenis, and ed., The Hague, 1931. B. Ch. Chhabra, Expansion of Indo-Aryan Culture during Pallava Rule as evidenced by Inscriptions, "JOURN. OF THE ROY. ASIAT. SOC., BENGAL," 1935
Inscriptions of Burma ("UNIVERSITY OF RANGOON. ORIENTAL STUDIES PUBLICATIONS"), London, 1933 and 1939.
O. C. Gangoly, Some Illustrated Manuscripts of Kamma-Vaca from Siam, "OSTASIATISCHE ZEITSCHRIFT," 1937
Atlas van Tropisch Nederland, Batavia, 1938 (Map 9b).
J. J. Hospitalier, Grammaire laotienne, Paris, 1939
H. Marchal, Musée Louis Finot, Hanoi. La collection Khmère, Hanoi, 1939. K. A. Nilakanta Sastri, Sri Vijaya, "BULL. DE L'ÉCOLE ETC.," 1940.
G. B. McFarland, Thai-English Dictionary, Bangkok, 1941; photo-lithographic reproduction of the same, California and Oxford, 1944.
U. N. Ghoshal, Progress of Greater Indian Research during the last twenty-five years (1917-1942), "PROGRESS OF INDIC STUDIES, 1917-1942," Poona, 1942.
R. Schaefer, Further Analysis of the Pyu Inscriptions, "HARVARD JOURNAL OF ASIATIC STUDIES," 1943
J. Crosby, Siam, London, 1945.
Philippine Islands
GENERAL SKETCH
The Philippine Islands contain some 7,000 islands, the great majority of them being islets; there are only eleven islands of importance, eight of them measuring over 103,000 sq. miles out of 114,000 sq. miles of the whole archipelago. The two principal islands, Luzon and Mindanao, are larger in area than all the rest of the islands put together. The bulk of the indigenous population, numbering about sixteen and a-half million people, speak languages belonging to the MalayoPolynesian linguistic family.
In point of number, the three most important groups of the Filipinos, that is the Christian population of the Philippines, numbering over ten millions, are: (1) the Bisayans or Visayans, numbering ca. 3,250,000, who constitute the bulk of the inhabitants of the islands in the central part of the archipelago, and of the northern and eastern coasts of Mindanao. They were perhaps the most civilized people in the archipelago when discovered by the Spaniards, by whom they were called "Pintados," because they used to paint their bodies; (2) the Tagalogs or Tagals, numbering about 1,800,000 people, who are the principal inhabitants of central Luzon, including Manila, and of a great part of Mindanao; they are nowadays the most advanced and energetic people among the Filipinos; they live in the most thickly populated district of the archipelago and they have a practical superiority over the other sections of population, and their language-which is the most euphonious, the most homogeneous and the most developed of all the Filipino tongues-is understood by every native of average education throughout the islands; (3) the Iloko or Ilocanos, numbering about 800,000, most of them living in the western part of northern Luzon.
The other important vernaculars spoken by the Filipinos are: (1) Pangasinan,
