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Of the written alphabets in use before the coming of the Spaniards, fourteen were of Malay origin, one was Arabic, and one Hebrew. Of the Malayan alphabets many were structurally alike, so that a learned Visayan must have been able to make out Tagalog words and a Pampangan to spell Ilocano. We are not to imagine that every Filipino could read the written speech; there were in the Islands at that time, as in India, Spain, England, and elsewhere, the educated and the uneducated. But it seems likely that the percentage of literacy in the Philippines, about the year 1500, let us say, was as large as in Spain, larger than in India and compared favorably with the percentage in other places.

Traders and artisans The inhabitants were able traders as well as skilful artisans. Manila was one of the great commercial centers of the East and long had been so; it was not a mere collection of fishermen’s huts. When the inhabitants of England were wearing skins, painting their bodies, and gashing their flesh in religious frenzies, the Filipinos were already conducting commercial marts in which were offered silks, brocades, cotton and other cloths, household furniture, precious stones, gold and gold dust, jewelry, wheat from Japan, weapons, works of art and of utility in many metals, cultivated fruits, domesticated animals, earthenware, and a variety of agricultural products from their rich volcanic soil.