The Philippine Body Project

The Philippine Body Project aims to collect all the lexical items associated with the body across various Philippine languages and reconstruct the proto-Philippine forms for these terms. Items that have not descended from the earlier Philippine form or those that have been borrowed from other languages into the Philippine lexicon will be traced back to their etymological source. The project is divided into five subdomains: (1) the head, (2) the limbs, (3) the abdomen, (4) the internal organs, and (5) body states. 

The study will also explore the connotative associations and significance attached to these body parts by investigating the metaphorization of these items; a process that resulted in an abundance of metaphors and metonymies that are related to and constructed with body lexicon as both conceptual targets and sources.

The reconstruction of proto-Philippine lexicon and the identification of provenance and pathways of borrowed words will also contribute to the understanding of pan-Philippine culture history and pre-colonial identities; the body being the first lexical domain of what is hoped to be a series.

Investigator: Jesus Federico Hernandez

[Image from Vesalius, Andreas. 1543. De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septum. Downloaded from The Public Domain Review//Flickr, Public Domain]