Leo James English (August 1907 – 1997) was the

Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal Aus ...

priest, compiler and editor of two of among the first most widely used bilingual

dictionaries A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged Alphabetical order, alphabetically (or by Semitic root, consonantal root for Semitic languages or radical-and-stroke sorting, radical an ...

in the

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

. He was the author of the two companion dictionaries namely, the ''English–Tagalog Dictionary'' (1965) and the ''Tagalog–English Dictionary'' (1986). English saw the successful completion of his dictionaries that were carried out in the course of his 51 years of religious service in the Philippines. He was a member of the

Redemptorists The Redemptorists, officially named the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (), abbreviated CSsR, is a Catholic clerical religious congregation of pontifical right for men (priests and brothers). It was founded by Alphonsus Liguori at Scala ...

or the

Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer The Redemptorists, officially named the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (), abbreviated CSsR, is a Catholic clerical religious congregation of pontifical right for men (priests and brothers). It was founded by Alphonsus Liguori at Scal ...

, a religious order that has been engaged in preaching missions using the vernacular language in the

for more than seventy years.English–Tagalog Dictionary by Leo James English, Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, Manila, 1211 pages, ASIN B0007B8MGG"Tagalog–English Dictionary by Leo James English, Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, Manila, distributed by National Book Store, 1583 pages, English was instrumental in the introduction and revision of the

Novena to Our Mother of Perpetual Help The Novena to Our Mother of Perpetual Help is a booklet containing a set of prayers including the Roman Catholic novena to Our Mother of Perpetual Help, that was originally published in Jaen, Spain, Jaén, Spain in 1899. It was then widely republ ...

His dictionaries

The Tagalog–English dictionary contains about 16,000 Tagalog main words, 21,000 derivatives and 30,000 translated sentences that illustrate the use of the words. For some entries, synonyms and explanatory notes are added. The English–Tagalog dictionary contains more than 14,000 main English entries and an addition of 40,000 nuances, each both defined in English and translated into Tagalog, as well as 30,000 exemplifying sentences. Together, they are one of the most exhaustive published collections of the Tagalog language. The dual dictionaries of English pioneered the launching of many

bilingual Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. When the languages are just two, it is usually called bilingualism. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolin ...

dictionaries and thesauruses in the Philippines including those authored by the Filipino compiler, Vito C. Santos, namely the ''Vicassan's Pilipino–English Dictionary'' and the ''New Vicassan's English–Pilipino Dictionary'' (1995). James English acknowledged consulting Vito Santos’s Pilipino–English Dictionary for reference while completing his ''Tagalog–English Dictionary''. Vito C. Santos once worked with English. English's dictionaries had been influential in the development and propagation of the

Filipino language Filipino ( ; , ) is the national language of the Philippines, the main lingua franca, and one of the two official languages of the country, along with Philippine English, English. It is only a ''de facto'' and not a ''de jure'' standard langu ...

in the Philippines and abroad.

References

External links

Leo James English’s Bilingual Dictionaries

89th birthday

Leo James English's obituary in the Philippine Journal of Linguistics

Other Philippine dictionaries

* An English–Cebuano–Visayan Dictionary by Rodolfo Cabonce, Metro Manila, Philippines: National Book Store, 1983 * Ilokano Dictionary by Ernesto Constantino, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1971 * Diksyunaryong Filipino–English by ''Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino'', Pasig, Metro Manila, 1989 * JVP English–Filipino Thesaurus-Dictionary, Metro Manila, Mhelle L. Publications, 1988 * Vicassan's Pilipino–English Dictionary by Vito C. Santos, Metro Manila, National Book Store, 1988 * Tagalog Slang Dictionary by R. David Paul Zorc, Manila, De la Salle University Press, 1993 *''Lim English–Filipino Filipino–English Dictionary'', by Ed Lim, Lulu.com, 2008 {{DEFAULTSORT:English, Leo James 1907 births 1997 deaths 20th-century Filipino Roman Catholic priests Filipino language Linguists from the Philippines Tagalog language 20th-century Australian Roman Catholic priests Australian expatriates in the Philippines Australian lexicographers Redemptorists 20th-century Australian linguists 20th-century lexicographers