A Preliminary Study of Kaoka 高甲 Playscripts in the Philippines

As part of a book on Sinitic languages in Southeast Asia, particularly those that are increasingly endangered, this chapter emphasizes “Sinophone” and “Sinitic voices” in the Philippines. Briefly defined, the Sinophone landscape involves Sinitic languages, including Hokkien, and the associated cultures and communities which historically experienced colonialism and have increasingly been marginalized in more recent times.1 Here I focus on Sinophone speech, including the soundscapes in which speech is embedded, through theatrical performance in Hokkien. Kaoka was once a popular form of entertainment in Southeast Asia, but the Philippines is the only country in the region that still performs this theatrical art today. I furthermore aim to highlight the diversity of Sinophonic representations as seen in Kaoka playscripts. In these sources, only the phonetic elements have been preserved, whereas the logographic representations (known as Sinographs or Hanzi 漢字) have been omitted. As regards the “Sinitic voices” that this chapter – and this book in general – aims to highlight in the context of Southeast Asia’s Chinese minorities, the academic focus has previously been on the migration and economic development of Chinese communities in this region. These developments remain important and will be taken into consideration, but the focus here is on filling the cultural and linguistic gaps in scholarship on Kaoka in the Philippines. The people from south Fujian, known as the Hokkiens (ban lam lang 閩南 人), came in large numbers and migrated to different parts of Southeast Asia.2 Despite Southeast Asia’s relatively early interactions with Chinese people