A vocabulary of the Igorot language as spoken by the Bontok Igorots

Published in 1908, this vocabulary was compiled by Reverend Walter Clayton Clapp, a missionary of the Protestant Episcopal Church who was stationed among the Bontok Igorot people in the Philippines. The work emerged from the American colonial period in the Philippines, during which time ethnographic and linguistic study was heavily pursued by administrators and missionaries seeking to categorize and communicate with indigenous populations.

Clapp’s work served as a primary resource for colonial officers and fellow clergy attempting to bridge the linguistic gap in the Mountain Province. The volume reflects the academic standards of the era, focusing on the categorization of the Bontok language through the lens of early twentieth-century linguistics. While it remains a significant historical document of missionary efforts, it is viewed by modern scholars as a product of its time, capturing the specific cultural climate of the American colonial project.