Pablo Clain
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Through Lunar eclipse
Klein is known for writing a standardized Tagalog dictionary as well as the first person to describe Palau for the Europeans and to draw the first map of Palau, an act which practically equated to the discovery of Palau. He wrote the first astronomic observation from Manila of a lunar eclipse and an overview of medicinal plants in local as well as European languages as well as recipes for their usage.
Life
Klein was born in Cheb, Kingdom of Bohemia (now Czechia) on 25 January 1652. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1669 and applied for travel to the colonies in 1678. Klein traveled to the Philippines alongside the fourth Jesuit mission dispatched from Bohemia in 1678, which consisted mostly of doctors and pharmacists through Genoa, Spain and Mexico, arriving to the Philippines in 1682.
Klein first became a pharmacist. Pharmacy in those days was closely connected to the use of herbs and botanizing. Klein thus became the first person to describe native Philippine medicinal plants, using their names in several languages including Tagalog, Visayan and Kapampangan when he published his renowned Remedios fáciles para diferentes enfermedades... in 1712.
Klein was a respected educator, a professor at the Jesuit college, and later the rector of Colegio de Cavite and Colegio de San José. He published several religious texts. He played an important role in the establishment of the Religious of the Virgin Mary in 1684 in Manila as the spiritual director of the congregation's founder. He is regarded by the said congregation as their second founder.
In 1686 Klein described the lunar eclipse in Manila (published in Mémoires de l'Académie des Sciences, vol. 7, Paris). During the years of 1708-1712 Klein reached to the highest Jesuit position, becoming the provincial superior of the Jesuit order in the Philippines. He died on 30 August 1717 in Manila.
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Languages and Tagalog dictionary
Klein's main language and the language of several of his letters sent back home to Bohemia was Czech. Besides Czech, Klein also spoke Latin (which was the main language of his correspondence), Spanish, German and later he learned the Philippine languages of Tagalog, Cebuano and Kapampangan.
Klein became the author of the first substantial Tagalog dictionary, later passing it over to Francisco Jansens and José Hernandez. Further compilation of his substantial work was prepared by P. Juan de Noceda and P. Pedro de Sanlucar and published as Vocabulario de la lengua tagala in Manila in 1754 and then repeatedly reedited with the last edition being in 2013 in Manila.
Discovery of Palau
In 1696 a group of natives were stranded on the northern coast of the Philippine island of Samar. Paul Klein was able to meet them on 28 December 1696 and to send a letter in June 1697 to the Jesuit superior general, in which he described this encounter and included the first ever map of Palau sketched from a set of 87 pebbles arranged by the islanders, representing the approximate map. Klein's letter reappears again and again in later documents. It is considered a key map, giving strong stimulus to a new missionary endeavour from the Philippine Jesuits. The first ships were sent to the islands in 1700, 1708 and 1709 but sunk, the first boat finally arriving to Palau in 1710.