Baybayin
Encyclopedia
Baybayin (known in Unicode
Unicode
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...

 as Tagalog script; see below), is a pre-Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 Philippine writing system
Writing system
A writing system is a symbolic system used to represent elements or statements expressible in language.-General properties:Writing systems are distinguished from other possible symbolic communication systems in that the reader must usually understand something of the associated spoken language to...

. It is a member of the Brahmic family
Brahmic family
The Brahmic or Indic scripts are a family of abugida writing systems. They are used throughout South Asia , Southeast Asia, and parts of Central and East Asia, and are descended from the Brāhmī script of the ancient Indian subcontinent...

 and is recorded as being in use in the 16th century. It continued to be used during the Spanish colonization of the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

 up until the late 19th Century.

The term Baybay literally means "to spell" in Tagalog
Tagalog language
Tagalog is an Austronesian language spoken as a first language by a third of the population of the Philippines and as a second language by most of the rest. It is the first language of the Philippine region IV and of Metro Manila...

. Baybayin was extensively documented by the Spanish. Some have attributed it the name Alibata, but this name is incorrect. (The term "Alibata" was coined by Paul Rodríguez Verzosa after the arrangement of letters of the Arabic alphabet
Arabic alphabet
The Arabic alphabet or Arabic abjad is the Arabic script as it is codified for writing the Arabic language. It is written from right to left, in a cursive style, and includes 28 letters. Because letters usually stand for consonants, it is classified as an abjad.-Consonants:The Arabic alphabet has...

 alif, ba, ta (alibata), “f” having been eliminated for euphony's sake." )

Modern scripts in the Philippines, descended from Baybayin, are Hanunó'o
Hanunó'o script
Hanunó’o is one of the indigenous scripts of the Philippines and is used by the Mangyan people of southern Mindoro to write the Hanunó’o language. It is an abugida descended from the Indic scripts, closely related to Baybayin, and is famous for being written vertical but written upward, rather than...

, Buhid
Buhid script
Buhid, is an indigenous Brahmic script of the Philippines, closely related to Baybayin, and is used today by the Mangyans to write their language, Buhid.- Unicode :Buhid script was added to the Unicode Standard in March, 2002 with the release of version 3.2....

, Tagbanwa
Tagbanwa
Tagbanwa, also known as Apurahuano, is one of the indigenous writing systems of the Philippines. The Tagbanwa language, an Austronesian language, with about 8, 000 speakers in the central and northern regions of Palawan, is dying out as the younger generations of Tagbanua are learning Cuyonon...

 and Kapampangan
Kapampangan
Kapampangan, Capampañgan or Pampangan may refer to:*Kapampangan people of the Philippines*Kapampangan language...

 script.

Baybayin is one of a dozen or so individual writing systems used in Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...

, nearly all of which are abugidas where any consonant is pronounced with the inherent vowel a following it— diacritical marks being used to express other vowels (this vowel occurs with greatest frequency in Sanskrit, and also probably in all Philippine languages).

Origins

Baybayin was noted by the Spanish priest Pedro Chirino in 1604 and Antonio de Morga in 1609 to be known by most, and was generally used for personal writings, poetry, etc. According to William Henry Scott
William Henry Scott (historian)
William Henry Scott was a historian of the Gran Cordillera Central and Prehispanic Philippines. He personally rejected the description anthropologist as applying to himself.-Early life:...

, there were some datus from the 1590s who could not sign affidavits or oaths, and witnesses who could not sign land deeds in the 1620s. There is no data on when this level of literacy was first achieved, and no history of the writing system itself. There are at least six theories about the origins of Bay

Kawi

Kawi originated in Java, and was used across much of Maritime Southeast Asia
Malay Archipelago
The Malay Archipelago refers to the archipelago between mainland Southeastern Asia and Australia. The name was derived from the anachronistic concept of a Malay race....

.

The Laguna Copperplate Inscription
Laguna Copperplate Inscription
The Laguna Copperplate Inscription is the earliest known written document found in the Philippines. The plate was found in 1989 by a sand laborer working on Lumbang River near the outlet to Laguna de Bay, in Barangay Wawa, Lumban, in the Laguna province.The inscription on the plate was first...

 is the earliest known written document found in the Philippines.
It is a legal document, and has inscribed on it a date of Saka era 822, corresponding to April 21, 900 AD Laguna Copperplate Inscription#cite note-bibingka-1. It was written in the Kawi script in a variety of Old Malay
Old Malay
The Old Malay language, also called Classical Malay, is the ancestor of the modern Malay language, including Indonesian and Malaysian. It developed in the now Melayu Kingdom of Sumatra. It was heavily influenced by Sanskrit and Kawi , and was grammatically quite similar to modern Malay.-Old...

 containing numerous loanwords from Sanskrit and a few non-Malay vocabulary elements whose origin is ambiguous between Old Javanese and Old Tagalog. One hypothesis therefore reasons that, since Kawi is the earliest attestation of writing on the Philippines, then Baybayin may be descended from Kawi.

A second example of Kawi script can be seen on the Butuan Ivory Seal, though it has not been dated.

An earthenware burial jar, called the "Calatagan Pot," found in Batangas
Calatagan, Batangas
Calatagan is a 1st class municipality in the Province of Batangas, Philippines. According to the latest census, it has a population of 51,544 people in 9,201 households....

 is inscribed with characters strikingly similar to Baybayin, and is claimed to have been inscribed ca. 1300 AD. However, its authenticity has not yet been proven.

Old Sumatran "Malay" scripts

Another hypothesis states that a script or script used to write one of the Malay languages was adopted and became Baybayin. In particular, the Pallava
Pallava
The Pallava dynasty was a Tamil dynasty which ruled the northern Tamil Nadu region and the southern Andhra Pradesh region with their capital at Kanchipuram...

 script from Sumatra is attested to the 7th century http://www.bahasa-malaysia-simple-fun.com/bahasa-melayu-kuno.html.

Sulawesi

The Bugis-Makassarese script
Lontara script
The Lontara script is some sort of moon speak traditionally used for the Bugis language, Makassarese language, and Mandar languages of Sulawesi in modern Indonesia. It is also known as the Buginese script. It was largely replaced by the Latin alphabet during the period of Dutch colonization...

 of Sulawesi could have been introduced or borrowed and adapted into Baybayin.

Old Assamese

Assamese
Assamese language
Assamese is the easternmost Indo-Aryan language. It is used mainly in the state of Assam in North-East India. It is also the official language of Assam. It is also spoken in parts of Arunachal Pradesh and other northeast Indian states. Nagamese, an Assamese-based Creole language is widely used in...

 is a variant of Eastern Nagari script
Eastern Nagari script
The Eastern Nagari script is an Abugida system of writing belonging to the Brahmic family of scripts which use is associated with the two main languages Assamese and Bengali and other related variants such as, Bishnupriya Manipuri, Maithili, Mising, Meitei Manipuri, Sylheti, and Chittagonian...

, a precursor to Devanagari
Devanagari
Devanagari |deva]]" and "nāgarī" ), also called Nagari , is an abugida alphabet of India and Nepal...

. This hypothesis states that a version of this script was introduced to the Philippines via Bengal, which evolved into Baybayin.

Cham

Finally, an early Cham script from Champa—in what is now southern Vietnam and southeastern Cambodia—could have been introduced or borrowed and adapted into Baybayin.

Characteristics

The writing system is an abugida
Abugida
An abugida , also called an alphasyllabary, is a segmental writing system in which consonant–vowel sequences are written as a unit: each unit is based on a consonant letter, and vowel notation is obligatory but secondary...

 system using consonant-vowel combinations. Each character, written in its basic form, is a consonant ending with the vowel "A". To produce consonants ending with the other vowel sounds, a mark is placed either above the consonant (to produce an "E" or "I" sound) or below the consonant (to produce an "O" or "U" sound). The mark is called a kudlit. The kudlit does not apply to stand-alone vowels. Vowels themselves have their own glyphs. There is only one symbol for D or R as they were allophones in most languages of the Philippines
Languages of the Philippines
In the Philippines, there are between 120 and 175 languages, depending on the method of classification. Four languages no longer have any known speakers. Almost all the Philippine languages belong to the Austronesian language family...

, where D occurred in initial, final, pre-consonantal or post-consonantal positions and R in intervocalic positions. The grammatical rule has survived in modern Filipino, so that when a d is between two vowels, it becomes an r, as in the words dangál (honour) and marangál (honourable), or dunong (knowledge) and marunong (knowledgeable), and even raw for daw (he said, she said, they said, it was said, allegedly, reportedly, supposedly) and rin for din (also, too) after vowels. This variant of the script is not used for Ilokano, Pangasinan, Bikolano, and other Philippine languages to name a few, as these languages have separate symbols for D and R.

Two styles of writing

Pre-Spanish "style"

In the original form of the Baybayin script, a stand-alone consonant (consonants not ending with any vowel sound) cannot be indicated unambiguously; therefore, such consonants were simply not written, and the reader would fill in the missing consonants through context. For example, the letters n and k in a word like bundók (mountain) were omitted, so that it was spelled bu-do.
Virama Kudlit "style"

The original writing method was particularly difficult for the Spanish priests who were translating books into the vernaculars. Because of this, Francisco López introduced his own kudlit in 1620 that cancelled the implicit a vowel sound. The kudlit was in the form of a "+" sign, in reference to Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

. This cross-shaped kudlit functions exactly the same as the virama
Virama
Virama is a generic term for the diacritic in many Brahmic scripts, including Devanagari and East Nagari, that is used to suppress the inherent vowel that otherwise occurs with every consonant letter. The name is Sanskrit for "cessation, termination, end"...

in the Devanagari
Devanagari
Devanagari |deva]]" and "nāgarī" ), also called Nagari , is an abugida alphabet of India and Nepal...

 script of India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

. In fact, Unicode calls this kudlit the Tagalog Sign Virama. See sample above in Characteristics Section.

"Nga" character

A single character represented "nga". The current version of the Filipino alphabet still retains "ng" as a digraph
Digraph (orthography)
A digraph or digram is a pair of characters used to write one phoneme or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined...

, viz
Viz
Viz. and the adverb videlicet are used as synonyms for "namely", "that is to say", and "as follows".-Etymology:...

, a single letter composed of two characters.

Punctuation

Words written in baybayin were written in a continuous flow, and the only form of punctuation was a single vertical line, or more often, a pair of vertical lines (||). These vertical lines fulfill the function of a comma, period, or unpredictably separate sets of words.

Usage

Baybayin historically was used in Tagalog
Tagalog language
Tagalog is an Austronesian language spoken as a first language by a third of the population of the Philippines and as a second language by most of the rest. It is the first language of the Philippine region IV and of Metro Manila...

 and to a lesser extent Kapampangan
Kapampangan language
The Pampangan language, or Kapampangan , is one of the major languages of the Philippines. It is the language spoken in the province of Pampanga, the southern half of the province of Tarlac and the northern portion of the province of Bataan. Kapampangan is also understood in some barangays of...

 speaking areas. Its use spread to Ilokanos
Ilokano language
Ilokano or Ilocano is the third most-spoken language of the Republic of the Philippines....

 when the Spanish promoted its use with the printing of Bibles. Related scripts, such as Hanunóo, Buhid
Buhid script
Buhid, is an indigenous Brahmic script of the Philippines, closely related to Baybayin, and is used today by the Mangyans to write their language, Buhid.- Unicode :Buhid script was added to the Unicode Standard in March, 2002 with the release of version 3.2....

, and Tagbanwa
Tagbanwa
Tagbanwa, also known as Apurahuano, is one of the indigenous writing systems of the Philippines. The Tagbanwa language, an Austronesian language, with about 8, 000 speakers in the central and northern regions of Palawan, is dying out as the younger generations of Tagbanua are learning Cuyonon...

 are still used today, along with Kapampangan script. Currently, Baybayin itself is experiencing an artistic revival of sorts, used to convey a pre-Hispanic feeling as well as a symbol of Filipino identity. Most activist groups used Baybayin as part of their logo using the script for the acronyms (such as the Baybayin K for Anakbayan) alongside the use of a baybayin-inspired Latin script. Baybayin tattoos and brush calligraphy are growing in popularity. It is also used in the latest Philippine Banknotes issued in the last quarter of 2010. The word used in the bills was "Pilipino" and is used not only as artistic embellishment but a security feature.

Characters


vowels>
a
i
e
u
o

b
NE>LINE
b ᜊ᜔
ba
bi
be
ᜊᜒ
bu
bo
ᜊᜓ

k
NE>LINE
k ᜃ᜔
ka
ki
ke
ᜃᜒ
ku
ko
ᜃᜓᜓ

d/r
>EWLINE
d/r ᜇ᜔
da/ra
di/ri
de/re
ᜇᜒ
du/ru
do/ro
ᜇᜓ

g
NE>LINE
g ᜄ᜔
ga
gi
ge
ᜄᜒ
gu
go
ᜄᜓ

h
NE>LINE
h ᜑ᜔
ha
hi
he
ᜑᜒ
hu
ho
ᜑᜓ

l
NE>LINE
l ᜎ᜔
la
li
le
ᜎᜒ
lu
lo
ᜎᜓ

m
NE>LINE
m ᜋ᜔
ma
mi
me
ᜋᜒ
mu
mo
ᜋᜓ

n
NE>LINE
n ᜈ᜔
na
ni
ne
ᜈᜒ
nu
no
ᜈᜓ

ng
N>WLINE
ng ᜅ᜔
nga
ngi
nge
ᜅᜒ
ngu
ngo
ᜅᜓ

p
NE>LINE
p ᜉ᜔
pa
pi
pe
ᜉᜒ
pu
po
ᜉᜓ

s
NE>LINE
s ᜐ᜔
sa
si
se
ᜐᜒ
su
so
ᜐᜓ

t
NE>LINE
t ᜆ᜔
ta
ti
te
ᜆᜒ
tu
to
ᜆᜓ

w
NE>LINE
w ᜏ᜔
wa
wi
we
ᜏᜒ
wu
wo
ᜏᜓ

y
NE>LINE
y ᜌ᜔
ya
yi
ye
ᜌᜒ
yu
yo
ᜌᜓ

Character Order

In the Doctrina Cristiana
Doctrina Cristiana
Doctrina Christiana was written by Fray Juan de Plasencia, and is believed to be one of the earliest books printed in the Philippines, in the year 1593....

, the Baybayin letter order was recorded as A O/U E/I H P K S L T N B M G D/R Y NG W.

Unicode

Baybayin was added to the Unicode
Unicode
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...

 Standard in March, 2002 with the release of version 3.2.

Block

The Unicode block for Baybayin, called Tagalog, is U+1700–U+171F. Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points:

Representation of the character "Ra"

Although it is not included in the unicode standard, U+170D is becoming the de facto standard for representing the character Ra (ᜍ), due to its use as such in commonly-available Baybayin fonts.

Philippines National Keyboard Layout with Baybayin

It is now possible to type Baybayin directly from the keyboard, without the need to use online typepads. The Philippines National Keyboard Layout includes different sets of Baybayin layout for different keyboard users. QWERTY, Capewell-Dvorak, Capewell-QWERF 2006, Colemak, and Dvorak, all available in Microsoft Windows and GNU/Linux 32-bit and 64-bit installations.

The keyboard layout with Baybayin can be downloaded at this page.

Pre-Kudlit

ᜀᜋᜈᜋᜒ

ᜐᜓᜋᜐᜎᜅᜒᜃ

ᜐᜊᜑᜒᜀ ᜅᜎᜋᜓ

ᜋᜉᜐᜀᜋᜒᜀᜃᜑᜍᜒᜀᜋᜓ

ᜐᜓᜇᜀᜎᜓᜂᜋᜓ

ᜇᜒᜆᜓᜐᜎᜓᜉ᜵ᜉᜍᜈᜐᜎᜅᜒ

ᜊᜒᜌᜋᜓᜃᜋᜒᜅᜌᜓᜀᜀᜋᜒᜃᜃᜁᜐᜀᜍᜀᜍ

ᜀᜉᜆᜏᜍᜒᜋᜓᜃᜋᜒᜐᜀᜋᜒᜋᜅᜐᜎ

ᜉᜍᜈᜉᜉᜆᜏᜈᜋᜒ

ᜐᜋᜅᜈᜃᜃᜐᜎᜐᜀᜋᜒ

ᜀᜑᜓᜏᜋᜓᜃᜋᜒᜁᜉᜑᜒᜆᜓᜎᜓᜐᜆᜓᜐᜓ

ᜀᜁᜀᜌᜋᜓᜃᜋᜒᜐᜎᜑᜈᜋᜐᜋ

ᜐᜉᜃᜁᜌᜓᜀᜃᜑᜍᜒᜀ᜵ᜀᜃᜉᜌᜍᜒᜑ

ᜀᜀᜃᜇᜃᜒᜎᜀ᜵ᜋᜉᜃᜁᜎᜋ᜶

Post-Kudlit

ᜀᜋ ᜈᜋᜒᜈ᜔,
ᜐᜓᜋᜐᜎᜅᜒᜆ᜔ ᜃ,
ᜐᜋ᜔ᜊᜑᜒᜈ᜔ ᜀᜅ᜔ ᜅᜎᜈ᜔ ᜋᜓ;
ᜋᜉᜐᜀᜋᜒᜈ᜔ ᜀᜅ᜔ ᜃᜑᜍᜒᜀᜈ᜔ ᜋᜓ;
ᜐᜓᜈ᜔ᜇᜒᜈ᜔ ᜀᜅ᜔ ᜎᜓᜂᜊ᜔ ᜋᜓ
ᜇᜒᜆᜓ ᜐ ᜎᜓᜉ, ᜉᜍ ᜈᜅ᜔ ᜐ ᜎᜅᜒᜆ᜔.
ᜊᜒᜄ᜔ᜌᜈ᜔ ᜋᜓ ᜃᜋᜒ ᜅᜌᜓᜈ᜔ ᜅ᜔ ᜀᜋᜒᜅ᜔ ᜃᜃᜈᜒᜈ᜔ ᜐ ᜀᜍᜏ᜔-ᜀᜍᜏ᜔;
ᜀᜆ᜔ ᜉᜆᜏᜍᜒᜈ᜔ ᜋᜓ ᜃᜋᜒ ᜐ ᜀᜋᜒᜅ᜔ ᜋᜅ ᜐᜎ;
ᜉᜍ ᜈᜅ᜔ ᜉᜄ᜔ᜉᜉᜆᜏᜇ᜔ ᜈᜋᜒᜈ᜔ ᜐ ᜋᜅ ᜈᜄ᜔ᜃᜃᜐᜎ ᜐ ᜀᜋᜒᜈ᜔;
ᜀᜆ᜔ ᜑᜓᜏᜄ᜔ ᜋᜓ ᜃᜋᜒ ᜁᜉᜑᜒᜈ᜔ᜆᜓᜎᜓᜆ᜔ ᜐ ᜆᜓᜃ᜔ᜐᜓ,
ᜀᜆ᜔ ᜁᜀᜇ᜔ᜌ ᜋᜓ ᜃᜋᜒ ᜐ ᜎᜑᜆ᜔ ᜅ᜔ ᜋᜐᜋ.
[ᜐᜉᜄ᜔ᜃᜆ᜔ ᜁᜌᜓ ᜀᜅ᜔ ᜃᜑᜍᜒᜀᜈ᜔, ᜀᜅ᜔ ᜃᜉᜅ᜔ᜌᜍᜒᜑᜈ᜔, ᜀᜆ᜔ ᜀᜅ᜔ ᜃᜇᜃᜒᜎᜀᜈ᜔, ᜋᜄ᜔ᜉᜃᜌ᜔ᜎᜈ᜔ᜋᜈ᜔.]
ᜀᜋᜒᜈ᜔/ᜐᜒᜌ ᜈᜏ.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

ᜀᜅ᜔ ᜎᜑᜆ᜔ ᜈᜅ᜔ ᜆᜂ ᜀᜌ᜔ ᜁᜐᜒᜈᜒᜎᜅ᜔ ᜈ ᜋᜎᜌ ᜀᜆ᜔ ᜉᜈ᜔ᜆᜌ᜔ᜉᜈ᜔ᜆᜌ᜔ ᜐ ᜃᜍᜅᜎᜈ᜔ ᜀᜆ᜔ ᜃᜍᜉᜆᜈ᜔‖ ᜐᜒᜎ ᜀᜌ᜔ ᜉᜒᜈᜄ᜔ᜃᜎᜓᜂᜊᜈ᜔ ᜈᜅ᜔ ᜊᜓᜇ᜔ᜑᜒ ᜀᜆ᜔ ᜇᜉᜆ᜔ ᜋᜄ᜔ᜉᜎᜄᜌᜈ᜔ ᜀᜅ᜔ ᜁᜐᜆ᜔ᜁᜐ ᜐ ᜇᜒᜏ ᜈᜅ᜔ ᜉᜄ᜔ᜃᜃᜉᜆᜒᜍᜈ᜔‖

See also

  • Laguna Copperplate Inscription
    Laguna Copperplate Inscription
    The Laguna Copperplate Inscription is the earliest known written document found in the Philippines. The plate was found in 1989 by a sand laborer working on Lumbang River near the outlet to Laguna de Bay, in Barangay Wawa, Lumban, in the Laguna province.The inscription on the plate was first...

  • Hanunó'o script
    Hanunó'o script
    Hanunó’o is one of the indigenous scripts of the Philippines and is used by the Mangyan people of southern Mindoro to write the Hanunó’o language. It is an abugida descended from the Indic scripts, closely related to Baybayin, and is famous for being written vertical but written upward, rather than...

  • Tagbanwa
    Tagbanwa
    Tagbanwa, also known as Apurahuano, is one of the indigenous writing systems of the Philippines. The Tagbanwa language, an Austronesian language, with about 8, 000 speakers in the central and northern regions of Palawan, is dying out as the younger generations of Tagbanua are learning Cuyonon...

  • Buhid script
    Buhid script
    Buhid, is an indigenous Brahmic script of the Philippines, closely related to Baybayin, and is used today by the Mangyans to write their language, Buhid.- Unicode :Buhid script was added to the Unicode Standard in March, 2002 with the release of version 3.2....

  • Kawi script
  • Filipino orthography

External links


Font downloads

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