BAYBAYIN
BY+byin+
BERNARD R. BALITAO
Education Program Supervisor
ANCIENT FILIPINO WRITING
SYSTEMS
It is believed
that there were at least
16 different types of writing systems present
around the Philippines prior to our
colonization. Baybayin is just one of them,
which was said to be of widespread use
among coastal groups such as the Tagalog,
Bisaya, Iloko, Pangasinan, Bikol, and
Pampanga around the 16th century.
In 1567, Miguel Lopez de Legazpi
reported that the Visayans have their letters
and characters like those of the Malays.
A Jesuit priest, Father Pedro Chirino
in 1604 and Antonio de Morga in 1609
wrote about Baybayin as being widely
known by the country’s population during
that time.
Source: Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, 1604
One theory is that “Baybayin” got its
name from the word “baybay,” seashore in
Tagalog or to syllabicate or to spell. When
the Spanish arrived, they studied and used
Baybayin to communicate with early
Filipinos and teach them Catholicism. This
could be why Baybayin is arguably the most
popular and heavily documented of scripts.
As Filipinos began to learn the Roman
alphabet from the Spanish, the use of
Baybayin, especially in lowland areas,
began to disappear. But in upland areas and
remote villages that were difficult for
colonizers to reach, some scripts remained
intact. There are only two places left in the
Philippines that have preserved their ancient
syllabic scripts:
(1) Mindoro, where the Hanunó'o-Mangyan
and the Buhid-Mangyan simply call their
scripts “Surat Mangyan,” and (2) Palawan,
where the Tagbanua and Pala’wan groups
share a writing system they simply call
“surat” — a word meaning “writing.”
Ancient Philippine scripts are
various writing systems that developed and
flourished in the Philippines around 300
BCE. These scripts are related to other
Southeast Asian systems of writing. Since the
21st century, these scripts have simply been
collectively referred to as "suyat" or “surat” by
various Filipino cultural organizations.
The Baybayin continued to thrive in
many parts of the Philippines in the first
century of Spanish Occupation. Even
before the end of the 1500’s the Spaniards
were already printing books in the Tagalog
script.
The first of these was the Doctrina
Christiana, en lengua española y
tagala printed in 1593. The Tagalog text was
based mainly on a manuscript written by Fr.
Juan de Placencia. Friars Domingo de
Nieva and Juan de San Pedro Martyr who
supervised the preparation and printing of
the book,
ARTIFACTS
BAYBAYIN VS. ALIBATA
The name Alibata was coined
in 1914 by Paul Rodriguez
Verzosa, once dean of the
University of Manila, when he was
doing research in the reading room
of the New York Public library. He
was also a member of the old
National Language Institute.
Alibata was based on the Maguindanao
(Moro) arrangement of letters of the
alphabet after the Arabic: alif, ba, ta
(alibata), “f” having been eliminated for
euphony's sake.” Versoza’s reasoning for
creating this word was unfounded because
no evidence of the baybayin was ever found
in that part of the Philippines and it has
absolutely no relationship to the Arabic
language. Furthermore, no ancient script
native to Southeast Asia followed the Arabic
arrangement of letters and its absence from
all historical records.
Whereas in the first dictionary of the
Tagalog language written by Franciscan friar
Pedro de Buenaventura and published in
Pila, Laguna in 1613 made mention of the
word “Bai-bayin” referring to the indigenous
script.
PRE-HISPANIC WRITING
TECHNIQUESThe ancient
Filipinos wrote on
many different
materials; leaves,
tree bark and fruit
rinds, but the most
common was
bamboo.
LEARNING HOW TO WRITE IN
BaybayinBAYBAYIN
is a syllabary writing system.
Each character is a combination of a
consonant and a vowel (Cv) except for the
major vowels. There are 14 consonants: Ba,
Ka, Da (Ra), Ga, Ha, La, Ma, Na, Nga, Pa,
Sa, Ta, Wa, Ya and 3 major vowels: A, E/l
and O/U, a total of 17 syllabic characters.
The most confusing feature of the
baybayin for non-native readers was
that there was no way to write a
consonant without having a vowel
follow it. If a syllable or a word ended
with a consonant, that consonant was
simply dropped.
For example, the letters n and k in a
word like bundok were omitted, so that it
was spelled bu-do.
The Spanish priest found this problem
to be an impediment to the accurate
translation of their religious text.
The first attempt to reform the baybayin
came in 1620 when Fr. Francisco Lopez
prepared to publish the Ilokano Doctrina. He
invented a new kudlit in the shape of a cross.
This was placed below a baybayin consonant
in order to cancel the inherent a sound.
The Use of Diacritical Marks - Baybayin
uses "Kudlits" or accent marks on the top or
bottom of a character to change its basic
form. An accent on top is used to attach the
vowel sound e/i to a consonant and at the
bottom for the sound o/u. A cross "+" or an "x"
or a Pamudpod
is used to drop the default
vowel.
Baybayin only uses pauses and full stops
and these are in
the form of single and double vertical
lines:
, (comma) I
• (period) II
Baybayin is used only in writing Tagalog or
Filipino words (or other local languages and
dialects). Foreign words must first be
translated into Filipino. "Kung ano ang
bigkas, siyang baybay" or "As Pronounced"
Any words outside the Philippine language
will be written as pronounced or "Filipinized"
BAYBAYIN EXERCISES
1. Write the word PILIPINAS in
Baybayin.
2. How would you write “Ako”, “Ikaw”
and “Unawain”?
3. Write your full name in Baybayin.
HOW TO TYPE WITH BAYBAYIN
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