This is my little Moleskine notebook. I was just in highschool when my cousin gave this to me - it's actually a reject she got for free. It has no front leather cover so I made one for it using mache'd book pages and turned it to what it looks like above. (I painted the cover with ink and made writings on it.) It reads "Ano? Mahal mo ba siya?" while the other wordings are hidden with blackened post its. (That translates to "What? Do you love him/her?")

This post isn't about that customized notebook alone, today you may learn how to write in Baybayin.

My notebook was filled with all sort of notes in Filipino, English, and some are written in Baybayin. It also contains artworks on half of its pages. Among the first few pages here's what you will see:

Writings in Baybayin - I already forgot what I wrote there and haven't got the time to re-read it and do a translation. If you know how to read this script and if my writing is legible then be my guess, I don't suggest doing that though - this may be something personal or embarrassing, I may not now. Haha.

Up top is another page with some things in Baybayin while the other parts, as you can see, are written in English or Filipino (Taglish). I will have to apologize for my handwriting is as bad as how it looks there, in fact it's actually worse than that if I have to write faster. Especially now that I don't write using pen that much anymore - since typing on a keyboard is much faster and efficient.

On this page - I tried to be more creative - the left page is an actually book page and the red here was colored with food colour that my Mother use in making rice-cakes pink! On the right side - more writings in Baybayin.

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I did say you will learn how to write it, right?

Baybayin incorrectly known as Alibata is a pre-Filipino writing system from the islands known as the “Philippines”. Baybayin comes from the word “baybay”, which literally means “spell”

• Source

Okay then, here it is, there's a page in the notebook that houses the 'tutorial' or guide on how to write Baybayin (in my font - cause apparently there's no standard - that I know of - for writing this way that there are so many custom fonts and some look really similar but others have notable differences):

Here's my simple guide for it. I do hope it helps - it's not a professional or a very good tutorial but it teaches the basics. To compensate for it though I looked through the web and find more tutorials for you guys:

• Baybayin Blog Tutorials
• Nordenx Blogspot
• Mandirigma Org

Happy learning guys!

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Here's more of what's inside my notebook:

I made a collage of some pages that I think you guys will appreciate.

There's also one page that has a little pocket in it and there are some artworks inserted in it. I've spread them out a bit as you can see here:

Those little artwork 'bars' actually have drawings on the other side too - they were originally from a little elongated sketchbook I got.

I like doing art and crafts randomly that's why I filled this notebook with those stuff above. The notebook still is half-full and there are lots of pages that are looking for my attention and time. They're calling me to pour art onto them - we'll get there my little friend - once I have more time I'll smother you with ink and colors!

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Maraming Salamat!

Thank you so much!