BAYBAYIN

"BAYBAYIN" Ancient Philippine writing system
Baybayin is not just a simple alphabet or script, for me it is a beautiful form of art every letter is an artistic symbol. It is the proof that our Filipino ancestors has their own way of learning, Baybayin has a big part on our history, but it is sad to know that majority of the Filipinos didn't know how to read or write in Baybayin.

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HISTORY
Baybayin is derived from Brahmic scripts of India and first recorded in the 16th century, baybayin continued to be used during the Spanish colonization of the Philippines up until the late 19th century. The alphabet is well known because it was carefully documented by Catholic clergy living in the Philippines during the colonial era.

The word "BAYBAYIN" comes from the rootword
"BAYBAY" which means " to spell ". Some have incorrectly named "Alibata" to it, but that term was coined by Paul Rodriguez Verzosa after the arrangement of letters of the Arabic alphabet alif, ba, ta. But the BAYBAYIN is not related to Arabic alphabet.

Baybayin is one of the many writing systems used in Southeast Asia, nearly all of which are abugidas where any consonant is pronounced with the inherent vowel "a" following it, diacritics being used to express other vowels. Many of these writing systems descended from ancient alphabets used in India over 2000 years ago. Although Baybayin does share some similarities with these ancient alphabets, there is no evidence that it is this old nor is there evidence that it is recent.

the first baybayin scripts is written or curved in a jar, leaves, bamboo or other kind of woods.

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LEARN HOW TO WRITE IN Modern BAYBAYIN ALPHABET

Learning the basics of Baybayin is easy especially if you can understand tagalog/Filipno language.

Baybayin is much easier to write than to read it.

The modern Baybayin alphabet is consists of 18 characters 3 vowels and 15 consonants.

the vowels are "a, e/i and o/u"

the 15 consonants are pronounce with a vowel "a" following it, the consonants are " Ba, Ka, Da, Ga, Ha, La, Ma, Na, Nga, Pa, Ra, Sa, Ta, Wa, and Ya".

THE KUDLIT
You can use Kudlit If you want to write something that doesn't rhyme with "a" ) this would require learning a whole other set of letters for each vowel sound. We use the same consonant letters shown in the list above and simply combine them with a special mark, called a kudlit, to change the sound of the vowel "a".
The word kudlit means a small cut or incision, which is exactly what it was back in the days when Filipinos wrote on bamboo. Since we now write with pen and paper, or a computer, the kudlit mark can be any shape. Usually it is a "dot" or "tick", or sometimes it is shaped like a "v "or an arrowhead ">". The sound of a letter is not changed in any way by the shape of the kudlit, it is changed by the position of the kudlit.

place a Kudlit above a letter to signify the sound of "i or e".

place a Kudlit below the letter to change the sound of a letter to "o or u".

see the examples in the picture below.

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The Spanish Kudlit

the Spanish Kudlit is usually the "+" or "×" sign placed below a letter to cancel its vowel sound.

see the example on the image below

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PERIOD AND COMMA

a single vertical line " / " = comma

two vertical line "// " = period

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Writing Foreign Words
Writing non-Filipino words in the baybayin script can be complicated. Many sounds do not have letters in the baybayin, especially in English, many words cannot be written without replacing the letter.

for example, the letter C as in "Cat" can be replace as "kat" in baybayin (Ca=Ka),
or letter J as in "Jose" can be written/read as "Hose" in baybayin, (Jo=Ho).

look at the image below to see more examples.

there are many ways on writing Baybayin on foreign words.
So, If you want to learn how to write baybayin in foreign/complicated words or names, you must need to learn how to write and read the basics of baybayin first.

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"Lupang Hinirang" written in Baybayin national anthem of the Philippines.

image source

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the sentence in this image says If There's a Will There's a Way.

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Thank you for reading.
if you have any questions, suggestions or any comments, feel free to drop me a message in coment box, so we can discuss it there.

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Resourcess
HISTORY Wikipedia
KUDLIT

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thanks for dropping by,
thats all for now, till next time.