Martes, Mayo 30, 2017

Baybayin Writing System

                                                                                                        Photo taken from panaynews.net

INTRODUCTION

Before the Spanish and other colonizing countries came and settle in the country, Philippines already has its own writing system and is used by many Filipinos in communicating, recording, writing poetries or noting things that they see or hear. The writing system is called the baybayin. Alright, most of you guys think that my term is wrong and it should be called alibata, instead. The truth behind all this is that, when the Spanish came, a Spanish priest coined the word alibata to refer to the alphabet the native Filipinos used before. That means, alibata is not really the actual term to call the baybayin, because it was made by a non-Filipino. Whereas, the word baybayin was used by the early Filipinos to call this system. Baybayin is derived from the Filipino word "baybay", which means is to pronounce or speak. With the suffix "-in", it makes the word a verb and a command.

You might be asking what the connection of this forgotten writing system to the Philippine Mythology I just posted a day ago is. Well, like I said, the mythology is a collection of stories and tales. Baybayin is not part of the myth, but I wanted to share some information and my opinion on why baybayin is important and needs to play a role in our life as Filipinos. People in this generation don't know how to write using this old system and no one understands it anymore because it is no longer used; replaced by the English alphabet. The good news is, there are some of things that we see every day that might have marks of the use of baybayin in there.

One is the use of the characters as symbols of our heritage. These characters are used in logos or banners, and the most popular symbol is the “Ka”, which also appears in the flag of Katipunan. Baybayin inscriptions appeared also in bills, such that the word “Pilipino” was written in these bills. Baybayin was also used by the National Museum of the Philippines as a logo using the “Ma” character. The emblem of the National Library of the Philippines also shows these baybayin, which translates “Karunungan” placed under logo. I don’t know much about this, but most of the famous college and university graduating students also use baybayin to call their batch a name in their “sablay” or garb.


WHAT IS BAYBAYIN

Baybayin was mostly used by the Tagalogs during the prehistoric times and is one of the many ancient scripts known in Philippines. Baybayin uses an abugida system, which means that each character is a combination of a consonant and a vowel (e.g. Ba, Ka, Da, Ga).

Modern baybayin introduces a new way of writing, such as the use of virama or sabat. In 1620s, a Spanish named Francisco López introduced this sabat that cancels the implicit “a” sound in form of a "+" sign in reference to Christianity (“Tagalog script”, 2008).


RULE


There is only one rule in baybayin. "Kung ano ang bigkas, siya rin ang baybay." In English, “we write as how we pronounce it.”

Meaning, you cannot write a word in baybayin "letter by letter." This is a very common mistake. Always remember the rule, especially if you're planning to have baybayin tattoo. Because many people fall into traps and they will only realize the mistake once they already have their tattoos. 


CHARACTERISTICS

Each consonant letter, or glyph, in the baybayin writing system is pronounced with the vowel ‘a’ in it. According to various sources, this is called abugida. It means that the characters are combinations of vowels and consonants. There are separate glyphs for vowels because there are also Filipino words that start in vowels. But since the each consonant are pronounced with the vowel ‘a’, you have to use marks in order to make the character sound e, i, o and u. These marks are called kudlit. If you use a kudlit above the glyph, it will produce the e and i sound. Meanwhile, if you use kudlit below the glyph, it will produce the o and u sound. There is also another kudlit, which is usually represented by a + sign, which is used to identify that the character is a consonant alone, and it has no vowels with it. Baybayin has no punctuations, but rather, some historians found the use of the symbol || to separate lines.  

(The complete guide in baybayin writing. Photo taken from Google.)


HOW TO WRITE IN BAYBAYIN

To help you further in writing, you may download my basic guide in baybayin on the link below. Have fun!



Why should we acknowledge baybayin, the lost Filipino script used in the pre-colonial times? Baybayin is a pure reflection that even before the Spanish came to colonize the country, Filipinos already have their own way to write. It reflects our culture and history because even though it is already lost, there is always a way to revive this and be used to keep it alive somehow. Baybayin makes a unique mark for us Filipinos and give us a distinction with the other countries’ culture. Although, it is found that some baybayin script is derived from Malay, or Indian and other Asian countries, Filipino made a unique way to have our own system.

Thanks for reading, hope you got a little information.

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