Baybayin: Learning a Writing System From the Philippines

Ancient System of Writing

Baybayin is one of the Philippines' ancient scriptures and forms of writing. Baybayin is just one of at least 16 different writing systems that were used in pre-colonial Philippines, a fairly lost era of before the advent of European intervention. The character-based alphabet was used in pre-colonial times and have shown a sudden spike of resurgence in the country's modern era.

Originating from ancient India (India's Vedic period), it is believed to be one of the many writing systems used during pre-colonial Philippines. Many records and artifacts of the script survived up to this day and many more are still being discovered and preserved.

Read on to learn more about this beautiful ancient writing system!

Sneak Peak

1. What is Baybayin?
2. Enabling Baybayin in GBoard
3. Writing and Reading Baybayin
4. A Brief Look at the Filipino Language
5. Baybayin or Alibata?
6. Lesson Summary
7. Practice and Excercise

Baybayin Guide from Peerj

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1. What is Baybayin?

The word Baybayin translates to

1. "to spell" or "to write" in verb form
2. "coast," "seaside," "syllables” in literal form
3. and "alphabet" in noun form

It is one of the Philippines' archaic and systematic ways of writing used by the Tagalog — a word derived from "taga-ilog," which means people and/or communities who live near bodies of water, particularly near sides of lush and fertile rivers.

The Tagalog is one of the Philippines' languages and is one the basis of it's a national and standardized language, Filipino. The Tagalog are people of the Philippines found in most parts of Luzon. Hence, the Tagalog language is dominantly spoken in Central Luzon and parts of Northern Luzon and is the primary basis for the country's national language, Filipino, along with other languages found in the Philippines.

Luzon is the largest and most populous island group that sits at the northern end of the Philippines. It’s known for its mountains, beaches, coral reefs, and is home to the national capital of the country called Manila.

The Baybayin is one of a number of individual writing systems used in Southeast Asia, nearly all of which are abugidas, or alphasyllabary, 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.

An abugida is a writing system between syllabic and alphabetic scripts. They have sequences of consonants and vowels that are written as a unit, each based on the consonant letter. Vowels must be written down as well, but they are secondary. Each syllables are built up of consonants, each of which has an inherent vowel.

diacritics

noun

plural noun: diacritics

a sign, such as an accent or cedilla, which when written above or below a letter indicates a difference in pronunciation from the same letter when unmarked or differently marked. - Oxford Dictionary

During pre-colonial Philippines, Baybayin was used to write short notes such as poetries and announcements. It wasn't used in any recording of historical events, and not used to writing any kind of numerical system.

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It was often carved in bamboo, from bottom to top, using daggers. The direction changes when written on a paper or leaves, which is written from left to right. However, the direction of writing the script depends on the writer. This particular way of writing is one of the reasons why the Spanish tried to modify the script.

2. Baybayin Script for my GBoard

The virtual keyboard app GBoard developed by Google for Android and iOS devices was updated on August 1, 2019, and Baybayin was added to its list of supported languages. Here I describe how to update your keyboard to have Baybayin characters:

1. Look for your phone's keyboard settings, usually in "Manage Keyboards"
2. Choose GBoard
3. Tap on "Languages"
4. Tap "Add Keyboard"
5. Look for "Filipino (Baybayin)"
6. Customize it to your liking.
7. Click "Done" and you're all set!

And presto! Tap on the "Globe" icon of your keyboard and it should change the language from your default to the Baybayin keyboard.

If you're unable to see the characters, be sure to check that you successfully updated your Google keyboard first.

Baybayin characters will look like tiny boxes or unknown icons if you're using your PC, if you're viewing from the web, or if you haven't yet updated your Google keyboard from your phone.

For these reasons, it is highly recommended that you read and follow this article using your phone with an updated Google Gboard keyboard. This allows you to see the Baybayin characters in the text portions and to have a practice with it, as well as thoroughly digesting the article without any hassle.