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WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENT ANCIENT SCRIPTS IN THE PHILIPPINES?

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The Ancient scripts in the Philippines, or pre-colonial scripts, aside from Baybayin, are the following, Buhid Hanunuo Kulitan Tagbanwa Buhid is an abugida that is still being used by the Mangyans in the island of Mindoro. It closely resembles Baybayin, though the characters are sharp, and meant to be written on hard substances like bamboo. Like Baybayin, it has consonants that end with an A vowel sound. To change the vowel sound into an E or I, a small marker is placed above the character, while an O or U vowel sound requires the small marker to be placed at the bottom of the character. Unlike Baybayin, it has its own character for Ra (Baybayin commonly uses the Da character for Ra, and in some occasions, La) In total, Buhid has 3 vowels namely A, I, and U. I can also stand for E, while U can also substitute for O. As for the consonants, there are 15 which are the following: Ba, Da, Ga, Ha, La, Ka, Ma, Na, NGa, Pa, Ra, Sa, Ta, Wa, Ya. Hanunuo, like Buhid is also an

BAYBAYIN OR ALIBATA ?

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Alibata and Baybayin basically pertain to the same script that Filipinos used to write before the Spanish colonizers introduced the Latin/Roman alphabet. However, the correct term is Baybayin, not Alibata. Baybayin has been used ever since to define the ancient script of the Filipinos from the Ilocos Region up north, up to the Bicol Region on the east, and the Visayas islands in the south. It is included as an entry in the dictionary compiled by the Spanish priest Pedro de Buenaventura in 1613, titled "Vocabulario De La Lengua Tagala". Baybayin comes from the word "baybay', which means to spell. However, in 1914, a professor named Paul Versoza mistakenly thought that Baybayin originated from the Arabic alphabet. Hence, he called it as "Alibata", from the first three letters of the Arabic alphabet which are Alif, Ba, Ta. Since there is no letter "F" in the Tagalog language, "Alif" became "Ali". Truth is, Baybayin di

HOW TO WRITE IN BAYBAYIN ?

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To write a name or a word in Baybayin, just follow the steps below: 1. Divide the name or the word by their syllables. 2. Next, determine how each syllable is being pronounced. 3. Using the chart below, look for the corresponding character to each syllable sound. TIP: Each character corresponds to a syllable with an A vowel sound. To change the vowel sound into either E or I, place a "Kudlit (a small circle or an apostrophe)" above the character. To change the sound into an O or U vowel sound, place the Kudlit below the character. To cancel the vowel sound, place a cross below the character. TIP 2: It is recommended to translate words into Filipino language before writing them down in Baybayin. For proper nouns, just follow how they are pronounced, and not how they were written in the Roman Alphabet Example: Lastly, have fun!

WHAT IS BAYBAYIN ?

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Baybayin is the writing system of the Filipinos before the Spanish colonizers introduced the Latin/ Roman Alphabet. It is an Abugida, a writing system in which consonant–vowel sequences are written as a single unit or character. Unlike the Roman alphabet that requires you to write letters to form the word, Baybayin uses characters that are equivalent to a syllable. Whereas the English Roman Alphabet has 26 letters, while the Spanish Roman Alphabet has 27 letters, Baybayin only has 17 characters. The 17 characters of Baybayin are comprised of 3 vowels, A, E or I, and O or U*, and 14 consonants with the vowel sound "a". The 14 consonants are Ba, Da, Ga, Ha, La, Ma, Na, NGa, Pa, Sa, Ta, Wa, and Ya* To write Ra, most often you will use the character that stands for Da, though there are also instances that La is being used. If you need to write a syllable that ends with an E or I sound, you just need to put a "Kudlit", a small marker, on top of the char