Baybayin, the Syllabic Alphabet of the Tagalogs

by Jean-Paul G Potet

When the Spaniards conquered the Philippines (Sugbu / Cebu 1565, Maynila / Manila 1571), they noticed that several of its nations had a writing system of their own, called Baybayin in Tagalog. People used it to record poems, magic spells and letters. They engraved their texts with a knife on leaves or small pieces of bamboo. It was a kind of shorthand that did not make it possible to write closing consonants. For example it-log "egg" was written i-lu like i-log "river" and i-long "nose." As a consequence, Baybayin was very easy to write, but very hard to read. Because of this shortcoming, Filipinos adopted the Latin alphabet, and gradually abandoned their own in the course of the Seventeenth Century. Baybayin is now making a come back among graphic artists and expatriate communities, where it has become a means of expressing their philippineness.

240 pages, Paperback

Published January 23, 2015