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a la wa sa ha 30 way of writing edit historic traditional modern according to scott when the sign for ba has to be read as be bi it has a kudlit a small v shaped diacritic sign on the left or above if it has to be read as bu bo the kudlit is on the right resp below the ancient characters of tagalog and camarines people had its own character for r in contrast to more common modern baybayin version and ilokano kurdita 31 in his time the kaldit was called kaholoan or holo according to marcos de lisboa author of the earliest dictionary of bikol 32 31 according to lisboa writing for old bikolnons started from the bottom up writing to the right 33 31 however some scholars such as ignacio villamor who have studied the basahan of pre hispanic filipinos strongly emphasize that they all wrote texts in a straight line starting from left to right then returning to the left at the beginning and keep writing right 34 history edit the precise origins of baybayin are not well defined 35 precolonial evidence of indigenous communication practices is scant because few written records from the time period have survived this is because cultural and historical information were instead generally preserved orally 36 brahmi origins edit see also indian cultural influences in early philippine polities and indianization of southeast asia despite the writing system s unclear origins scholars agree that baybayin like all other abugida scripts of southeast asia ultimately descends from the brahmi script of ancient india 37 this was made possible by the indirect indianization of the philippines during the archipelago s precolonial period various aspects of indian languages were introduced to the philippines likely through indonesia to the south where writing systems related to baybayin like the kawi script were used 38 indosphere isaac taylor sought to show that baybayin was introduced into the philippines from the coast of bengal sometime before the 8th century in attempting to show such a relationship taylor presented graphic representations of kistna and assam letters like g k ng t m h and u which resemble the same letters in baybayin fletcher gardner argued that the philippine scripts had very great similarity with the brahmi script 39 which was supported by t h pardo de tavera according to christopher miller evidence seems strong for baybayin to be ultimately of gujarati origin however philippine and gujarati languages have final consonants so it is unlikely that their indication would have been dropped had baybayin been based directly on a gujarati model 40 kawi edit the laguna copperplate inscription the kawi script originated in java descending from the pallava script 41 and was used across much of maritime southeast asia the laguna copperplate inscription is the earliest known written document found in the philippines it is a legal document with the inscribed date of saka era 822 corresponding in the proleptic gregorian calendar to 21 april 900 ad it was written in the kawi script in a variety of old malay containing numerous loanwords from sanskrit and a few non malay vocabulary elements whose origin is ambiguous between old javanese and old tagalog a second example of kawi script can be seen on the butuan ivory seal found in the 1970s and dated between the 9th and 12th centuries it is an ancient seal made of ivory that was found in an archaeological site in butuan inscribed with the word butwan in stylized kawi and now in the national museum of the philippines 42 one hypothesis therefore reasons that since kawi is the earliest attestation of writing in the philippines then baybayin may have descended from kawi south sulawesi scripts edit david diringer accepting the view that the scripts of the malay archipelago originate in india writes that the south sulawesi scripts derive from the kawi script probably through the medium of the batak script of sumatra the philippine scripts according to diringer were possibly brought to the philippines through the buginese characters in sulawesi 43 according to scott baybayin s immediate ancestor was very likely a south sulawesi script probably old makassar or a close ancestor 44 this is because of the lack of final consonants or vowel canceler markers in baybayin south sulawesi languages have a restricted inventory of syllable final consonants and do not represent them in the bugis and makassar scripts the most likely explanation for the absence of final consonant markers in baybayin is therefore that its direct ancestor was a south sulawesi script sulawesi lies directly to the south of the philippines and there is evidence of trade routes between the two baybayin must therefore have been developed in the philippines in the fifteenth century ce as the bugis makassar script was developed in south sulawesi no earlier than 1400 ce 45 cham script edit the eastern cham script baybayin could have been introduced to the philippines by maritime connections with the champa kingdom geoff wade has argued that the baybayin characters ga nga pa ma ya and sa display characteristics that can be best explained by linking them to the cham script rather than other indic abugidas according to wade baybayin seems to be more related to other southeast asian scripts than to the kawi script wade argues that the laguna copperplate inscription is not definitive proof for a kawi origin of baybayin as the inscription displays final consonants which baybayin does not 46 early history edit from the available material it is clear that baybayin was used in luzon palawan mindoro pangasinan ilocos panay leyte and iloilo but there is no proof supporting that baybayin reached mindanao it appears that the luzon and palawan varieties started to develop in different ways in the 1500s before the spaniards conquered what we know today as the philippines this puts luzon and palawan as the oldest regions where baybayin was and is used it is also notable that the script used in pampanga had already developed special shapes for the four letters by the early 1600s different from the ones used elsewhere there were three somewhat distinct varieties of baybayin in the late 1500s and 1600s though they could not be described as three different scripts any more than the different styles of latin script across medieval or modern europe with their slightly different sets of letters and spelling systems 5 some handwritten samples of baybayin characters based on the typography of plasencia s 1593 doctrina christiana baybayin characters found in zambales characters based on the typography used in the ilocano 1620 work libro a naisuratan amin ti bagas ti doctrina cristiana ancient characters of tagalog and camarines peoples also called basahan in the bicol region baybayin characters found in pangasinan baybayin samples found in the visayas the indigenous script of pampanga recorded in 1699 by álvaro de benavente and since reconstructed as kulitan although one of ferdinand magellan s shipmates antonio pigafetta wrote that the people of the visayas were not literate in 1521 the baybayin had already arrived there by 1567 when miguel lópez de legazpi reported from cebu that 47 they the visayans have their letters and characters like those of the malays from whom they learned them they write them on bamboo bark and palm leaves with a pointed tool but never is any ancient writing found among them nor word of their origin and arrival in these islands their customs and rites being preserved by traditions handed down from father to son without any other record a century later in 1668 francisco alcina wrote 20 the characters of these natives visayans or better said those that have been in use for a few years in these parts an art which was communicated to them from the tagalogs and the latter learned it from the borneans who came from the great island of borneo to manila with whom they have considerable traffic from these borneans the tagalogs learned their characters and from them the visayans so they call them moro characters or letters because the moros taught them the visayans learned the moros letters which many use today and the women much more than the men which they write and read more readily than the latter francisco de santa inés explained in 1676 why writing baybayin was more common among women as they do not have any other way to while away the time for it is not customary for little girls to go to school as boys do they make better use of their characters than men and they use them in things of devotion and in other things that are not of devotion 48 spanish colonial period edit pages of the doctrina christiana an early christian book in spanish and tagalog both in the latin script and in baybayin 1593 the earliest printed book in a philippine language featuring both tagalog in baybayin and transliterated into the latin script is the 1593 doctrina christiana en lengua española y tagala the tagalog text was based mainly on a manuscript written by fr juan de placencia friars domingo de nieva and juan de san pedro martyr supervised the preparation and printing of the book which was carried out by an unnamed chinese artisan this is the earliest example of baybayin that exists today and it is the only example from the 1500s there is also a series of legal documents containing baybayin preserved in spanish and philippine archives that span more than a century the three oldest all in the archivo general de indias in seville are from 1591 and 1599 49 5 baybayin was noted by the spanish priest pedro chirino in 1604 and antonio de morga in 1609 to be known by most filipinos and was generally used for personal writings and poetry among others however according to william henry scott there were some datus from the 1590s who could not sign affidavits or oaths and witnesses who could not sign land deeds in the 1620s 50 amami a fragment of the ilocano lord s prayer written in ilocano baybayin kur itan kurdita the first to use krus kudlít 51 52 in 1620 libro a naisurátan amin ti bagás ti doctrina cristiana was written by fr francisco lopez an ilocano doctrina the first ilocano baybayin based on the catechism written by cardinal bellarmine 51 this is an important moment in the history of baybayin because the krus kudlít was introduced for the first time which allowed writing final consonants he commented the following on his decision 20 the reason for putting the text of the doctrina in tagalog type has been to begin the correction of the said tagalog script which as it is is so defective and confused because of not having any method until now for expressing final consonants i mean those without vowels that the most learned reader has to stop and ponder over many words to decide on the pronunciation which the writer intended this krus kudlít or virama kudlít did not catch on among baybayin users however native baybayin experts were consulted about the new invention and were asked to adopt it and use it in all their writings after praising the invention and showing gratitude for it they decided that it could not be accepted into their writing because it went against the intrinsic properties and nature that god had given their writing and that to use it was tantamount to destroy with one blow all the syntax prosody and orthography of their tagalog language 53 in 1703 baybayin was reported to still be in use in the comintan batangas and laguna and other areas of the philippines 54 among the earliest literature on the orthography of visayan languages were those of jesuit priest ezguerra with his arte de la lengua bisaya in 1747 55 and of mentrida with his arte de la lengua bisaya iliguaina de la isla de panay in 1818 which primarily discussed grammatical structure 56 based on the differing sources spanning centuries the documented syllabaries also differed in form clarification needed the monreal stone which is the centerpiece at the baybayin section of the national museum of anthropology the ticao stone inscription also known as the monreal stone or rizal stone is a limestone tablet that contains baybayin characters found by pupils of rizal elementary school on ticao island in monreal town masbate which had scraped the mud off their shoes and slippers on two irregular shaped limestone tablets before entering their classroom they are now housed at a section of the national museum of the philippines which weighs 30 kilos is 11 centimeters thick 54 centimeters long and 44 centimeters wide while the other is 6 centimeters thick 20 centimeters long and 18 centimeters wide 57 58 the doctrina christiana at the national museum of anthropology historically baybayin was used in tagalog and kapampangan speaking areas it spread to ilocos and bicol through catechisms administered by friars in the early colonial period pedro chirino a spanish priest and antonio de morga noted in 1604 and 1609 that most filipino men and women could read baybayin 46 before the colonial period it was largely reserved for writing personal notes messages poetry and signing documents and not for record keeping or longform writing like books 50 during the colonial period filipinos began keeping paper records of their property and financial transactions and would write down lessons they were taught in church 20 documents written in the native language and began to play a significant role in the judicial and legal life of the colony 59 traditionally baybayin was written upon palm leaves with a sharp stylus or on bamboo with a small knife 60 the curved shape of the letter forms of baybayin is influenced by this practice straight lines would tear the leaves 61 once the letters were carved into the bamboo they were wiped with ash to make the characters stand out 20 during the era of spanish colonization baybayin came to be written with ink on paper using a sharpened quill 62 woodblock printed books were produced to facilitate the spread of christianity 63 in some parts of the country such as mindoro the traditional writing technique has been retained 64 decline edit baybayin gradually fell out of use in much of the philippines under spanish rule learning the latin alphabet also helped filipinos to make socioeconomic progress as they could rise to relatively prestigious positions such as clerks scribes and secretaries 20 in 1745 sebastián de totanés wrote in his arte de la lengua tagala that the indian filipino who knows how to read baybayin is now rare and rarer still is one who knows how to write it they now all read and write in our castilian i e latin letters 4 between 1751 and 1754 juan josé delgado wrote that the native men devoted themselves to the use of our latin writing 65 the ambiguity of vowels i e and o u the lack of syllable final consonants and of letters for some spanish sounds may also have contributed to the decline of baybayin the rarity of pre hispanic baybayin texts has led to a common misconception that fanatical spanish priests must have destroyed the majority of native documents anthr...