Ancient Filipino Script

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Alibata is an ancient Filipino script that is believed to have originated from the Javanese’ old kawi script. There are many theories as to where it actually originated. It is also believed that it have originated from India. 

Baybayin is the proper term for this ancient script. Baybayin in tagalong means “to spell”. The term Alibata was derived from the first two letters of the Maguindanaoan alphabet “alif” and “bet”.

It is believed that alibata was used on the early 14th century to the late 19th century when the Spaniards have started colonizing the Philippines. Spanish influence has introduced the modern Roman alphabet. Despite the influence of the Spaniards, there are two forms of this script that survives up to the present day. Mangyans from the island of Mindoro and the Tagbanwa from Palawan still use this type of script.

Their writings are for ordinary transactions like love letters given by a man to a woman or write-ups for business purposes and ordinary day to day needs. 

Baybayin was syllabic in nature, meaning that each character represented a complete syllable rather than a single sound as represented by a letter in the modern Filipino alphabet. 

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Each character represents a syllable that consists of a consonant, followed by the “a” sound (ah). If a syllable requires a sound that doesn’t have an “a”, kudlit or hash mark is added either above or below the symbol depending on the sound. For the sound, “I” or “E”, the kudlit is placed above the symbol. For the sound “O” or “U”, the kudlit is written below the symbol.

If a syllable doesn’t have a consonant (like “oo”, or “yes”), then one of three vowel symbols could be used:

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There are many syllables that end in a consonant, leaving a slight problem in reading Baybayin. There’s no way to write that consonant, so the reader must guess the meaning. The Spanish solved this problem by developing a special kudlit, in the form of a small cross, which was written below character of the ending consonant, thus making Baybayin easier to read. There were no symbols used for numbers.

Words were written from bottom to top and left to right. The early Filipinos usually had more of an oral tradition rather than a written tradition but written records of epic poems and religious works were kept.

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