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Baybayin Histor

Baybayin was the indigenous writing system of the Philippines prior to Spanish colonization. There has been confusion between Baybayin and the term "Alibata," which was mistakenly coined by a professor. While some blame the Spanish for eradicating Baybayin, it likely died out naturally as the new generation adapted to writing in Spanish and English in order to get jobs and make money under colonial rule. Traces of Baybayin have been preserved in some of the earliest books published in the Philippines by the Spanish.

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Mark Joseph Valencia
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120 views1 page

Baybayin Histor

Baybayin was the indigenous writing system of the Philippines prior to Spanish colonization. There has been confusion between Baybayin and the term "Alibata," which was mistakenly coined by a professor. While some blame the Spanish for eradicating Baybayin, it likely died out naturally as the new generation adapted to writing in Spanish and English in order to get jobs and make money under colonial rule. Traces of Baybayin have been preserved in some of the earliest books published in the Philippines by the Spanish.

Uploaded by

Mark Joseph Valencia
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Baybayin History

First things first……Isn’t this Alibata? What’s the difference? Alibata was a term coined
by Professor Paul Versoza mistakenly originated the writing system with Arabic. The first
characters in the Arabic alphabet are ALIF-BA-TA. The “F” was dropped due to it rolling off the
tongue better as Alibata rather than Alifbata. Baybayin comes from the root word Baybay
meaning to spell. Baybayin literally means “To spell”.
“In 1921 I returned from the United States to give public lectures on Tagalog philology,
calligraphy, and linguistics. I introduced the word alibata, which found its way into newsprints
and often mentioned by many authors in their writings. I coined this word in 1914 in the New
York Public Library, Manuscript Research Division, basing it on the Maguindanao (Moro)
arrangement of letters of the alphabet after the Arabic: alif, ba, ta (alibata), “f” having been
eliminated for euphony’s sake.” (source)
Baybayin and Alibata are the same thing except that Alibata is the wrong term. It’s also
been called Sulat Tagalog and other names but Alibata has stuck. I don’t really care what people
call it but the issue I have with the term is that when one Googles Alibata, you won’t get back
good results. Some are outdated, recycled and flat out incorrect. In the late 90’s there was a
contest organized by SEO Philippines to see who could be #1 in the search engines with the
term Alibata. This caused a massive amount of low quality recycled websites. You’ll miss out on
the cultural, historical and modern context.
The origins of the script can be traced back to India just like other languages and writing
systems in South-East Asia.
Two Filipino scholars, Tavera and Paterno, have concluded that about 25 % of the
Philippine vocabularies can be traced to Indian influence. (source)
Baybayin was used to write short things such as poetry and announcements. It was carved in
natural material such as bamboo and pots.
The death of the script
One popular train of thought of the demise of the script is to blame the Spanish. While
it’s easy to blame everything on them, we probably have most our information about the script
thanks to the Spanish. With the double-edged sword of knowledge preservation and cultural
eradication, they helped keep the script alive by putting it in books and sending them abroad
for safe keeping. The very first book printed (up for debate) in the Philippines contained
Baybayin. The Doctrina Christiana was published in 1593 as a tool to convert the natives to
Christianity. It worked.
There wasn’t any mass burnings of any Baybayin manuscripts. The fact that we wrote on
organic material such as bamboo, severely shortened the lifespan of writings.
What probably happened was what occurs when a new generation wants to make money. The
fact was that we were colonized. In order to adapt to this new society, one had to learn new
things. One of them was a new writing system. Times were changing and the standards for
literacy were different. Think of it like a generation who used the typewriter then needed to
adapt to the new environment of computers. Young people wanted these new material goods
(and illusion of power) that the Spanish brought in. The best way to get it was money. Money
comes from jobs and jobs come from knowledge. Know how to read and write using the new
writing system? You would have a better chance of earning a living. It’s still like that today.
Don’t know English or how to write English? Pretty soon it will be “You need to know Chinese”
to get this job or you probably will not make as much money as the next person who does.
There’s a reason why the call-center industry boomed in the Philippines – English. One can
argue that Baybayin died a natural death.

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