Abakada: All the Secrets of the Tagalog Alphabet

The Philippines has a rich culture and heritage; it was a mixture of native and foreign influences. When the Spanish colonized the country, they established religion and a system of education. However, they did not primarily focus on education compared to the Americans. The Spanish have introduced the Latin script using the Spanish alphabet.

During the pre-Hispanic era, the Philippine languages were primarily written in abugida’s ancient segmental writing system. Spain introduced the Spanish alphabet, called Abecedario, the original alphabet of the Catholicism Filipinos. It has 28, 29, 31, 32 not until 1987 when the Filipino alphabet consisted of 28 letters.

In 1940, the grammarian Lope K. Santos introduced the Abakada alphabet composed of 20 letters as the standard alphabet of the national language. Tagalog-based National Language adopted Abakada to indigenize the writing system in the country. To get into details about the Philippine alphabet, I’ve gathered pieces of information below.

Letters in Abakada

The letters in Abakada consist of 20 letters.  It is closely based on the Latin-based spelling systems since it has also ng inserted after n. When naming or spelling each consonant, it is always pronounced with “a” at the end of each like “ba”, “ka”, ‘da” and that is the reason for its name Abakada

Collation of the Abecedario 

Abeedario is based on the Spanish alphabet introduced and used by Catholicized Filipinos. It consists of 32 letters. 

Collation of the Modern Filipino Alphabet

The Filipino Alphabet consists of 28 letters. The alphabet primarily uses the American alphabet plus the Spanish Ñ and Tagalog Ng digraph.This alphabet is widely used in many schools but sometimes they only use the standard American alphabet with no  Spanish Ñ and Tagalog Ng digraph.

Philippine Braille or Filipino Braille

The Philippine Braille or Filipino Braille is the braille alphabet of the Philippines. The Philippine Braille is based on the alphabet used for Grade-1 English Braille, comprising 26 basic letters.

Filipino Braille	Symbol
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
Ñ
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z

What is Baybayin?

Baybayin or incorrectly known as Alibata, is Philippine Script. Alibata is an alphasyllabary that belongs to the family of Brahmic scripts. During pre-colonization, it was widely used by people in Luzon and other parts of the country before and during the 16th and 17th centuries. 

In the 18th century, it became obsolete as the Latin Alphabet replaced the Philippine writing system during the Spanish colonization. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the Baybayin script survived and evolved in many forms. It was used by the different locals, including Tagbanwa script of Palawan, Hanuno’o, and Buhid scripts Mindoro, Kulitan writing of the Kapampangan, and Ibalnan script of the Palawan tribe.

Some called Baybalin as Alibata but most scholars tend to reject this since it is incorrect. Baybayin is a Tagalog term that means “to write” or “to spell. In the current times, baybayin has been called badlit, kurditan, kur-itan by the Ilocanos, kudlit-kabadlit by the Visayans,, and basahan by the Bicolanos.

Baybayin is very important as it reflects the Filipino way of writing used before the Spanish arrived in 1521. The Spanish missionaries initially learned to spread Catholicism before forcing the local people to adopt the usage of the Roman Alphabet. Despite being prehistoric writing, Baybayin is not being revived. Some Filipinos mostly use it as designs, insignia of government agencies; some would print baybayin words in their t-shirt to promote it.

Takeaways

The Spanish and American Alphabet influenced the Filipino Alphabet. Though the Philippines has its native writing called Baybayin, it still uses the Modern Filipino ALphabet, derived from the Spanish and American writing system. It is good to know that though Baybayin became obsolete in the 18th century, it survived and evolved in many forms in the 19th to 20th century.

Though Baybayin may not be widely used today, it was the reflection of Filipino writing identity. Aside from the Modern Filipino Alphabet, the country uses Abakada to indigenize the country’s writing system.