Last year, Sulong Baybayin Abril 21 (SBA21) movers celebrated the 1117th anniversary of the Laguna Copperplate Inscription (LCI), the oldest written document or artifact found in the Philippines. The event had an online campaign for Baybayin, the precolonial writing system of the Tagalogs.
The typeface of the pre-Filipino script above (first image) is my own. It says, "Ang hindi marunong magmahal sa sariling wika ay higit pa sa hayop at malansang isda" (English: 'He that knows not to love his own language, is worse than beasts and putrid fish'). That passage from the poem "Sa Aking mga Kabata" (English: To My Fellow Youth) is widely attributed to Dr. Jose Rizal, the Father of Modern Tagalog Orthography. The quote is now considered by many historians as a hoax.
Well, if I'm going to commemorate yearly the native alphasyllabary Baybayin as the ancient script of the Tagalogs, I think it's but proper to recognize Dr. Jose Rizal as "The Father of Tagalog Baybayin" today. Rizal even mentioned that his genuine transcriptions were from the ancient Baybayin characters. Besides, the Filipino language is no longer Tagalog.
If you want to see more of my own Baybayin typefaces, click this link to Baybayin Foundry blog. Here are some of them:
Two of the most unique typefaces that I've created were the Senyas Baybayin (English: Baybayin Signals) and the Sangkinapal (English: Creation) petroglyphs:
My Baybayin sign language, Senyas Baybayin, has been featured in Omniglot, the online encyclopedia of writing systems and languages. Filipinyin is there too, my own version of a Filipino alphasyllabary, a modified Baybayin script. Filipinyin's characters sound like the English alphabet though except for two (the Ñ and Ng).
B17, the iconic Baybayin with 3 vowels and 14 consonants, is the base graphemes of modern Baybayin versions.
You can teach your friends or your kids with this cute Baybayin Abakada. If you want to print a large version of it, just click the poster's title or the image below.
Lovees, you can join our Facebook group Baybayin Foundry if you want to learn more about Baybayin and the upcoming 2018 Sulong Baybayin Abril 21 (SBA21) or visit Baybayinista.com for more details.
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