International Baybayin Carrier

New Philippine Passport Design with Baybayin Inscription

Image source: Wikipedia

A new generation of Philippine e-passport was released on August 15, 2016 by the Department of Foreign Affairs shows a generally new design. Aside from advanced security features is the inclusion of baybayin script in one of its pages.

A closer look on a page of the e-passport with baybayin script

The baybayin script printed ᜀᜅ᜔ ᜃᜆᜓᜏᜒᜇᜈ᜔ ᜀᜌ᜔ ᜋᜄ᜔ᜉᜉᜇᜃᜒᜎ ᜐ ᜁᜐᜅ᜔ ᜊᜌᜈ᜔  (some characters are blocked by the flag) reads "Ang katuwiran ay magpapadakila sa isang bayan" (Righteousness exalts a nation) is taken from a verse in Proverbs 14:34 of the Bible (Old Testament).

No More Boxes!

The release of Apple's iOS 9 on September 16, 2015 focuses less on new features and more on under-the-hood optimizations, as well as battery improvements but in baybayin, this is the finest day. iOS 9 expanded its Unicode range on its System font by utilizing the Google Noto Font which includes Tagalog, Buhid, Hanunoo, and Tagbanwa script. Now it can be seen the baybayin clearly in iPad and iPhone that has iOS 9 version. No more squares or boxes in messaging, messenger and safari browser.

Screenshot in Safari

Screenshot in Safari

Screenshot in Messenger

Screenshot in Messaging

However there is no fully supported third-party baybayin keyboard yet that can directly type the script but it can be done through a separate customized keyboard by Unicode Pad. Simply type in and copy-paste it to desired messaging.

 

Screenshot in Unicode Pad with customized baybayin keyboard

With the inclusion of baybayin in iOS 9, it paved the way to a broader and wider field in cyberspace and communications. More people will be able to use the script for communication and has wider access and exposure to the world. This cemented the script together with the existing scripts like Korean Hangeul, Japanese Katakana/Hiragana, Chinese Hanzi, Thai, Hebrew, Arabic and others, ultimately placing it to a full-pledged living script.

*Updated*

Following the updating of iOS 9.0, third party baybayin keyboards emerges thus typing baybayin in iOS devices made easily. Below is an example and one of the popular third party babayin keyboard application for iOS developed:

Baybayin Basic Chart

There are numerous baybayin charts available but some are not original and with extended developed characters which are unofficial and not standard that could mislead someone who is still new to the script. This one is a remake of the iconic Ilocan syllabary chart also known as Kur-itan taken from the Francisco López typefont of the 1621 Ilocan Doctrina Cristiana (Líbro a naisurátan ámin a bagás ti Doctrina Cristiana nga naisúrat ití líbro ti cardenal agnágan Belarmino quet ináon ti Fr. Francisco López, padre a San Agustín ití sinasantóy). The font used for this remake is the Baybayin Lopez font created by Paul Morrow based on the same typefont.

The above chart first introduces by F. López the utilization of the vowel cancelling cross-virama for the Reformed method of writing. In addition to the chart, there are equivalent marks for comma and period but it can also be use to other punctuation marks such as exclamation point and question mark. Another glyph created by the late Dutch anthropologist Antoon Postma is the pamudpod - a vowel cancellation mark virama now accepted by the Mangyan people in Mindoro.

Font creator Norman Delos Santos include pamudpod in his fonts as a proposed replacement for the Spanish cross virama for end/trailing consonants while leaving the +/x virama for leading consonants. This proposed convention further applies to +/x virama to a distinct purpose - for writing foreign words with leading consonants (ex. trabaho, proyekto).

*Note pamudpod glyph taken from Baybayin Modern Sulat font by Norman Delos Santos

Baybayin in Facebook

Not only applies as an artistic element as we commonly see but in actual and original purpose - reading and writing. Now that we are in cyberspace through Facebook, we can now type and read baybayin in comments, status update and a lot more.

To configure your browser depending on your operation system to display baybayin properly and more details click here.

Baybayin In Music Industry

Baybayin in music industry started in the 90's when the band AfterImage released their album 'Bagong Araw' written in baybayin as design in their album art cover. Here are the list of the artist with baybayin in their album art:

Artist: AfterImage

Album: Bagong Araw (Baybayin: ᜊᜄᜓᜅ᜔ ᜀᜍᜏ᜔)

Year: 1996

Artist: Asin

Album: Pag-ibig, Pagbabago, Pagpapatuloy...

Baybayin: ᜀᜐᜒᜈ᜔ ᜇᜎᜏᜅ᜔ᜎᜒᜊᜓᜆ᜔ ᜁᜐ (ASIN DALAWANGLIBOT ISA)

Year: 2002

Artist: Kapatid

Album: Kapatid

Year: 2006

The baybayin 'ᜃ' (Ka) is the band's logo

Artist: RPM

Album: Real Pinoy Music

Year: 2011

The baybayin 'ᜇᜉᜋ' (Ra Pa Ma) is their initials

 

 Artist: Gary Granada

Album: The Essential Gary Granada Collection

Year: 2012(?)

Although there is a written baybayin script in this album art cover but it did not follow the syllabic way of writing the script. Instead it was written in alphabetic way which reads as Ga-A-Ra-Ya Ga-Ra-A-Na-A-Da-A. It supposed to be written as it below:

Artist: Pordalab

Album: Puso at Bayan

Year: 2016

Baybayin Signage

Baybayin continues to penetrate commercially from printed shirts/apparels, accessories, perfumes, books and a lot more. And now the script is gaining even more exposure through business signage not only in the Philippines but in overseas as well.

The Real Bank /Location: Philippines
(Unfortunately the entity of the bank is no longer exist due to the acquisition of BDO Unibank Inc. in 2014) 
 

Montalbo Massage Hut /Location: Philippines

Haraya Kape /Location: Philippines
(Update: Haraya Kape renamed Café Franco)

Raquel Pawnshop /Location: Philippines

Kiapo /Location: Philippines

Pepe's Kitchen /Location: UK

 Pinoy Salusalo /Location: UAE
(Although the baybayin reads 'PINOYA SALUSALO' the designer of the logo explains that since baybayin has no end consonant [refering to the Traditional Method], he/she decided to leave the 'Ya' character as it is.)

Kape DIY Filipino Coffee Shop /Location: Philippines

 

 Kulyan Optical/Location: Philippines

Aura's Water Refilling Station /Location: Aurora, Philippines

Bang Bang Bangus /Location: Philippines

Alejandro's Banyuhay Coffee /Lacation: Isabela, Philippines

*Updated: June 5, 2022

Baybayin Keyboard on Android

A keyboard application for Android phones include baybayin script

Screenshot 1 (the baybayin keyboard)

Screenshot 2

 

Screenshot 3 (showing the settings/language selection

)

Font used: Baybayin Modern Print Font by Nordenx.

A new update was made available include the change of baybayin font use. The latest update now feature the font Tagalog Doctrina by Paul Morrow which is based on the typeface used in one of the very first book printed in the Philippines, the Doctrina Cristiana of 1593 which is the earliest documented form of the Baybayin script.

Screenshot 4 (the baybayin keyboard)

Screenshot 5 (showing the Tagalog Doctrina font)

 Screenshot 6 (showing the settings/language selection)

 

Now available for download on Google play: MultiLing Keyboard and MyAlpha

Note: Most Android phones are not supported by the Unicode range of the baybayin so you can only see boxes in most applications like built-in browser, Facebook, Messenger, and messaging. It can only appear properly in MyAlpha. It is advisable that you need to type in MyAlpha and copy-paste it in your browser, messenger etc. 

MultiLing Keyboard

MyAlpha

*Screenshot from Xperia Mini