Ancient Baybayin in the age of chatting

This essay is based on a talk given by the author at the 1st Indigenous Language Conference May 2, 2019

There was worrisome news recently of the rapid spread of signs on Boracay in Chinese characters, which has irritated locals who complain we are becoming foreigners in our own land.

One local government response has been a new rule requiring signs in Baybayin, to counter the spread of Chinese signs.

While that seems to be a step forward for Baybayin advocates, the Chinese tourists in Boracay may laugh once they realize most Filipinos cannot read or write in our own script. False Filipino pride is what foreigners might call it.

 

 

 

 

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Jul 30, 2018 at 6:05am PDT

On Facebook, there are photos of a monument in Zamboanga Sibugay with the province's name carved in stone. The problem is the wrong spelling in Baybayin. No one there in Sibugay seemed to know Baybayin well enough to correct it before it was made permanent.

We see this everywhere in our country, Baybayin used wrongly or in a token way by people who still cannot read or write in it. How about the Baybayin printed in our latest passports?

It’s a proverb written in small but legible print on dozens of pages. I have asked several DFA officials if they can read the Baybayin in one of our most important documents; none have said yes. They will not be able to explain to passport holders what those strange symbols mean.

I am not blaming them; I am blaming ourselves for neglecting this important cultural resource, this vital part of our identity as Filipinos. Imagine traveling and telling our fellow Asians that like them, we too have our own script. Yet so few of us can read it. We are illiterate in our own language.

We can blame our educational system. Our schools now teach in the many mother tongues, but they still do not teach the mother script.

I for one am too old to learn Baybayin in our school system. So a couple of years ago, I became determined to teach myself. I stuck a poster of the Baybayin syllabary on my office wall, and looked at it every day. I bought flash cards online.

I practiced writing every character through repetition, like a grade one student learning the Latin script. But I just could not memorize them all. I thought my brain was too old to learn a new script, a sad thought.

Then researching on the internet one day, I discovered that there are keyboard apps for my phone with a handy kodigo. Eureka!

I started messaging in Baybayin with the few people I knew who could reply. Soon I was urging my family to download the app, then my close friends.

I now chat with my family and with friends like Kara David and Chiara Zambrano in Baybayin, sometimes publicly in comment threads on Facebook and Instagram. I joined a Facebook group with others who want to learn, and we chat purely in Baybayin.

As I learned it, I was overcome with emotion. First, it was the realization that my brain was not yet too old to learn a new script. In fact, the app has enabled me not only to learn it but teach it to others. It’s an empowering, fountain-of-youth feeling.

But the even greater emotion is the feeling of connection to my deeper self, to the blood of my ancient ancestors. It is a feeling of wholeness. When I see Baybayin written anywhere, I can read it. I also know when there’s a mistake.

And you know what, Baybayin is beautiful and artful in ways that the Latin script is not. I recognize some of the shapes of Baybayin from our own environment: the HA reminds me of the ripple in a stream; the EH evokes the sea and its waves; the BA is like a seashell. And the KA, of course, is also the proud symbol of our independence from Spain.

When writing in my journal on a plane ride recently, I did not want the passenger next to me to read what I was writing. So I wrote in Baybayin. It’s become like a secret personal code. But it should not be a secret, or confined to a few enthusiasts.

Baybayin has kept my mind nimble and fills my heart with joy. It was the missing link in my Filipino identity. I have checked off learning Baybayin on my bucket list.

Howie Severino teaching Baybayin. Photo courtesy of Chris Linag

Now my wish is as more people learn Baybayin through these keyboard apps, our script transcends its specialized use now as logo designs, tattoo art, and calligraphy, and becomes a form of mass communication – used not only in chatting or texting on our phones, but in writing our emails and formal communications, maybe even having publications some day in Baybayin. That way we are truly bilingual, not only in speaking but in writing.

One day, perhaps sooner than we think, all Filipinos can go to Boracay and be guided by the signs in Baybayin – and translate them for our foreign friends with genuine pride. — LA, GMA News