Kuya Bai Baybayin

Wow baybayin✒️✍️

UST documents in ancient ‘baybayin’ script declared a National Cultural Treasure

Owing to their outstanding cultural value, two 17th-century baybayin documents from the University of Santo Tomas (UST) Archives were recently declared National Cultural Treasure (NCT) by the National Archives of the Philippines (NAP).

Baybayin is the ancient Filipino syllabary in use during the Spanish contact in the 16th century.

Read more: http://bit.ly/1z8I0r8

Photo: 1635 deed of sale (c/o UST Archives)

Pedro Andres de Castro wrote out a treatise on Tagalog orthography in 1776 (the year of US Independence) that contains a table of baybayin. This suggests baybayin was still in use in the 18thC, but how come so little has survived?

The Life, Death, and Resurgence of Baybayin

Ang Baybayin ay... ✍️