Baybayin

Baybayin aka Alibata is a pre-Filipino writing system from the islands called as the “Philippines”. Baybayin comes from the word “baybay”, which literally means “spell”. Alibata was a term mistakenly coined by Paul Versoza in the early 1900’s when he thought the script was rooted in Arabic when it’s roots were actually related to Kavi > Sanskrit.

Today, this ancient script is being resurrected thanks to young soul searching Filipinos. Due to my respect for Hector Santos & Paul Morrow, this site will not go into great detail about the origins of the script. I learned from them and will not simply rewrite what they have already done. If more detail is needed, I will link to their respective sites.

Please note that all Baybayin on this website was written my me unless noted. Since it’s my own handwriting, it will be different from what has become the standard Baybayin fonts by Paul Morrow. Just like any writing system, learn the basics then make it your own.

Two goals of this website are:

1) Help educate and reeducate so-called Filipinos about this writing system.

2) It’s also my wish that once one becomes familiar with Baybayin, they also dig deeper into other aspects of our pre-Spanish history and ACT on what was learned.