Baybayin
Archives
A curated exploration of reimagined Filipino design artifacts,
through the lens of the pre-colonial script, Baybayin.
Acknowledgement
Before proceeding, I’d like to acknowledge the variety of ways in which Ancient character forms are written throughout the Philippines. Two variations which are used today belong to the Mangyan tribe of Mindoro, the Hanunó'o-Mangyan way and Buhid-Mangyan way. Baybayin has been argued as primarily being a Tagalog-centric script, and I’d like to validate sentiments of alienation that may exist among Filipinos in imposing Baybayin – as some have found that it is not inclusive of all Filipino dialects. Rather than a cultural imposition for aesthetics, I aim to use baybayin through this website as a conversation and learning opportunity for Filipinos to explore the history and visual culture of Filipino design.
rationale
This collection of re-imagined artifacts were originally written in Tagalog using a romanized alphabet, and have been transliterated in Baybayin. This archive is meant to explore what society could have looked like throughout history particularly in areas of design where Tagalog was the predominantly used language.
These reimagined artifacts primarily explore Baybayin written using the Mangyan influenced virama or pamudpod as opposed to the Spanish influenced cross kudlit to cancel out the ending vowel due to its colonial ties.
