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Tagbanwa script
Native writing system of Tagbanwa languages and other indigenous languages of Palawan

Tagbanwa is an indigenous script of the Philippines, traditionally used by the Tagbanwa and Palawan people. It represents the Austronesian languages spoken by about 8,000-25,000 individuals in central and northern Palawan. However, these languages are endangered as younger generations increasingly adopt languages like Cuyonon and Tagalog, resulting in a decline of traditional cultural knowledge. To counter this, there are efforts to revive the Tagbanwa script by incorporating it into education in areas with Tagbanwa populations, aiming to preserve this unique indigenous writing system and cultural heritage.

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Origin

The Tagbanwa script was used in the Philippines until the 17th century. Closely related to Baybayin, it is believed to have come from the Kawi script of Java, Bali and Sumatra, which in turn, descended from the Pallava script, one of the southern Indian scripts derived from Brahmi.4

Features

Tagbanwa is an alphasyllabary or abugida in which each letter represents a syllable consisting of a consonant and an inherent vowel /a/, a feature that it shares with many related scripts from SE Asia as they derive from variants of the Brahmic scripts of India. Similar to these scripts, vowels other than /a/ are indicated by the addition of a diacritic above (for /i/) or below (for /u/) the letter.5 Lone vowels are represented by their own, independent letters, thus /a/, /i/ and /u/ since there are only three. Syllables ending in a consonant are written without the final consonant.6 Tagbanwa is distinguished from Baybayin by the shapes of several letters, most notably ‹ka› and ‹wa› that are markedly different from other varieties.7

Tagbanwa is traditionally written on bamboo in vertical columns from bottom to top and left to right. However, it is read from left to right in horizontal lines.8

Tagbanwa syllables9
vowelsconsonants
ᝠaᝣkaᝤgaᝥngaᝦtaᝧdaᝨnaᝩpaᝪbaᝫmaᝬyaᝮlaᝯwaᝰsa
ᝡiᝲiᝣ + ᝲᝣᝲkiᝤ+ ᝲᝤᝲgiᝥ + ᝲᝥᝲngiᝦ + ᝲᝦᝲtiᝧ + ᝲᝧᝲdiᝨ + ᝲᝨᝲniᝩ + ᝲᝩᝲpiᝪ + ᝲᝪᝲbiᝫ + ᝲᝫᝲmiᝬ + ᝲᝬᝲyiᝮ + ᝲᝮᝲliᝯ + ᝲᝯᝲwiᝰ + ᝲᝰᝲsi
ᝢuᝳuᝣ + ᝳᝣᝳkuᝤ + ᝳᝤᝳguᝥ + ᝳᝥᝳnguᝦ + ᝳᝦᝳtuᝧ + ᝳᝧᝳduᝨ + ᝳᝨᝳnuᝩ + ᝳᝩᝳpuᝪ + ᝳᝪᝳbuᝫ + ᝳᝫᝳmuᝬ + ᝳᝬᝳyuᝮ + ᝳᝮᝳluᝯ + ᝳᝯᝳwuᝰ + ᝳᝰᝳsu

Tagbanwa writing makes use of single (᜵) and double (᜶) punctuation marks.10

Ibalnan

In the 20th century, this script was adopted from the Tagbanwa by the Palawan people further south in the island.11 They call this alphabet Ibalnan and the vowel mark an ulit.12

Unicode

Main article: Tagbanwa (Unicode block)

Tagbanwa script was added to the Unicode Standard in March, 2002 with the release of version 3.2.

The Unicode block for Tagbanwa is U+1760–U+177F:

Tagbanwa[1][2]Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
 0123456789ABCDEF
U+176xᝠᝡᝢᝣᝤᝥᝦᝧᝨᝩᝪᝫᝬᝮᝯ
U+177xᝰᝲᝳ
Notes1.^ As of Unicode version 16.02.^ Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points

See also

References

  1. Miller, Christopher (2014). "A Survey of Indigenous Scripts of Indonesia and the Philippines". 2014 International Workshop on Endangered Scripts of Island Southeast Asia. Retrieved 20 April 2024. https://www.academia.edu/15915312 ↩

  2. ScriptSource: Tagbanwa. https://scriptsource.org/cms/scripts/page.php?item_id=script_detail&key=Tagb.htm ↩

  3. Orejas, Tonette (2018-04-27). "Protect All PH Writing Systems, Heritage Advocates Urge Congress". Inquirer.net. Retrieved 2022-03-07. https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/985669/protect-all-ph-writing-systems-heritage-advocates-urge-congress ↩

  4. Omniglot: Tagbanwa. Accessed October 13, 2016. http://www.omniglot.com/writing/tagbanwa.htm ↩

  5. Everson, Michael (1998-11-23). "N1933 Revised proposal for encoding the Philippine scripts in the UCS" (PDF). /wiki/Michael_Everson ↩

  6. "Chapter 17: Indonesia and Oceania" (PDF). Unicode Consortium. March 2020. https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode13.0.0/ch17.pdf#G26723 ↩

  7. Miller, Christopher (2014). "A Survey of Indigenous Scripts of Indonesia and the Philippines". 2014 International Workshop on Endangered Scripts of Island Southeast Asia. Retrieved 20 April 2024. https://www.academia.edu/15915312 ↩

  8. Omniglot: Tagbanwa. Accessed October 13, 2016. http://www.omniglot.com/writing/tagbanwa.htm ↩

  9. "Chapter 17: Indonesia and Oceania" (PDF). Unicode Consortium. March 2020. https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode13.0.0/ch17.pdf#G26723 ↩

  10. "Chapter 17: Indonesia and Oceania" (PDF). Unicode Consortium. March 2020. https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode13.0.0/ch17.pdf#G26723 ↩

  11. Miller, Christopher (2014). "A Survey of Indigenous Scripts of Indonesia and the Philippines". 2014 International Workshop on Endangered Scripts of Island Southeast Asia. Retrieved 20 April 2024. https://www.academia.edu/15915312 ↩

  12. "Palawano B Dictionary". Retrieved 26 May 2020. https://www.webonary.org/palawanob/g4dd50244-515e-4393-81a0-ecc74944dd41/ ↩