| Introduction
One of the most spectacular events in the
development of civilization is perhaps the
invention of writing. To this, the Egyptians
contributed their hieroglyphic writings,
the Assyrians their cuneiform, the ancient
Indians the brahmi and the Chinese their
ideo-grammatic symbols.
The Easter Islanders of the mid-Pacific
and the Mohenjorado and Harappa copies in
Northwest India (now in Pakistan) also had
their share in increasing man's cultural
wealth by contributing their pictographic
systems of writing. Not to be outdone were
the people of Southeast Asia, who, though
adapting an already developed system from
India, also shared in further giving permanence
to their thoughts and culture.
In ancient times the Philippines, as a member
of this group of islands, developed a system
of writing late in its proto-history, which
contributed to the enrichment of its relatively
limited cultural world. Studies on the Southeast
Asian, particularly the Indonesian systems
of writing, indicate they are derived from
the South Indian development of the Brahmi
Scripts used in the Asoka Inscriptions about
300 years B.C.
The Philippine scripts are related to the
Southeast Asian systems of writing. This
South Indian development is known as Pallava
Grantha, a type of writing used in the writing
of palm leaf books (called grantha) during
the ascendancy of the Pallava dynasty about
the fifth century A.D.
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Theories in development & introduction
of Philippine Scripts
At least six theories had been advanced on
the development and introduction of Philippine
scripts. Isaac Taylor sought to show that
the system of writing, particularly the Tagalog,
was introduced into the Philippines from the
Coast of Bengal sometime before the eighth
century A.D. In attempting to show such relationship,
Taylor presented graphic representations of
Kistna and Assam letters (like g, k, ng, t,
m, h, and u) which resemble the same letters
in Tagalog.
Fletcher Gardner argued that Philippine scripts
have "very great similarity" with the Asoka
alphabets. Gardner's view was somehow anticipated
by T.H. Pardo de Tavera who wrote that "the
Filipino alphabets have similarities with
the characters of the Asokan inscriptions."
David Diringer accepting the view that the
alphabets of the Indonesian archipelago have
their origins from India, opined that these,
particularly that which is used in the Ci-Aruton
inscriptions of the West Javan raja, King
Purnavarman, constituted the earliest types
of Philippine syllabic writing. These according
to Diringer were brought to the Islands through
the Buginese characters. The script would
fall within the middle of the fifth century
A.D. "…
The Dravidian influence on the ancient Filipino
scripts was obviously of Tamil origin," wrote
V.A. Makarenko, in advancing another view
on the origin of Philippine scripts. Based
primarily on the work of H. Otiey Beyer, this
theory argues that these scripts reached the
Philippines via the last of the "six waves
of migration that passed through the Philippine
archipelago from the Asian continent . . .
(about) . . . 200 B.C. . . .," constituting
the Malayans and Dravidians, "primarily the
Tamil from Malaya and the adjacent territories
and from Indonesia and South India as well."
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PECULIARITY
The most interesting paleographic peculiarity
of Philippine scripts is its being traditionally
written from bottom to top, with the succeeding
lines following on the right. However, when
the Spaniards attempted to use the script
in their desire to spread the Christian Faith
(like printing the Doctrina Cristiana in the
Tagalog language and script), the direction
of writing was changed and consequently the
axis of the symbols also changed. These changes
may be described in brief: the direction of
writing proceeded from left to right, with
the succeeding lines written below the previous
line; while the axis of the symbols was rotated
to a ninety degree position, in which the
symbols for i and u in composition with any
consonant became above and below, respectively.
In the traditional position, the i and u were
on the right and left, respectively, of the
consonant with which they are composed.
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Features
In general, the observable features
of Philippine script may be categorized into
two: (1) the curvi-linear character, and (2)
the lineo-angular trait. To the first category
belong the Tagbanwa, the Tagalog, Iloko, and
all the other variants of lloko and Tagalog.
The only example that may be cited under the
second category is the Mangyan script. The
scripts found in the Samar-Leyte area as reported
by Alzina straddle the two categories-they
show both lineo-angular and curvi-linear features.
The general features of Philippine scripts
previously described also apply to those that
were in the Calatagan Pot; and the dating
of the introduction of the system of writing
into the Islands took into consideration the
date of the Pot. In so far as archaeological
evidence of the existence of writing in the
Philippines is concerned, the inscribed Calatagan
Pot is the only artifact that has been found.
A number of archaeological reports of inscriptions
from the direction of Batangas and Mindoro
have been discovered on intensive study, to
be fake. In the context of the Pot being the
only artifact of this nature, it is, however,
still difficult to accept as full archaeological
evidence of the existence of writing in the
proto-historic Philippines. We can only speculate
on its authenticity. The successful decipherment
of the inscription would open many 'dark rooms'
in Philippine pre- and proto-history. For
instance, the symbols will thus have been
fully identified and show the various forms
of the letters as they were known and used
in prehistoric times. When this is successfully
done, perhaps palaeographists would be able
to give a better typological analysis of Philippine
scripts. Furthermore, the decipherment of
this inscription would also open to linguistic
scientists a new field of study in terms of
the structure of the Tagalog or Mangyan language
in Pre-Hispanic times. The Maragtas and other
"documents" (e.g., the Pavon, the Pove-dano
and Romualdez manuscripts) do not seem to
fit into the discussion of Philippine scripts.
But they are indeed relevant in view of the
claim that the Maragtas had been originally
written in the ancient script, and that the
others are manuscripts of pre-Hispanic provenance.
Studies on Philippine scripts are still going
on, in view of so many problems. In general
terms, this system of writing, which flourished
in the past among our early ancestors, indicates
the advance, which our civilization has taken.
Despite more than 400 years of foreign domination,
some of our people, particularly the Mangyan
and the Tagbanwa, have preserved their system
of writing to this day. They still use this
system for writing their songs and love letters,
in recording their debts and in writing their
tales. Excerpts from Filipino Heritage, Vol.
3, pp.598-601,Lahing Pilipino Publishing,
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