Hanunó'o

The Hanunoo script , even Mangyan called, is one of the original, not by colonial powers introduced writing systems of today's Philippines and with the Baybayin related. Like their mother tongue system , this is a so-called Abugida script, a special type of syllabary script. But unlike Baybayin, Hanunó'o still plays an active role as the primary writing system, at least in the lives of the Hanunó'o people, an indigenous Filipino minority. As a rule, documents written with it are scratched into handy bamboo tubes.

Construction and use

The writing system consists of three vowels and thirteen basic symbols. The latter consist of a consonant, which is always followed by a vowel.

Hanunó'o represented with Latin letters

The basic signs of Hanunó'o are shown in Latin	Aa	Ee / Ii	Oo / Uu	Ba	Ka	There	Ga	Ha	La	Ma	N / A	Nga	Pa	Ra	Sat	Ta	Wa	Ya
pronunciation	Aa	Ee / Ii	Oo / Uu	Ba	Ka	There	Ga	Ha	La	Ma	N / A	Nga / Nang	Pa	Ra	Sat	Ta	Wa	Ya

A basic character is modified by adding an umlaut (Tagalog Kudlit) in the form of a line either above or at the bottom right of a basic character.

In the case of syllables that end in a consonant according to the standards of the Latin script, the last consonant of the syllable is not indicated in the script. This is how you write Manila instead of Maynilad . Correct reading of the script accordingly requires a very high level of linguistic knowledge of the language.

In addition to the symbols for Ra , Re / Ri , Ro / Ru and Wo / Wu already shown above , there is an alternative spelling for these sounds.

Alternative script for the characters, Ra, Re / Ri, Ro / Ru and Wu

Hanunó'o in Unicode

In Unicode, the Hanunó'o characters occupy the places U + 1720 to U + 173F .

• Hanunoo in Unicode (area 1720-173F) (PDF; 60 kB)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Iloko tripod: Hanunoo . Accessed September 02, 2008.