Baybayin Alphabet Letters easy to translate
The Baybayin alphabet is a script used in the Philippines before and during the early Spanish. It is part of the Brahmic family of scripts and is considered an abugida, where each character represents a consonant-vowel syllable.
📝 Baybayin Basic Characters
Baybayin consists of 17 characters:
- 14 consonants (each with an inherent “a” vowel)
- 3 vowels
Vowels
| Character | Sound |
|---|---|
| ᜀ | A |
| ᜁ | E / I |
| ᜂ | O / U |
Consonants (with inherent ‘A’)
| Character | Sound | Modified with ᜒ (i/e) | Modified with ᜓ (o/u) |
|---|---|---|---|
| ᜃ | Ka | ᜃᜒ (Ki / Ke) | ᜃᜓ (Ko / Ku) |
| ᜄ | Ga | ᜄᜒ | ᜄᜓ |
| ᜇ | Da / Ra | ᜇᜒ | ᜇᜓ |
| ᜑ | Ha | ᜑᜒ | ᜑᜓ |
| ᜁ | E / I | — | — |
| ᜂ | O / U | — | — |
| ᜉ | Pa | ᜉᜒ | ᜉᜓ |
| ᜎ | La | ᜎᜒ | ᜎᜓ |
| ᜋ | Ma | ᜋᜒ | ᜋᜓ |
| ᜅ | Nga | ᜅᜒ | ᜅᜓ |
| ᜐ | Sa | ᜐᜒ | ᜐᜓ |
| ᜆ | Ta | ᜆᜒ | ᜆᜓ |
| ᜈ | Na | ᜈᜒ | ᜈᜓ |
| ᜊ | Ba | ᜊᜒ | ᜊᜓ |
| ᜏ | Wa | ᜏᜒ | ᜏᜓ |
| ᜌ | Ya | ᜌᜒ | ᜌᜓ |
Diacritics (Kudlit)
- ᜒ (dot or line above) → changes the “a” sound to “e/i”
- ᜓ (dot or line below) → changes the “a” sound to “o/u”
- Virama (modern addition): A “+” or “X”-like mark used to cancel the vowel altogether, making the consonant “dead” (e.g., “k” instead of “ka”). This was not originally part of Baybayin but introduced in modern usage.
🔤 Sample Word in Baybayin
“Kalayaan” (Freedom)
→ ᜃᜎᜌᜀᜈ᜔
(Note: The last character “ᜈ” has a virama to end with an “n” sound.)