Tagbanwa alphabet

Tagbanwa
ᝦᝪᝨᝯ
Type
Languages Languages of Palawan
Time period
c. 1300present
Parent systems
Sister systems
Balinese
Batak
Baybayin
Kulitan
Buhid
Hanunó'o
Javanese
Lontara
Old Sundanese
Rencong
Rejang
Direction Left-to-right
ISO 15924 Tagb, 373
Unicode alias
Tagbanwa
U+1760U+177F

Tagbanwa, also known as Apurahuano, is one of the writing systems of the Philippines. The Tagbanwa languages (Aborlan, Calamian, and Central), which are Austronesian languages with about 8,000 speakers in the central and northern regions of Palawan, are dying out as the younger generations of Tagbanwa are learning Cuyonon and Tagalog.

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.[1]

Features

Tagbanwa is a syllabic alphabet in which each consonant has an inherent vowel /a/. Other vowels are indicated by a diacritic above (for /i/) or below (for /u/) the consonant.[2] Vowels at the beginning of syllables are represented by their own, independent characters. Syllables ending in a consonant are written without the final consonant.[3]

Tagbanwa is traditionally written on bamboo in vertical columns from bottom to top and left to right. Though it is read from left to right in horizontal lines.[1]

Vowels

Tagbanwa Vowels[3]
Initial Dependent
transcription a i u i u
letter

Consonants

Tagbanwa Syllables[3]
transcription k g ng t d n p b m y l w s
consonant + a
consonant + i ᝣᝲ ᝤᝲ ᝥᝲ ᝦᝲ ᝧᝲ ᝨᝲ ᝩᝲ ᝪᝲ ᝫᝲ ᝬᝲ ᝮᝲ ᝯᝲ ᝰᝲ
consonant + u ᝣᝳ ᝤᝳ ᝥᝳ ᝦᝳ ᝧᝳ ᝨᝳ ᝩᝳ ᝪᝳ ᝫᝳ ᝬᝳ ᝮᝳ ᝯᝳ ᝰᝳ

Buhid writing makes use of single () and double () punctuation marks.[3]

Unicode

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+1760U+177F:

Tagbanwa[1][2]
Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
  0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
U+176x
U+177x
Notes
1.^ As of Unicode version 9.0
2.^ Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Omniglot: Tagbanwa. Accessed October 13, 2016.
  2. Everson, Michael (1998-11-23). "N1933 Revised proposal for encoding the Philippine scripts in the UCS" (PDF).
  3. 1 2 3 4 "Chapter 17: Indonesia and Oceania". The Unicode Standard, Version 9.0 (PDF). Mountain View, CA: Unicode, Inc. July 2016. ISBN 978-1-936213-13-9.
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