EARLY FILIPINO ALPHABET | Early Writings in the Philippines

The Filipinos before the arrival of the Spaniards had a syllabary which was probably of Sanskrit or Arabic origin. The syllables consisted of 17 symbols, of which three were vowels standing for the present five vowels, and fourteen consonants.

The direction of early Filipino writing could not be clearly determined. Father Pedro Chirino purported that the early Filipinos wrote from top to bottom and from left to right.

The ancient wrote on the bark of trees, on leaves and bamboo tubes, using their knives, daggers, pointed sticks or iron as pens and the colored saps of trees ink.