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Philippine paleographs (Hanunoo, Buid, Tagbanua and Pala’wan)

Inscribed 1999

What is it

Four samples of Philippine paleographs dating back to at least the 10th century, in four of the traditional scripts of the islands – Hanunoo, Buid, Tagbanua and Pala’wan.

Why was it inscribed

The paleographs are syllabaries – that is, characters that represent complete syllables – and are the only four surviving scripts out of seventeen once used throughout the Philippines.

Where is it

Various locations, Mindoro province, Philippines; various locations, Palawan province, Philippines; National Museum, Manila, Philippines

Syllabaries are phonetic systems of writing in which symbols represent sets of consonants and vowels, so articulating sounds. The syllabaries of the Philippines were the ancient writing systems of the islands used before the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century.

The scripts reflect a long period of cultural and social interchange and relationships between peoples located as far apart as India and Southeast Asia, which were related to population movements across the Austronesian family of languages, especially the Malayo-Polynesian branch. In particular, the syllabary has been related to other Sanskrit-derived writing that has been traced to the syllabaries in Sulawesi and Java to the south of the Philippines.

The oldest of the sample paleographs is an inscription in copper plate that bears a date of 850 in the Saka or Indian calendar, equivalent to AD 928; this was discovered in southern Luzon. The script relates to an ancient Malay language although it is similar to other Indonesian paleographs. A second paleograph, dating from the 14th to the 15th centuries and inscribed on a piece of silver associated with Ming dynasty burials, was found in the island of Mindanao. A third from the same period was inscribed on the shoulder of an earthenware pot excavated in the Batangas province on the island of Luzon.

The scripts were also often written on bamboo and palm and banana leaves and were used particularly as a way of sending messages between isolated communities. They were also used in poetic forms, such as the ambahan and urukay poetry of the Hanunoo and Mindoro Buid respectively. Of the seventeen documented scripts that existed in the Philippines in the 16th century, only four remain in use to this day – those of the Tagbanua and Pala’wan people of Palawan island, and of the Hanunoo and Buid on Mindoro island.

The scripts are expressive of the distinct culture of the islands that is threatened with extinction in the drive for homogeneity and a common global culture expressed not only in the widespread adoption of the Western alphabet but also by modern technology, especially phones and text messaging.

The Hanunoo script is still in use and relative isolation from mainstream society keeps the Buid script alive; both are currently used in ambahan poetic works and songs. However, the Tagbanua and Pala’wan scripts are in decline and the National Museum has an active programme to teach the scripts within the communities.