Baybayin Translator
Type a name or a word and see it in Baybayin, the script Tagalog speakers used before and during the early Spanish period. The tool spells the way modern Baybayin writers do, with the kudlit marks for e/i and o/u and the cross kudlit for a consonant with no vowel, and it reads Baybayin back to text approximately.
How to use the baybayin translator
- Type a name or a word. Tagalog spelling gives the most faithful result; English spellings are respelled first (c and q to k, f to p, v to b, z to s, j to dy).
- Read the result syllable by syllable: a mark above a letter is e or i, a mark below is o or u, and a cross below cancels the vowel.
- To read Baybayin, switch to Baybayin to text and paste the letters; e/i and o/u come back as i and u.
- Copy the result, or type the letters and marks yourself on the Baybayin keyboard.
Examples
| Mahal kita | ᜋᜑᜎ᜔ ᜃᜒᜆ |
| Pilipinas | ᜉᜒᜎᜒᜉᜒᜈᜐ᜔ |
| Kalayaan | ᜃᜎᜌᜀᜈ᜔ |
About Baybayin
Baybayin is the writing system of the Tagalog people at the time of Spanish contact, and its name comes from baybay, "to spell". Like every native script of the Philippines and Indonesia it descends from the Brahmi script of India, most likely by way of Kawi, the script of Java, or the related scripts of Sulawesi, and it was in use by the 16th century, scratched onto bamboo and palm leaves with a knife. The Spanish found it widespread enough to print with: the Doctrina Christiana of 1593, the first book printed in the Philippines, gives its catechism in Spanish, in romanized Tagalog and in Baybayin. Over the following two centuries the Latin alphabet, taught in mission schools and used for every official purpose, displaced it, and by the end of the 18th century it had fallen out of everyday use. Related scripts never died: the Hanunó'o and Buhid of Mindoro and the Tagbanwa of Palawan still write with them.
Baybayin is an abugida. Each consonant letter stands for a consonant plus the vowel a, so ᜃ is ka, ᜊ is ba and ᜋ is ma. A small mark called a kudlit changes the vowel: above the letter it gives e or i, ᜃᜒ ki, and below it gives o or u, ᜃᜓ ku. There is one mark for e and i and one for o and u, because the Tagalog of that time had three vowels, with e and o as variants of i and u. A vowel that starts a syllable has its own letter, ᜀ a, ᜁ e or i, ᜂ o or u. The original script had 14 consonants and no way to write a consonant without a vowel, so a final consonant was left out and the reader supplied it. In 1620 the Franciscan friar Francisco López, publishing an Ilocano Doctrina, introduced a cross-shaped kudlit under the letter to cancel its vowel, ᜃ᜔, so that words could be spelled in full. Tagalog writers of the time did not take it up, but modern Baybayin does, and it is what this tool uses.
The translator works in two steps. First it respells what you type the way Tagalog writes a borrowed word, because Baybayin has letters only for Tagalog sounds: c, k and q become k, and x becomes ks; f becomes p; v becomes b; z becomes s; j becomes dy; and ng is treated as the single letter it is in Filipino, ᜅ. Then it writes the syllables. A consonant followed by a vowel becomes the letter with the right kudlit, a vowel at the start of a syllable becomes one of the three vowel letters, and a consonant with no vowel after it takes the cross kudlit ᜔. "Mahal kita" becomes ᜋᜑᜎ᜔ ᜃᜒᜆ, "Pilipinas" becomes ᜉᜒᜎᜒᜉᜒᜈᜐ᜔, and "Jose" becomes ᜇ᜔ᜌᜓᜐᜒ. Case is ignored, since the script has none. The output uses the Tagalog block that Unicode added in version 3.2 in 2002, at U+1700, so it copies and pastes as ordinary text wherever a font covers it.
Decoding reads the letters back, and it is approximate in a way the script itself imposes. The kudlit above stands for both e and i, and the kudlit below for both o and u, so the tool returns i and u: ᜀᜃᜓ, typed as "ako", comes back as "aku", and ᜃᜒᜊᜒᜈ᜔, typed as "Kevin", comes back as "kibin", with the b that v became. Everything is returned in lowercase, and the respelling is not undone: k stays k rather than becoming c. None of that is a fault in the tool; it is the nature of an abugida made for a language with three vowels, where a reader supplies the right one from knowing the word. One letter the tool writes that the original script lacked is ᜍ ra. Old Baybayin used ᜇ da for both d and r, which were one sound in Tagalog, and ra was added to Unicode in version 14.0 in 2021 for the modern writers who separate them.
Baybayin has had a revival since the 1990s. It appears on the current series of Philippine banknotes, on the pages of the Philippine passport, in the seals of government agencies, and in a great many tattoos and designs, and in 2018 the House of Representatives passed a bill declaring it the national writing system, though the bill has not become law. That revival is what most people who search for a Baybayin translator want: a name, a word like "mahal" or "kalayaan", or a short phrase. Two limits apply. The tool writes words in Baybayin; it does not translate English into Tagalog, so "love" comes out as the English word respelled, ᜎᜓᜊᜒ, not as mahal. And it writes the modern style with the cross kudlit; a 16th-century writer would have left the final consonants out. To type the letters yourself, this site's Baybayin keyboard has every letter and mark on a key.
Frequently asked questions
Does this translate English into Tagalog?
No. It writes whatever you type in Baybayin letters, after respelling the sounds Tagalog does not have. Type "love" and you get the English word in Baybayin, ᜎᜓᜊᜒ; type "mahal" and you get the Tagalog word, ᜋᜑᜎ᜔. For a name or a phrase in Tagalog, look up the Tagalog words first and then type them here. The script is the same either way; only the language differs.
Why does decoding change e to i and o to u?
Because Baybayin has one mark for both. The kudlit above a letter means e or i and the kudlit below means o or u, a legacy of the three-vowel Tagalog of the 16th century, in which e and o were variants of i and u. When the tool reads Baybayin back it has to choose, and it chooses i and u, so ᜀᜃᜓ returns as "aku". A Tagalog reader picks the right vowel by recognizing the word; a table cannot.
What is the cross under some letters?
The cross kudlit, or virama, ᜔ cancels the inherent a, so ᜃ᜔ is a bare k. Original Baybayin had no such mark and left final consonants unwritten, which made "bundok" and "budo" look alike. The Spanish friar Francisco López introduced the cross in his Ilocano Doctrina of 1620 so that words could be spelled fully. Modern Baybayin uses it, and so does this tool; a strictly traditional spelling would drop the consonant instead.
Why are c, f, v, z, j and x changed before writing?
Baybayin has letters for the sounds of Tagalog and no others, and Tagalog itself respells borrowed words the same way: Francisco becomes Prancisco, jeep becomes dyip, and c is k or s by sound. The tool applies the common rules, c and q to k, x to ks, f to p, v to b, z to s, j to dy, before writing. If a name has a conventional Tagalog spelling, typing that spelling directly gives the result its bearer would expect.
Is Baybayin the same as Alibata?
Yes, and Baybayin is the correct name. "Alibata" was coined in 1914 by Paul Rodríguez Verzosa from the first letters of the Arabic alphabet, alif, ba, ta, on the mistaken idea that the script came from Arabic. It descends from the Brahmi family of India through the scripts of Java and Sulawesi. The name Alibata is still seen but is not used by scholars or by the Philippine government, which calls the script Baybayin.
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