Tagbanwa is one of the scriptsindigenous to the Philippines, used by theTagbanwa and thePalawan people as their ethnic writing system.[1]
| Tagbanwa script ᝦᝪᝯ | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Script type | |
Period | c. 1300–present |
| Direction | Left-to-right  |
| Region | Palawan Island |
| Languages | Palawanic languages |
| Related scripts | |
Parent systems | |
Sister systems |
|
| ISO 15924 | |
| ISO 15924 | Tagb(373), Tagbanwa |
| Unicode | |
Unicode alias | Tagbanwa |
| U+1760–U+177F | |
| Brahmic scripts |
|---|
| TheBrahmi script and its descendants |
The Tagbanwa languages (Aborlan,Calamian andCentral), which areAustronesian languages with about 8,000-25,000[2] total speakers in the central and northern regions ofPalawan, are dying out as the younger generations of Tagbanwa are learning and using non-traditional languages such asCuyonon andTagalog, thus becoming less knowledgeable of their own indigenous cultural heritage. There are proposals to revive the script by teaching it in public and private schools with Tagbanwa populations.[3]
The Tagbanwa script was used in the Philippines until the 17th century. Closely related toBaybayin, it is believed to have come from theKawi script ofJava,Bali andSumatra, which in turn, descended from thePallava script, one of the southern Indian scripts derived fromBrahmi.[4]
Tagbanwa is an alphasyllabary orabugida in which each letter represents a syllable consisting of a consonant and aninherent vowel /a/, a feature that it shares with many related scripts from SE Asia as they derive from variants of theBrahmic scripts of India. Similar to these scripts, vowels other than /a/ are indicated by the addition of a diacritic above (for /i/) or below (for /u/) the letter.[5] Lone vowels are represented by their own, independent letters, thus /a/, /i/ and /u/ since there are only three. Syllables ending in a consonant are written without the final consonant.[6] Tagbanwa is distinguished fromBaybayin by the shapes of several letters, most notably ‹ka› and ‹wa› that are markedly different from other varieties.[1]
Tagbanwa is traditionally written on bamboo in vertical columns from bottom to top and left to right. However, it is read from left to right in horizontal lines.[4]
| vowels | consonants | |||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ᝠ a | ᝣ ka | ᝤ ga | ᝥ nga | ᝦ ta | ᝧ da | ᝨ na | ᝩ pa | ᝪ ba | ᝫ ma | ᝬ ya | ᝮ la | ᝯ wa | ᝰ sa | |||||
ᝡ i | ᝲ i | ᝣ + ᝲ ᝣᝲ ki | ᝤ+ ᝲ ᝤᝲ gi | ᝥ + ᝲ ᝥᝲ ngi | ᝦ + ᝲ ᝦᝲ ti | ᝧ + ᝲ ᝧᝲ di | ᝨ + ᝲ ᝨᝲ ni | ᝩ + ᝲ ᝩᝲ pi | ᝪ + ᝲ ᝪᝲ bi | ᝫ + ᝲ ᝫᝲ mi | ᝬ + ᝲ ᝬᝲ yi | ᝮ + ᝲ ᝮᝲ li | ᝯ + ᝲ ᝯᝲ wi | ᝰ + ᝲ ᝰᝲ si | ||||
ᝢ u | ᝳ u | ᝣ + ᝳ ᝣᝳ ku | ᝤ + ᝳ ᝤᝳ gu | ᝥ + ᝳ ᝥᝳ ngu | ᝦ + ᝳ ᝦᝳ tu | ᝧ + ᝳ ᝧᝳ du | ᝨ + ᝳ ᝨᝳ nu | ᝩ + ᝳ ᝩᝳ pu | ᝪ + ᝳ ᝪᝳ bu | ᝫ + ᝳ ᝫᝳ mu | ᝬ + ᝳ ᝬᝳ yu | ᝮ + ᝳ ᝮᝳ lu | ᝯ + ᝳ ᝯᝳ wu | ᝰ + ᝳ ᝰᝳ su | ||||
Tagbanwa writing makes use of single (᜵) and double (᜶) punctuation marks.[6]
In the 20th century, this script was adopted from the Tagbanwa by the Palawan people further south in theisland.[1] They call this alphabetIbalnan and the vowel mark anulit.[7]
Tagbanwa script was added to theUnicode Standard in March, 2002 with the release of version 3.2.
The Unicode block for Tagbanwa is U+1760–U+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 | ᝠ | ᝡ | ᝢ | ᝣ | ᝤ | ᝥ | ᝦ | ᝧ | ᝨ | ᝩ | ᝪ | ᝫ | ᝬ | ᝮ | ᝯ | |
| U+177x | ᝰ | ᝲ | ᝳ | |||||||||||||
| Notes | ||||||||||||||||
