Surat Buhid is an
abugida
An abugida (; from Geʽez: , )sometimes also called alphasyllabary, neosyllabary, or pseudo-alphabetis a segmental Writing systems#Segmental writing system, writing system in which consonant–vowel sequences are written as units; each unit ...
used to write the
Buhid language. As a
Brahmic script indigenous to the Philippines, it closely related to
Baybayin
Baybayin (,),
also sometimes erroneously referred to as alibata, is a Suyat, Philippine script widely used primarily in Luzon during the 16th and 17th centuries and prior to write Tagalog language, Tagalog and to a lesser extent Visayan lang ...
and
Hanunó'o. It is still used today by the
Mangyan
Mangyan is the generic name for the eight indigenous groups found in Mindoro each with its own tribal name, language, and customs. The total population may be around 280,001, but official statistics are difficult to determine under the condi ...
s, found mainly on island of
Mindoro
Mindoro is the seventh largest and eighth-most populous island in the Philippines. With a total land area of 10,571 km2 ( 4,082 sq.mi ), it has a population of 1,408,454, as of the 2020 census. It is located off the southwestern coast of ...
, to write their language,
Buhid, together with the
Filipino Latin script.
There are efforts to reinvigorate the use of Surat Buhid. Buhid script use varies across Northern (Bansud area) and Southern Buhid (Bongabong) communities.
Structure
The Buhid script has 18 independent characters; 15 are consonants and 3 vowels. As an abugida, there are additional diacritic vowels. Consonants have an inherent /a/ vowel. The other two vowels are indicated by a diacritic above (for /i/) or below (for /u/) the consonant. Depending on the consonant, ligatures are formed, changing the shape of the consonant-vowel combination.
Vowels at the beginning of syllables are represented by their own, independent characters. Syllables ending in a consonant are written without the final consonant.
The letter order of the Buhid alphabet Buhid, is based on
phonetic
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds or, in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians ...
principles that consider both the
manner and
place of articulation
In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation (also point of articulation) of a consonant is an approximate location along the vocal tract where its production occurs. It is a point where a constriction is made between an active and a pa ...
of the consonants and vowels they represent.
Buhid writing makes use of single and double
danda punctuation marks.
Unicode
Buhid script was added to the
Unicode
Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 Char ...
Standard in March, 2002 with the release of version 3.2.
The Unicode block for Buhid is U+1740–U+175F:
See also
*
Kulitan
*
Kawi script
The Kawi script or the Old Javanese script (, ) is a Brahmic script found primarily in Java and used across much of Maritime Southeast Asia between the 8th century and the 16th century.Aditya Bayu Perdana and Ilham Nurwansah 2020Proposal to en ...
*
Tagbanwa alphabet
*
Filipino orthography
Filipino orthography () specifies the correct use of the writing system of the Filipino language, the national language#Philippines, national and co-official language, official languages of the Philippines, language of the Philippines.
In 2013, ...
References
External links
About Buhidin omniglot.com
Philippine scripts
Brahmic scripts
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