There’s new discourse (read: strong reactions across social media) on actual usefulness of Baybayin since a train signage redesign made the rounds. But from a quick google and link hop I found a few things I wanted to note here (because I really need to write them here so I remember — and momentum is key).
- There’s a PDF file on Unicode.org (standards body on all text, including emoji) on Philippine scripts: Ancient Scripts Series: Living Scripts and The Tagalog Script. It’s not just a history lesson, but Postscript and TrueType Fonts for IBM PC and Macintosh.
- They were created by Sushi Dog Graphics based in Los Angeles, and the trusty Luc Devroye notes him as Hector Santos (sadly his own website is down now).
- And there’s a feature on him from the Los Angeles Times in 1994.
Yes, nineteen ninety-four. I took a couple of minutes to actually surf the web instead of doomscroll and learned that ancient Filipino writing systems have had digital typefaces for both PC and Mac in the nineties. (I was only previously aware of those free fonts by turn of the millennium. Yes I already blogged that. I’m still not close to expert on any of this nor will ever claim to be.)
So what I’m saying is there are so many dimensions we can take ~discourse~ instead of just ~puksaan~ and it’s time for people to decide what level they want to play at.
Level 1: It’s Baybayin not Alibata.
Level 2: Baybayin is based on the Tagalog language and we have to grapple with Tagalog region-centrism in the way our government and culture caters to all Filipinos.
Level 3: We have numerous indigenous writing systems, hundreds of languages, and real people who have been working on preserving our heritage as real work for decades. Let’s celebrate this plurality, diversity, and long history.
It’s not just a trendy aesthetic thing, and even if it looks that way because of failure in execution, it’s also on us to go beyond that. We have nice things. Great things, actually. Push for those great things to be in the spotlight they deserve to be.
We love to meme that living in the Philippines is always on hard mode. Maybe we can play the discourse game on hard mode too.