Nordenx’s 10 New Baybayin Modern Fonts includes Mangyan and Pamagkulit

I haven’t updated Titik Ninuno for quite sometime now. Gladly, I had enough time today to browse Nordenx’s  website, Baybayin Modern Fonts [Anak Bathala Project] and it really amazed me that there are additional of 10 new Baybayin Modern fonts that he had just released for download, that includes a Baybayin Mangyan Postma Font (his 3rd Mangyan font) and a Baybayin Pamagkulit Font – Sulat Kapampangan.

Mr. Antoon Vreeze Postma is a Dutch anthropologist and linguist who has married into and has been living for more than fifty years among the Hanunuo Mangyan tribe in Mindoro, Philippines. He is best known for being the first to decipher the Laguna Copperplate Inscription, and for documenting the Hanunóo script, paving the way for its preservation. He is the founder of the Mangyan Research Center in Panaytayan, Mansalay, Mr. Postma is in charge of the (MHC) Mangyan Heritage Center’s research operations. His collection forms the bulk of the materials in the MHC library.

I visited the MHC in my home town of Calapan City, Oriental Mindoro, last year (August 2010). I purchased several of Postma’s books and watched how they still use handwriting to record and catalog Ambahan poetry and other learning materials. I showed Mrs. Emily Lorenzo Catapang (Executive Director of MHC) how to instal and use Mangyan fonts on their computers so that they can have a modern alternative way of publishing materials. I promised to continue developing and perfecting fonts for Surat Mangyan for the very purpose of propagating and preserving the written cultural heritage of the Mangyan.

This new font was inspired by Postma’s works. Baybayin Mangyan Postma Type has bold and uniform strokes best suited for posters and other print. This font is based on one of Postma’s book cover art. – quoted from Nordenx’s post Mangyan Postma Font

Súlat Kapampangan (a.k.a. pámagkulit or kulitan) is used for writing the Kapampangan language spoken by folks from the Pampanga province in the Philippines. Kapampangan is one of the major languages of the Philippines.

Kulitan differs slightly from Baybayin as it has been adapted solely for Kapampangan orthography. A different method of writing a combination of garlit (kudlit) diacritic marks with character ligatures & stacking is developed. Much of the character shapes originally were the same as Baybayin but through limited but continued use, Kulitan handwriting evolved to match a vertical direction of writing popularized by Kapampangan practitioners, scholars, artists, and academics.

Please review my previous blog entry about Súlat Kapampangan: GALIT SA KULIT – it explains some of the details about the Kapampangan method of writing. – quoted from Nordenx’s post Baybayin Kapampangan

NOTE: If you really are interested in writing and learning the Baybayin Pamagkulit, you better watch his video tutorial on “How to type Kapampangan script (Kulitan) vertically in Microsoft Word using the Pamagkulit Font inside a table.”

As I release western style baybayin fonts, I begin to wonder about how the community will receive them.

Over the years, I received numerous emails and private messages regarding my fonts and my efforts in standardizing the script for typography, uniformity of stokes, ease of legibility, ease of access, and synchronization with modern Filipino orthography. A lot of these correspondences are positive and very encouraging. However there a a few that are not. It seems that I have not made my intentions clear. People sometimes see the adjective “modern” in the name of my fonts and they immediately think “modified” which some view with the same disdain they feel when they think that something is a product of “colonial mentality”.

Just because my fonts have the adjective ‘modern’ attached to its name and the characters have been stylized, it doesn’t mean that they can not be used in the traditional way of baybayin. Each character in all my fonts retain the traditional character form & shapes.

I also can’t stress enough that you learn both the traditional method & Spanish “reformed” method of writing baybayin and educate yourself about Filipino languages and orthography. – quoted from Nordenx’s post Horrified with Modified

For a list of all Nordenx’s Fonts and other fonts created by various Baybayin enthusiasts, visit Baybayin Fonts.

Included in all of Nordenx’s fonts are alternative glyphs/characters that you can use if you prefer to.

1. ᜍ = ra: may be the only character modification I introduce. Its shape is carefully designed and based on D, P, R letter shapes and ᜇᜎᜉᜁ character shapes, strokes & qualities as well as the Bikolano, Mangyan, other Malay, and other Asian ra characters.

2. x = virama [Spanish cross kudlit (+)]: rendered by the = equal and + plus keys, it cancels vowels, preferably for leading or stand-alone consonant sounds;
ex. ᜊ᜔ᜍᜓ bro | ᜅ᜔ ng

3. / = pamudpod (Mangyan’s virama): rendered by the / forward-slash key, it cancels vowels, preferably for trailing or dead-consonat sounds;
ex. ᜊᜍ/ bar | ᜈᜅ/ nang

4.● = solid kudlit marks can be used as traditional kudlits, I use them for high vowels i and u kudlit.

5. o = hollow kudlit marks are alternatives that I use for the mid vowels e and o.

The other alternate characters (not modified, just a different style of the same type/character):

1. O = ᜊ can still be pronounced as ba but can be used to signify va.

2. vz = ᜐ can still be pronounced as sa but can be used to signify za.

3. I and U characters has more complex strokes than E and O but are essentially still the same I/E and O/U characters

4. Uppercase Q renders the character combination ᜃ᜔ᜏ k’wa.

5. Lowercase q renders the character combination ᜃᜓᜏ kuwa.

6. Uppercase J renders the character combination ᜇ᜔ᜌ d’ya.

7. Lowercase j renders the character combination ᜇᜒᜌ diya

8. Both X and x renders the character combination ᜃ᜔ᜐ k’sa. eg. ᜁᜃ᜔ᜐᜋ/ = exam

9. Some font sets have ᜆ᜔ᜐ t’sa or cha assigned to uppercase C.

10. Updated in all fonts, the A character ᜀ can now only be accessed by the uppercase A like the other vowel characters I, E, O, and U.

11. You can use ᜉ fa as the traditional pa.

12. My fonts use an old loop-ended version of pa that some of you may mistake as the old loop-ended ya. You may substitute them if you’re looking for a traditional look.

13. My ᜌ ya is a more modern open ended (non-loop-ended) glyph.

The updates reassigned several glyphs to different keys, standardized & cleaned several character strokes, and fixed compatibility clashing issues. – quoted from Nordenx’s post Ganado

Are you seeing boxes or squares instead of the Baybayin Script? You may need to download and install the Baybayin Modern Font (BMF) Unicode Mono.

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