I've read it's used Malayalam/ Kannada script, and there's also a script for specially for Byari. Has anyone seen this script used to write Byari 'in the wild?' Does Byari happen to be written in the Arabic script as well? Curious to know...

Hey guys! I have an idea for a feature that could be used in Baybayin. The Kawi Nuqta!

This is going to be a long post with many words, and is inspired by Indian writing systems, so strap in! Notes, or '*' will be at the very end, and I recommend reading the post before going through the slides, to demonstrate the concept better.

First of all, what is a nuqta?

A Nuqta/Nukta is a diacritic mark (़) added to characters to represent foreign sounds not present in a script. This feature exists in many Indian scripts such as Devanagari (Hindi), to represent sounds specific to Urdu/Persian/Arabic loan words.

For example, the word زمین (pronounced 'za-meen') meaning 'land' can be written as:

ज़मीन (za-meen) instead of जमीन (ja-meen)

Here, the difference between ज़मीन and जमीन is the nuqta (or the dot below the first character) was added to ज (representing /ja/) to indicate that it's a sound that is foreign or interchangeable (allophonic- more on this later) with the original sound, instead of the original sound the character itself- in this case, /za/ (or ز (zayin) in Arabic).

Here, the nuqta is used to modify pre-existing characters to represent foreign sounds similar to the original character's sound, without making or adding extra characters in a script.

So what does this have to do with Baybayin?

Philippine languages prior to colonization usually did not natively have sounds like /fa/, /va/, /za/ etc... and are interchangeable with other native sounds like /pa/, /ba/ and /sa/. Baybayin reflects this pretty clearly, so we can't specifically represent foreign sounds, especially in names.

ex- Filipino --> Pilipino (ᜉᜒᜎᜒᜉᜒᜈᜓ)

This is where the nuqta comes in. When added in a character with an interchangeable sound, like ᜉ (pa), only the foreign sound will be read, instead of the original sound the character represents, something like ᜉ̈̇ *(fa) (more on what the nuqta should look like later).

ex- ᜉᜒᜎᜒᜉᜒᜈᜓ (Pilipino) --> ᜉᜒ̈̇ ᜎᜒᜉᜒᜈᜓ (Filipino)

But wait, what does this have to do with Kawi??

I'll explain.

The pamudpod sign (◌᜕), even if it was borrowed from the Hanunó'o script, is thought to be a spiritual successor of the virama from the Kawi script used in the Laguna copper inscription (more about this in this doc on pg 6). So I thought, if we could add the pamudpod to Baybayin, and if people use it, what other features could we borrow from other scripts, that would benefit Baybayin and the way we use it?

Hence I present to you the Kawi Nuqta ( ꦳)** borrowed for Baybayin. A new and native feature to Baybayin to represent foreign place and personal names better in writing. I don't really know what to call it though- maybe something like the "tatlong kudlit", "kawi kudlit", or even 'nukta kudlit', but if you have suggestions, feel free to write them below.

Disclaimer/Conclusion:

If anyone thinks I'm trying to impose or force foreign influence into Baybayin, that's simply not true. In fact, in the Hindi example I gave, the word ज़मीन (za-meen) can simply be written जमीन (ja-meen), and even pronounced as such in India***, because the difference between them among speakers doesn't really matter in a lot of places. My proposal isn't to force foreign sounds, or even to say that the nuqta is necessary, but to at least give Baybayin users an option to better represent them in writing, so that sounds can be differentiated better, and thus read better (ex- the name 'Frank' doesn't have to be written as 'Prank' lol).

This also means we don't need a new set of characters just to represent foreign words, (increasing the number of characters one has to learn) and instead, reuse existing characters with just one modification.

Also, since other Philippine languages have sounds like /va/ or /fa/ in their phonology (like Ibanag or Ivatan)****, it'll be easier for them to use Baybayin or its variants (if they want) since it can represent a new set of sounds now, increasing usability between different Philippine languages.

I've had this idea ever since I've learnt Baybayin, using my knowledge of how Indian scripts work, and it made even more sense ever since I've discovered Kawi had a nuqta. If you have any thoughts about this, or you think this is entirely wrong, or need further clarification, pls let me know, I'd love to discuss in the comments!

P.S- If anyone can forward this post on Facebook, that would be nice, as I don't have acc, plus more people can see it.

P.P.S- I know I misspelled 'breathy' on the last slide, pls don't mention it lol

&gt;-----------------------------<

Notes:

*The 3 dots on the side of 'ᜉ' is just ( ̈ ) and ( ̇ ) is stacked together on Lexilogos and is not how it's supposed to be written (refer to slides)- this is just how I've rendered it.

**This is actually the nuqta for Javanese- the one for Kawi can not displayed properly, but it's basically 3 dots on top of a character, or this square basically ' 𑽚' :(( . More info here.

***Unless written in the Urdu script, or if Urdu is specifically is spoken, among Muslims or in Pakistan.

****Thx to u/Adventurous_Emu6498 for mentioning this under another post

'ஶ' and 'ஷ' are two Grantha Ezhuttugal that represented two but similar sounds in Sanskrit:

'śa' (or sha) and 'ṣa' (which is the 'sha' sound, but your tongue is curled backwards) respectively.

Both were borrowed into Tamil, but recently, 'ஷ' was used more to represent 'śa', when it used to represent another sound (ṣa) and 'ஶ' stopped being used as a result, which is funny, because the it's the basis for 'ஸ்ரீ' (refer here).

For the nerds out here, why did this happen? Why did 'ஷ' became the default character to represent the 'sha' sound instead of 'ஶ'

(Apologies for the invisible letters, if any, I am using a Tulu-Tigalari font, whose fallback font may have not yet been released on most devices.)

Excluding almost every letter, which shares its resemblance with the sister Malayalam script, these two letters seems to be foreign?

113B4 looks like flipped 𑎈 (11388, TULU-TIGALARI LETTER VOCALIC L) and also the Kannada equivalent ೞ (ZHA), but with a repha marker - just like र्म (RMA) in कर्म (KARMA)? If we go by the Kannada-specific voice, this sound is RZHA not RRA?

And where is 113B5 coming from? To me, it resembles a LA (Tulu-Tigalari - 𑎭, Kannada - ಲ, Malayalam - ല, Telugu - ల) but with another one of those loops just at the end. But the Unicode page mentions the sounds as LLLA, and as you can see below, every LLLA sound is ZHA.

From the Malayalam unicode:
> 0D34 ഴ MALAYALAM LETTER LLLA = zha

From the Tamil unicode:
> 0BB4 ழ TAMIL LETTER LLLA

From the Kannada unicode:
> 0CDE ೞ KANNADA LETTER FA
> ※ KANNADA LETTER LLLA
> • obsolete historic letter
> • name is a mistake for LLLA

Which between 𑎴(113B4, TULU-TIGALARI LETTER RRA) and 𑎵 (113B5, TULU-TIGALARI LETTER LLLA) is "ZHA"? Both of them? Or are there no "ZHA" at all?

Is the first one then RRA, just as mentioned, and LLLA a longer variant of the LLA?