Speech bubble and Latin script font by BMatSantos on DeviantArt, and the Baybayin font is Bagwis Baybayin by EdeL.

For fun, I also tried my hand at translating the other speech bubbles in the series, and I might get these made too one day!:

Speech Bubble	Translation	Literal Definition
Objection	Tutol ako	"I object" or "I am opposed"
Hold it	Teka lang	Wait
Take that	Ayan	"There!" (a pronoun used as interjection to call attention to something)
Gotcha	Huli ka	Caught you
Eureka	Alam ko na	I know it now
Not so fast	Huy sandali	Hey, just a moment
Overruled	Tinanggihan	Rejected
Got it	Kuha ko na	I got it now
Silence	Tahimik	Silence
Hang on	Teka muna	Wait a moment
Welcome	Kumusta	"How are you?" (used as a common Tagalog greeting, borrowed from Spanish)
Have a look	Heto po	"Here!" in a polite tone
Yes	Opo	"Yes" in a polite tone
'Scuse me	Sensya po	"Excuse me" or "I'm sorry" in a polite tone (borrowed from Spanish)
That's enough	Tama na	That's enough
Such insolence	Walang hiya	(You have) no shame

Unfortunately, court proceedings in the Philippines are done in English and not local languages. There have been attempts to use Tagalog in court proceedings in the past, but I cannot find a formal translation for "objection" and "overruled" in a legal context, so I decided to choose what I thought was best. I also considered "sinapawan" (lit. overtaken, overshadowed) for "overruled" considering what "overruled" literally means, but I chose "tinanggihan" because I think it better fits the context of a court proceeding.

I work with Baybayin as part of my work, but I haven't really practiced it until last week. Some of our interns at the office ask if I can write in Baybayin, at the same time my co-worker gave a really good chisel point pen to write with. So I tried and based on their comments my writing style for Baybayin is really good. Comments like, its machine printed and its very even up to the strokes and flourishes.

So I would like to share with the group for comments.

CMIIW. "Philipapinas"?

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

Baybayin	Baybayin 17+	Romanized	English
ᜀᜋᜌᜅ᜶ᜀᜈᜂᜈ᜶ᜈᜄᜒᜐᜒᜃᜐᜆᜇ᜶ᜃᜑᜒᜃᜉᜓᜏᜐᜒᜎ᜶ᜁᜊᜓ᜶	ᜀᜅ᜔ ᜋᜌ ᜅ ᜀᜅ᜔ ᜈᜂᜈᜅ᜔ ᜈᜄᜒᜐᜒᜅ᜔ ᜃ᜔ᜌ᜔ ᜐ ᜆᜈ᜔ᜇᜅ᜔᜵ ᜃᜑᜒᜆ᜔ ᜃᜉ᜔ᜏ ᜐᜒᜎᜅ᜔ ᜁᜊᜓ᜶	Ang maya nga ang naunang nagising kay sa tandang, kahi't kapuwa silang ibon.	The sparrow awoke earlier than the rooster, even though they were both birds.

I attempted to make a sentence that uses every character in Baybayin at least once. For now, it's only in B17. I couldn't come up with a sentence that included the new "ra" character without one character going missing. Oh well, maybe next time.