It's About Time

Travel back in time...

A few months ago, an artist buddy of mine, Kristian Kabuay of Baybayin.com, alerted me about a commercial product that was using one of my font/typeface. He and a couple of other members of the baybayin community reached out to the business via social media and informed him about the commercial-use stipulation within my EULA. 

Upon learning about the licensing requirement, the company's owner, supplicating pardon for not having contacted me sooner about the use of my font, promptly purchased a commercial license for the font. The interaction was cordial and I find Mr. De Guzman quite amiable. 

The Baybayin Brush font that De Guzman & Co. acquired a commercial license for:

Christmas Time!

A day ago, I received a package. De Guzman & Co. sent me one of their wonderful timepiece! I am delighted by the gesture and am enthralled by the quality & craftsmanship of their product. It's such a marvelous gift. Proudly Filipino made, obvious with its tagline "Mula sa Republika ng Pilipinas" (From the RP).

For details, visit: deguzmanandco.com

Watch out! 

Watch enthusiasts will appreciate the classic/vintage style of this wristwatch. They sent me an Emerald Green/Black DG009 model with a GMT movement and golden gilt printed dial markers. According to their website, this particular model is also available in Ghost Gray/Red. They also have two other models: DG008 Classic and DG010 Diver. 

It's Time for Baybayin.

Currently, all their timepieces displays a minimalist use of Baybayin characters/letters to represent the hours. These are:

• ᜁ — the first syllable for "isa" (1)
• ᜇ — the first syllable for "dalawa" (2)
• ᜀ — the first syllable for "apat" (4)
• ᜎᜒ — the first syllable for "lima" (5)
• ᜉᜒ — the first syllable for "pito" (7)
• ᜏ — the first syllable for "walo" (8)
• ᜐ — the first syllable for "sampu" (10)
• ᜎ — the first syllable for "labing-isa" (11) 
  

 A Clock with a Chock-full of fine details.

This is a marvelous gift. De Guzman & Co. is a Filipino watch micro-brand, it's very rare to find a watch company like this with products of caliber in the Philippines. Certainly a unique luxury item, offering nothing but the best: sapphire crystal, solid milled clasp, case, and bracelet from 316L stainless steel, screw adjustable links, water resistance up to 100 meters, etc. I am particularly glad that they chose to use my baybayin typeface on their clockface. ^_^

Presentation that's great for gifting.

Many thanks to De Guzman & Co. for this holliday gift, I shall treasure it always. 

This is not just a gift to me, but it is also a gift for all Filipiniana collectors, Filipino watch enthusiasts, and the Baybayin/Philippine script revival & preservation supporters, among others. 

Yes, this must sound like an adertisment. But IMHO this trully makes for a great present. I mean, just look at their packaging! Look at the details and the extras that comes with it. :D

For details, visit: deguzmanandco.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/deguzmanandco 

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Trace and Teach - educational font

I will be releasing an educational tracing font with starting positions and stroke arrows for kindergarten, beginners, teachers, workbooks, etc. SOON! (I know, often my "soon" turns out to be months or years or never. :P Please be patient.)

However, these fonts will not be free. I plan to release them as commercial fonts. I have been developing these of-and-on since 2003 and they have been a lot of work. Since creating these have been time and labor intensive, I want some return on investment. These fonts will be for sale.

Baybayin Modern Teacher fonts are TrueType fonts that assists young learners in printing Baybayin and Surat Mangyan letter shapes correctly and efficiently.  It provides lines containing dotted letters for students to trace with the starting position and stroke directions illustrated for each letter, and punctuation mark.  The fonts have been carefully developed to provide an intuitive, practical introduction to writing Baybayin and Surat Mangyan.

The fonts uses extended stroke direction arrows to discourage students from lifting their pencils between strokes unnecessarily so that students do not form disjointed letters. Learning correct stroke sequences improves penmanship and encourages students to get used to the cursive and wavy strokes of Baybayin.

Many students never learn correct penmanship because stroke sequences are seldom emphasized in the classroom during formative years. Then in later grades it is very difficult for teachers to correct poor writing habits that are already well encoded into students' procedural memory. Get it right the first time around with Baybayin Modern Teacher fonts!

Besides learning correct stroke sequences, teachers will find that the standardized, uniform, and simpler letter shapes of these fonts to be practical and easier for the students to learn. The typeface is a cleaner and simpler version of the Doctrina Christiana typeface. As always, I added of the set of alternative glyphs from my modern set and proposed reform. I added the modern RA and the kawi based JA, Mangyan pamudpod, x-kudlit, anusvāra, visarga, e/o kudlits, pallawa & padalaw-a marks, and other syllable-doubling marks; assigning them to the appropriate keys.

Baybayin Modern Teacher fonts works like other custom fonts. After you buy the font, you download the font file, and install it on your Mac or PC. Then you use whatever software (like Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint or other software like Interactive White Board (IWB) software) to create resources for your class, like tracing sheets or flash cards.

Examples:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fF1idxzcdkZIdMrmEhvKMYVvnIM9y0r6/view?usp=sharing

 

Ey! LoCaNo Font!

A LoCaNo Font! Finally!

A new release. But it's not a new font. I've had this in my "Work In Progress" (WIP) folder for years. My procrastinating lazy ass finally got it all cleaned up.

This font is based on the original 15 character set from Fr. Francisco López's 1621 Ilocano translation of the 1597 book Belarmino. The typeface is from Fr. Andrés Carro's Vocabulario de la lengua Ilocana, 1849. I started working on this font back in 2006, I tried to standardize and make the character elements uniform. Of course I added other features that is standard throughout my modern baybayin fonts.

The font name "LoCaNo" is derived from López Carro Nordenx.
 

Download this font set from: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DaZ90YRmr71bNMrQZy6Hm7SxAP0mOo-j/view?usp=sharing

If you prefer to use López's limited 15 set and Carro's classic typeface as originally printed, you can feel free to do so. However, the characters are typed the way other Nordenx fonts are assigned on the keyboard.

• Carro's ᜁ "E/I" is assigned in the "I" key. The "E" key renders a Nordenx special "E" character.
• Carro's ᜂ "O/U" is assigned in the "O" key. The "U" key renders a Nordenx special "U" character.
• The "B" key renders Carro's ᜊ "BA" while the "V" and "W" keys renders Nordenx's special "VA" and classic "WA" characters respectively.
• The "K" key renders a classic "KA". The "C" key renders a "TSA" (cha) shortcut.
• Carro's disjointed ᜇ "DA" can be found under the "9" key. The uppercase "D" key renders a Nordenx special "JA" character and the classic "DA" is the lowercase "d".
• The "J" and "j" keys types the "DIYA" and "DYA" (ja) shortcut.
• Uppercase "G" renders Carro's disjointed ᜄ "GA". The lowercase "g" types the classic "GA".
• The classic ᜎ "LA" is assigned on the "L" key and the Unicode "RA". :P
• Carro's ᜋ "MA" is typed using the lowercase "y" key. The lowercase "m" key types a classic "MA" character.
• Uppercase "N" types ᜅ "NGA", the lowercase "n" renders a ᜈ "NA" as usual.
• Carro's odd ᜉ "FA/PA" is assigned to the uppercase "F" key, the lowercase "f" key displays a Nordenx special "FA" character.
• Carro's closed-tailed or looped ᜌ "YA" can be typed using the "P" or "p" keys.
• Carro's V3 shaped ᜐ "SA" can be typed using the "Z" keys. 
• The "X" and "x" keys types the "KSA" (xa) shortcut.
• Nordenx special characters for "RA" is assigned in the "R" keys.  
• The "h" key types a Nordenx special ᜑ "HA" character.
• Use the + key for Lopez's + virama, the # key for Carro's ☩ virama, and the = key for Nordenx's x virama. 

I feel like I need to go into further detail and explain more about the decisions I made about this set... maybe later. :P

[EULA] © All rights reserved, Nordenx Baybayin Modern Fonts are copyright of their typeface designer & creator Norman de los Santos. Free for personal and non-commercial use only. Please contact me at nordenx@gmail.com for any inquiries about commercial use and licensing for branding, printing, publications, and/or other electronic applications.

If you have any questions about this odd font set, feel free to email me or message me via facebook. ^_^

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For most of Formosa

13-ICAL Epilogue

The 13th. ICAL (International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics), was held at the Institute of Linguistics in Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan, last July, 18 to 23, 2015.

With the help and support of our fundraising donors, generous people, friends, and family, Mike Pangilinan and I were able to present our papers at ICAL last year. Mike and I greatly appreciate their help.

We and our papers were well received and praised by international linguistic scholars and professionals who were in attendance. Our presentations were on point and they went smoothly. I'm pretty happy with the reception and validation of my work by our peers.

Mike Pangilinan, as our panel leader, introduces me to the audience before my presentation.

I gained a lot of knowledge and experience from this conference. Attending and absorbing most of the presentations that I can catch every day of the event, I've learned much about various studies, methodologies, histories, practices, and projects relating to various Austronesian and Southeast Asian languages. All these knowledge can be applied to further continue our own efforts with Philippine scripts.

I also have met and spent time with the top international Austronesian & SEA language scholars and professionals during the event. Conversations with these great minds were extremely entertaining and enlightening. I got reacquainted with awesome people I've met previously in Tokyo. And I met new and amazing people and made friends with them in this venue.

Gained new important connections and expanded our network, finally met folks from SIL too. There were a couple of acquaintances from social networks whose work on Philippine languages I admire and follow for years; I met them in person for the first time at the conference. It was a bit surreal when we talked as if we've known each other for a long time.

Our papers and presentation slides can be perused at: ical13.ling.sinica.edu.tw/Full_papers_and_ppts

An excellent article in Enquirer.net by Eunice Barbara Novio gives further details about the overall purpose of our participation: inquirer.net/...2-filipinos-work-to-preserve-indigenous-writing-systems

Mangyan, Kulitan, and Baybayin fonts created for our 13-ICAL fundraising (will be released sometime soon):

Mangyan, Kulitan, and Baybayin fonts created for our 13-ICAL fundraising.

...

Postscript:

It took me a while to recover from this trip (my health went on a decline the weeks and months following my return from Taiwan) and I was meaning to write about it earlier last year. Now, the time has come for another linguistic conference and I need to continue moving on to the next level.

Next stop, Manila!

...

The old and the new.

This has been available for download for a while now but not a lot of people have noticed it:

Download this font set from: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByEkLQ7YrpPscFdoRjVtR21Icnc/

It's my cleaner and more standardized version of the Doctrina Christiana typeface. I released it earlier without any fanfare. But I guess I should stop procrastinating this new year as a resolution (fingers crossed), after all, I still haven't released a report from last year's ICAL conference and another one is soon to be due this year.

Anyway... The Modern Doctrina font set has a few features different from Paul Morrow's Tagalog Doctrina 1593 font:

The main and immediately noticeable difference is the addition of the set of alternative glyphs from my modern set and proposed reform. I added the modern RA and the kawi based JA, Mangyan pamudpod, x-kudlit, anusvāra, visarga, e/o kudlits, pallawa & padalaw-a marks, and other syllable-doubling marks; assigning them to the appropriate keys.

What's not immediately noticeable until you use the font is the different aesthetic feel of the typeface. My many tweaks that resulted on character element's uniformity (while keeping with the basic shapes of the old typeface) gives this font a definite modern feel, a lively touch, and youthful appeal.

Paul Morrow's Tagalog Doctrina font used the typeface from the typesetter's proof at the beginning pages of the Doctrina Christiana. (fig. 1 image above)

For the Modern Doctrina font, I sampled and compared each and every character from the whole Doctrina Christiana and determined the recurring elements, forms, and details of each letter.

I evaluated character rotations, print defects, shape & size anomalies, and numerous features. In the end, I developed a clean and unified standard for this new font version but retained the spirit of the old typeface.

Some of the features of the Modern Doctrina font:

• standardized rounded entry, ends, & edges (sans serif)
• standardized height & width
• even cap height (no ascenders)
• even base line (no descenders)
• even strokes & line weights
• standardized forms & elements
• alternative characters and modern glyphs
• Tagalog Unicode range included

...

Try it and enjoy! :)

...

[EULA] © All rights reserved, Nordenx Baybayin Modern Fonts are copyright of their typeface designer & creator Norman de los Santos. Free for personal and non-commercial use only. Please contact me at nordenx@gmail.com or nordenx@yahoo.com for any inquiries about commercial use and licensing for branding, printing, publications, and/or other electronic applications.

...

The Font Awakens

Old Work In Progress Teaser Image

Now Available! I shown the work in progress (WIP) of this Star Wars inspired font earlier this year, the typeface is styled after the lore's Aurebesh script.

It took watching the new Star Wars: Episode VII "The Force Awakens" movie this weekend to find the boost of morale to actually finish this font set.

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There are a couple of tweaks and character revisions since the WIP preview I showed earlier. The images below contains the final letter designs.

You can download the fonts now from the download page or directly from the link below:

Download from: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByEkLQ7YrpPsbkVpZ01UU1hya2c/view
ASCII font (Keyboard only, CSS embed for web, not extended Unicode)

[EULA] © All rights reserved, Nordenx Baybayin Modern Fonts are copyright of their typeface designer & creator Norman de los Santos. Free for personal and non-commercial use only. Please contact me at nordenx@gmail.com for any inquiries about commercial use and licensing for branding, printing, publications, and/or other electronic applications.

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"May the force be with you."

Star Wars is a TM & © of Lucasfilm Ltd.

...

Baybayin on Windows 10

Microsoft's new OS (update) "Windows 10" rolled out today, replacing and improving upon Windows 8+

My desktop's transition to Windows 10 from Win8+ went smoothly. I was expecting a couple of old driver issues (my youngest son had to update his video drivers) but my old machine breezed through the auto installation process. The new OS and its new Internet browser Microsoft Edge has a lot of neat little features.

Edge is simplified, clean, and performs well in most cases, but it’s lacking features you might expect of a modern browser. I noticed that downloads start automatically without giving me a choice of where the files are being stored. A lot of basic stuff feels surprisingly missing. To be fair, Microsoft noted that they started from scratch with Edge. ...it shows.

A neat new feature: you can post little text notes and draw all over webpages and send a copy to friends. It’s useful if you want to quickly share a screenshot of a site with some annotation, but sadly it gets old quick.

But as with most browsers, the one key thing I care about is performance, and Edge mostly delivers. Edge renders most popular websites smoothly, and load times are usually good. However, as I feared, it is not fully Unicode compatible. I can not find any way to change its default font settings and it does not display the Tagalog, Hanunuo, Buhid, and Tagbanwa Unicode range of characters on webpages and the new sticky-note feature has problems displaying stacked/ligatured markers (kudlit, virama, pamudpod). Character & marker combinations like the double-kudlit, possible in Firefox, is not rendered properly in Edge's notes (see image below).

Baybayin deficiencies in Microsoft's new "Edge" Internet browser.

(  ᜀᜁᜂ᜵ᜊᜃᜇᜄᜑᜎᜋᜈᜅᜉᜍᜐᜆᜏᜌ᜶ᜊᜒᜓ ᜊᜒ ᜊᜓ ᜊᜒ ᜒᜊᜓ ᜓᜊ᜔ ᜊ᜴  ᜶᜔ ᜶ᜓ )

The Unicode text (in parentheses) above should match the one in the image.

Another one of my other primary concerns is the default font keyboarding and the custom Baybayin Keyboard Layout. The only trouble I encountered was that I have to re-install the custom Segoe UI font (segoeui.ttf) and reboot my desktop afterwards. Everything else seems to be operating fine right now.

Baybayin fonts and custom keyboard layout works okay in Windows 10.

...

Taking it to Taiwan

A CALL TO ICAL

The International Conference for Austronesian Linguistics (ICAL) is held every 4 years in different places all over the world. It is hosted by the Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica. ICAL provides forums for collaborative research and also publishes & archives research papers.

When Siuálâ ding Meángûbié (Voice of the Dead) suggested that we submit a paper and present at this year's ICAL in Taiwan, I was hesitant. I know that Mike Pangilinan (Siuala) has financial limitations and so do I. But this is another opportunity, like the one we had in Tokyo last year; to continue to showcase our work and be heard & reviewed by the  academic community in an international stage. So, after some rumination, I decided that we shouldn't pass this up. We have to find a way to attend ICAL.

So, for the advancement and preservation of Philippine writing systems and our cultural heritage. We decided to do a fundraising campaign to finance our trip to ICAL. Please visit our crowd-source fundraiser at: http://www.gofundme.com/nordenx2ical for more information.

PERKS

For our donors, I am currently pulling out and working on a few of my unfinished, unnamed, work-in-progress typefaces/fonts (Baybayin, Kulitan, Mangyan, etc.). And at the end of this fund raising campaign, we will select several of our top donor's names and I will name these new typefaces/fonts in their honor. This is the highest act of gratitude that I can offer. Your name, preserved in perpetuity, typed by native script writers (poets, artists, designers, authors, scholars), as long as we strive to keep our heritage alive.

Mike and I are also sending digital copies of our donor's names in calligraphic kulitan and/or baybayin as thank you notes.

Folks can donate through PayPal and we will add the amount to the gofundme total. You can use the DONATE BUTTON on the side-bar menu on this page. If you use the main PayPal site, my account is under my nordenx@yahoo.com email.

For other offline modes of sending money, please contact me through email or via my facebook account and I will send you our mailing address and other necessary information. Mike can receive Peso donations from within the Philippines through local Western Union or MoneyGram type services. I can also accept checks & money order through the mail. Offline donations will also be added to our gofundme tally.

We do these as part of our long-term goals to help protect and preserve our cultural heritage. I do hope that you would grace us with your generosity.

...

Worth Repeating

Repeating Homophonic Syllables:
"A Baybayin Tradition worth Repeating."

A sample of an occurrence of vowel sign doubling in old Tagalog script. (Excerpted from a 1635 land deed, University of Santo Tomas Archives, reproduced by Villamor in 1922), provided by Christopher Ray Miller, Ph.D., 2014:

From a 1635 land deed. UST Archives.

Earlier this year, we covered this in our papers and presentations at the International Workshop on Endangered Scripts of Island Southeast Asia held in the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Japan.

“Vowel sign doubling: Tagalog script historically shares with Buginese a spelling convention that can be called “vowel sign doubling”. This consists in marking a consonant letter with two vowel signs, either the same or two different ones, to represent two succeeding syllables beginning with the same consonant.”
~ Miller (2011-2014)

In his book on Baybayin, Jean-Paul Potet Ph.D., noted that this same convention occurs in a Bugis script inscription on an old tombstone in Brunei. The inscription shows two i-vowel diacritic marks on top of a "NA" letter/character to be read as néné, meaning "grandfather". (Potet, 2014; Noorduyn, 1993)

Reintroducing Traditions:

Since I introduced the ᜍ "RA" glyph into my fonts a few years ago, it slowly gained acceptance and has become a de facto standard for the "RA" character. Similarly, I there has been an increase of online usage and enthusiasm for Antoon Postma's "pamudpod", from Surat Mangyan, a crescent-shaped virama (for indicating a trailing vowel-less consonant) since I also include the glyph in all my fonts. So, I think that it is about time that we bring back the dual-kudlit for syllable doubling convention. I am confident that the practice will gain acceptance once again, given some time, exposure, and proper education.

There is one hitch though, we need a couple more new markers. Since the /a/ vowel sound inherent to each base baybayin character is obviously not marked, how do we repeat an /a/ ending syllable without doubling a base letter?  ...or repeated compound syllables too for that matter? We have to look into other related South East Asian abugida scripts for answers. Luckily, we didn't have to look too far. I found that the Buginese (Lontara/Bugis) ᨞ “pallawa” mark is used to separate rhythmic-intonational groups and also used to denote the doubling of a word or its root. We can borrow the same concept and style/position as the the pallawa mark.

We can actually use the pallawa mark to denote word or root doubling. It would greatly reduce reduplication of words like "halo-halo", "bola-bola", "turo-turo", "Bong-bong", "bato-bato", "sunod-sunod", etc.

Borrowing from the pallawa concept, I introduced the : colon as a “padalaw-a” mark in my Tokyo paper. The padalaw-a mark also doubles the vowel characters in the same manner prescribed in the book "Ang Wika at ang Baybaying Tagalog" by Tolentino (1937) except that the marker is on the right side instead of being on top or bottom of the ᜁ I and ᜂ U characters. The padalaw-a mark makes it possible to repeat an /a/ ending syllable without doubling a base letter.

Another extended possibility for this type of Kudlit mark is what I call a “pahantig” mark which is a single solid dot • mark on the right side of the a consonantal syllable character; it duplicates the consonant sound at the end of the marked syllable.

Before we could disseminate this, I would have to update all my fonts to include the pallawa mark. Currently only a couple of my commercial license fonts has the updated markers. The pallawa is assigned to the \ backslash key. In the mean time, we can educate baybayin practitioners about this forgotten tradition and updated solution.

Here's a recent chart to explain the dual/doubling/repeating marker system:

Baybayin dual / doubling / repeating marker system chart.

For a larger view of the chart above: CLICK HERE

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Baliktárin Palindrome and Baligtádin Ambigram.

A new exercise in tradition. Try your hand and mind at it; see what you can create.

Baligtádin ( ᜊᜎᜒᜄ᜴ᜆᜇᜒᜈ᜴ ; lit. reversible ) is a Baybáyin equivalent of an ambigram. 

Basically, an ambigram is a typographic, calligraphic, or symbolic art form representation of a word or phrase, whose elements retain meaning when viewed or interpreted from a different direction, perspective, or orientation.

The meaning of the ambigram may either change, or remain the same, when viewed or interpreted from different perspectives.

Baligtadin ( ᜊᜎᜒᜄ᜴ᜆᜇᜒᜈ᜴ ; lit. reversible ). is a Baybayin equivalent of an ambigram.

Faux-Latin Alphabet "Love", ᜃᜊᜌᜈ᜔ "Kabayan" (townsfolk/countrymen) a Multi-Lingual ambigram.

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Baliktárin ( ᜊᜎᜒᜃ᜴ᜆᜍᜒᜈ᜴ ; lit. returnable back and forth ) is a Baybáyin equivalent of a palindrome, or in other words: a palindromic Tagalog sentence written in Baybayin Script; it reads the same from the beginning to the end or from the end to the beginning.

The unit of Baliktarin is mora (per syllable measure) since the Baybayin Script is an Abugida (alphasyllabary or phonetic-syllabary). This syllabic constrained writing differs from a Palindromya (Tagalog Palindrome), which is written using the Latin Alphabet and uses phoneme (per letter measure) as unit.

Baliktarin is very much like the Kaibun (回文; lit. circle sentence), the Japanese equivalent of palindromes which uses their syllabaries, Hiragana and Katakana.

Preferably, traditional Baybayin orthography is used in Baliktarin; where a virama (vowel cancellation mark) is not advised and trailing/leading vowel-less consonants are not written.

Examples:

• ᜃᜒ ᜎ ᜎ ᜃᜓ ᜎ ᜎ ᜃᜒ
  | ki-la-la-ko(ng)-la-la-ki |
  Kilala kong lalaki.
  "A man I know."
• ᜁ ᜊ ᜊ ᜋᜓ ᜊ ᜊ ᜁ
  | i-ba-ba-mo-ba-ba-i |
  Ibaba mo, babae.
  "Put it down, woman."
• ᜊ ᜅ ᜃᜓ ᜅ ᜊ
  | ba-nga-ko-nga-ba |
  Banga ko nga ba?
  "Is it really my jar?"
• ᜆ ᜋ ᜐ ᜋ ᜆ
  | ta-ma-sa-ma-ta |
  Tama sa mata.
  "Hit right in the eye."
• ᜁ ᜃᜓ ᜎᜓ ᜋᜓ ᜎᜓ ᜃᜓ ᜁ
  | i-ku-lo(ng)-mo-lo-ko-i |
  Ikulong mo. Loko e!
  "Put him in jail. He's really crazy!"
• ᜁ ᜎ ᜋ ᜎᜒ ᜊᜒ ᜎ ᜎ ᜊᜒ ᜎᜒ ᜋ ᜎ ᜁ
  | i-la(ng)-ma-li(ng)-bi-la(ng)-la-bi(ng)-li-ma-la(ng)-i |
  Ilang maling bilang? Labinglima lang e!
  "How many did we miscount? We only have fifteen!"

Baliktarin ( ᜊᜎᜒᜄ᜴ᜆᜍᜒᜈ᜴ ; lit. returnable back and forth ) is a Baybáyin equivalent of a palindrome.

...

NOTE: An easy way to remember Tagalog term for which is which (ambigram or palindrome):

• Baliktárin (baybayin palindrome) - key word "BALIK" meaning "RETURN".
• Baligtádin (baybayin ambigram) - key word "BALIGTAD" meaning "REVERSED" and "UPSIDE DOWN".

Baliktarin palindrome, once you read it forwards, RETURN and read it on the way back.

Baligtadin ambigram), you can turn it around over and over and still read it while REVERSED and UPSIDE DOWN.

From a facebook friend (J. Abelo):

“So, BALIKTARIN: Left to Right "pa balik-balik" (vice versa),
and BALIGTADIN: Readable in All Directions (pa bali-baligtad). ”

Have fun!

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FPAC Fact

"Festival of Philippine Arts and Culture" (FPAC) www.filamarts.org - is the largest presenter of Philippine arts and culture in Southern California presenting over 1200 artists in 9 disciplines and attracting audiences of over 25,000 people from all over the country.

FPAC 2012 @ San Pedro, California.

When FPAC's Pacific Artists Network (PAN) opened up an opportunity for Baybayin Script artist-activists like Kristian Kabuay (baybayin.com), Ray Haguisan (malayadesigns.net), and myself ("Nordenx" baybayinfonts.com), for us to reach and teach more people in Southern California about our advocacy to preserve & propagate our ancient script, we took it.

Since then, we have been in attendance at FPAC every year.

On a side note, I met Kris back in 2010 in San Francisco at a babaylan conference (babaylan.net)  and Ray back in 2011 in San Francisco's Pistahan (pistahan.net) event. We've been together at various Filipino festival venues to promote our ancient script ever since.

 FPAC 2014 weekend Post-eventum Report:

Baybayin Artists @ the 2014 FPAC

This year's FPAC weekend-long event at Grand Park, Los Angeles, had one of the most active Baybayin practitioners in attendance; particularly at the PAN pavilion tent.

Despite the 100+ ℉ heat & humidity and the initial hassles of setting up, the rest of the weekend turned out to be very productive and positive. Foot traffic improved in the afternoons. We all had reasonable sales of our Baybayin themed art materials, but that is inconsequential to the amount of people who stopped by to listen & learn about our ancient script.

I am delighted that many young L.A. Fil-Ams are becoming well-versed in our script. I am also pleased that they now know to avoid Alibata and the failures of Google search results. And I am proud that they also believe in the purity & sanctity of tradition; that "modern" doesn't have to be convoluted by the western alphabet's orthography; and that they recognize the difference between stylizing, functionality, and standardization. I lost count of how many people complimented my modern baybayin typography chart and the multitude of cellphone photos of it being taken.

FPAC 2014 PAN Pavilion @ Los Angeles, CA.

• Kristian Kabuay's art & books are popular as usual, especially among the fan-girls. He did a live baybayin art on-stage and at the pavilion.
• Malaya Designs' pendants are hot as usual (he sold the most as usual). Hearing him explain the background story to his work always brings in a crowd.
• We were glad to finally meet and bring to our fold Robert J Sison and his fresh baybayin materials (love the temporary baybayin tattoos!). 
• Inkanor's baybayin madala shirt & crafts are rockin'!  
• Aicnelav Diyan's Bukobomba Solar Pyrography was a hit (many took photos and videos of her doing live solar pyrography).
• Glad to see Clarisse Pastor-Medina Art (coffee painting) and hear her talk to people about baybayin.
• Always a fan of Ka Faustino Caigoy, I can't believe he was just giving away his baybayin typography prints. But he's just such a nice guy.  
• Eliseo Art A. Silva was in attendance, his murals speak for themselves, but he did a live art painting with baybayin too.
• Baybayin on youtube sensation, David Lazaro performed spoken-word poetry on-stage.
• I sold a few of my remaining Anak Bathala copies of the first Komiks, art prints, and quite a bit of buttons. The best part is talking to folks whose curiosities were piqued by my typography poster. ->

  

  Modern Baybayin Typography

• Bayani Art, was selling their usual Historic Filipino Hero-themed shirts; a few with baybayin designs and Jacob Ira Azurin Vijandre's baybayin chart printed on them. 
• Lauren Benetua's team set up a table for the People of Coloring project where kids of all ages sat down and colored-in the line arts that several of the baybayin artists listed above contributed.
• I saw a couple of message boards and signages from the Youth Groups with baybayin written on them. Correct & proper baybayin too. 

All in all, this was a successful venue in my humble opinion. We can't get to every visitor but collectively we reached hundreds of people and got confirmation that they are learning from what we teach; also confirming what we do matters to many.

Photo Albums from facebook:
FPAC 2012
FPAC 2013
FPAC 2014

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Old RA is the New RA

3 fonts updated w/ RA and minor clean up.

Mangyan Fonts Update:

I have been meaning to upload the updated Mangyan fonts with the new RA character. So here it is: DOWNLOAD (.zip file containing 3 .ttf files)

Last year the Mangyan people's leaders opted to reintroduce the older Hanunuo RA letter-form based on the LA character (with a minor modification on the rightmost up & down end strokes). They retired Antoon Postma's dash — RA that was based on the Buhid variant of Surat Mangyan. New publications from the Mangyan Heritage Center (MHC) www.mangyan.org started to include the updated character earlier this year, starting with the Surat Mangyan Primer.

I'll update the individual .zip files in each of the font's DeviantArt download hosting later since I still need to update the keyboarding charts for them.

The Postma dash — RA and its vowel modifiers (kudlit) are still included in the fonts. Accessed by typing the Uppercase R, 7, and 8 keys. The new RA and its kudlit are now currently set to the lowercase r, (, and ) keys.

A custom keyboard layout for Mangyan script is in the works for Windows 8 and Mac OSX. I just need to optimize the Hanunuo Unicode font and finish up a Buhid font/typeface that will share some of its Unicode range with Hanunuo for similar kudlit positions. The keyboard layout will probably be ready before the end of this year.

I'm also working on a Surat Mangyan children's coloring book for the MHC.

Updated Chart for the Mangyan Postma Font.

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If you're looking for another Unicode compliant font,  Google's Noto Sans have both Hanunuo and Buhid here:

https://www.google.com/get/noto/#sans-hano
https://www.google.com/get/noto/#sans-buhd

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Legends & Legacies of Modern Baybayin Fonts and Typography

RIP Hector Santos

We are losing our pioneers. Last year, Bayani Mendoza de Leon passed away (Nov. 24, 1942 - Sept. 13, 2013). Recently, Hector Santos passed away (Sept. 15, 1941 - July 30, 2014). I received the news from another baybayin font pioneer, Paul Morrow.

When I started researching about Philippine culture & history back in the mid 90's, there wasn't much about baybayin & surat Mangyan online until Hector Santos' & Paul Morrow's sites came along. They were one of the first to publish reliable information about baybayin online. Hector Santos was the first to offer commercial digitized baybayin fonts online. Paul Morrow followed suit and was the first to offer free fonts from historic typefaces and the first modern stylized and uniformed typeface. Bayani Mendoza de Leon's manual introduced me to current modernization attempts. Their collective work inspired me to be more pro-active with my research. Five years later, after catching up with all the foreign language materials borrowed from library archives from all over, I began sharing what I've learned and fonts/typefaces I created to the world. Without Paul & Hector's work, surely my baybayin knowledge & fonts would've been poorer.

I regret not being able to meet the Hector Santos and Bayani Mendoza de Leon in person to thank them. Their legacy will live on through every baybayin font that will ever come along.

Hector Santos' website: http://www.bibingka.com/dahon/

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Bane of Baybayin Fonts

Several of my typeface designs has become so popular over the years that people tend to forget to give me credit for the fonts and neglect my copyright restrictions about commercial use. My commercial licensing prices are quite reasonable. And, if you're operating a non-profit or a student/school or just a small group of enthusiast/activists, you'll find me very agreeable and happy to oblige with giving you and your group permission to use any of my font for a short-run low-volume distribution (or even sales). I do appreciate the mention even in small print, but if you ask kindly, you don't even have to credit me or provide a link back to this blog or my site ( baybayinfonts.com ).

This has always been in every download page for my fonts ( especially at nordenx.deviantart.com ) :

“ © All of Nordenx Baybayin Modern Fonts are for personal and non-commercial use only. Please contact me at nordenx@yahoo.com for any inquiries about commercial use and licensing for branding, printing, publications, and/or other electronic applications.”

As it stands, I have sold four commercial licenses for my fonts; two for branding, one for specific font sets, and one major license for full use of every typeface I release publicly and privately. I take my role as a licensor seriously and will protect the interests of my licensees. This is why when one points out certain issues, I respond quickly.

Baybayin.com is my major licensee. I greatly appreciate that he is also pro-active with regards to protecting both his brand and art as well as looking out for people who commits abuses with unlicensed distribution & copyright infringement on my typeface designs. Recently he wrote:

“ A new Baybayin app was released recently but stay away! #1) It’s inaccurate and #2) The developers used fonts by Norman de los Santos (Baybayin Modern Mono and Baybayin Modern Unicode).  ... The developers are making money or released the app with the intent to make money via serving advertisements.”

 SOURCE: http://blog.baybayin.com/2014/07/30/stay-away-from-this-app-its-wrong-and-steals-work/
( I already emailed the company who designed the app. We'll see if they respond and how. )

I guess some folks either ignores or don't read my copyright terms or they just plainly lack ethics. This is not the first time this happened.

A couple of years ago, a popular and respectable Philippine Culture store carried shirts & tote bags that used my fonts prominently in their designs. I'm very happy that the store immediately responded to my email about the matter and promptly dropped the products from the company/designer who sold them the items.

Even Kristian Kabuay of Baybayin.com has to battle the big company "Walker Underwear Philippines" for theft of his personal font.
SOURCE: http://blog.baybayin.com/2013/08/17/walker-underwear-philippines-rips-off-artists/

Bottom line: I wish that people respect and value artists' & designers' work and give them the credit (or financial compensation) that they deserve.

For the most part, I wish that the general public would learn how to use the fonts properly and learn how to read & write Baybayin correctly and more proficiently.

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UPDATE: [Aug. 20, 2013] After a short disappearance from the Google Play store, the app is back up again. Updated photos suggests that some updates where made. A limited dictionary using Paul Morrow's Tagalog Stylized font shows that the app's author/s seem to know how to properly write in classical & traditional baybayin, even transliterating borrowed Spanish words correctly. Yet, the "translator" part of the app still uses my Baybayin Mono font and can not transliterate properly, it can't even "transliterate" simple words and names that it deems "foreign". *sigh... I sent another legal report of the copyright violation to Google Play.

 [Aug. 6, 2013] After a stern email & report to Google Play, the offending app has been removed from the Google Play store. Since I did not get any response from either company, I'm not sure which one pulled the plug.

Font Law & Licensing

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=capstone.inc.jaseltan.bayengapp.bayeng
https://play.google.com/store/search?q=baybayin

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Noto Bad, Noto Good. Just okay.

I just saw that the Google code project "Noto" font for world's scripts has been made available - Tagalog/Baybayin, Buhid, Tagbanwa, and Hanunoo are included in the Noto Sans font lineup: http://www.google.com/get/noto/

As they are right now, when I tested the font (Noto Sans), the Philippine scripts are still mostly useless;  a big chunk of the Surat Mangyan scripts are not mapped (incorrect character shapes plus Unicode still does not have the range for the various proper kudlit markers) and the updated RA are not included. The kudlits and virama still doesn't stack or render correctly, the baybayin characters are a mix of styles and not uniform, the whole collection does not really visually "harmonize" well. And unless you specifically chose Noto Sans as your default browser or mobile font, it still won't show or show properly (in other non Google/Chrome browsers). Also, you still need a custom keyboard layout to type Baybayin.

The project team are still ironing out some issues with the other language's scripts. I'll wait and see how they resolve those issues as well. It's still a little early to tell if the Noto project will be helpful to Baybayin scripts or not. Kulitan is still not included in Unicode. And Noto got most of its language data & sample texts are from the Unicode CLDR project.

The best thing to come out of it is that Chromebook laptops and Google tablets will have baybayin Noto fonts bundled with it. I guess it's a big step for Google fonts, but it's still barely a crawl for Baybayin fonts. We'll take what we can. Baby steps till we get there. :)

Moving on...

Saving Baybayin through Technology, Typography, and Standardization.

I was in attendance at the International Workshop on Endangered Scripts of Island Southeast Asia last month (Feb. 27 - Mar. 1) in Tokyo, Japan. Hosted by Linguistic Dynamics Science Project (LingDy), a strategic project of the Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa (ILCAA), at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (TUFS).

The workshop discussed the writing systems and traditions of Southeast Asia, focused on (but was not limited to) the endangered Indic scripts of the Philippines, Sumatra and Sulawesi. We presented our papers which covered topics regarding historical and structural relationships, literature, documentation, revival, modern functions, adaptations and social/cultural meaning.

In addition to the academic component of the workshop, the organizers encouraged participation by culture-bearers, activists, and artists - this is how we got included.

Philippine script representatives:
- Kristian Kabuay (Baybayin.com)
- Anya Postma (Mangyan Heritage Center)
- Kanakan Balintagos (Solito Arts Productions)
- Norman de los Santos (BHM Publishing House, Inc.)
- Emerennciana Lorenzo Catapang (Mangyan Heritage Center)
- Christopher Miller (Independent Researcher, Montreal, Canada)
- Bruno Tiotuico (Alexandre Dayrit Tiotuico） (Ágúman Súlat Kapampángan)
- Michael Raymon M. Pangilinan (ILCAA, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies)

From left to right: Mr. Christian Cabuay (a.k.a. Kristian Kabuay, Baybayin Artist, Calligrapher, Entrepreneur), Mrs. Emily Lorenzo Catapang (Executive Director of the Mangyan Heritage Center), ME: Norman de los Santos (a.k.a. Nordenx, Baybayin Typographer, Graphic Designer), and the young Mr. Bruno Tiotuico (Sulat Kapampangan activist, Photographer).



From left to right: Ms. Anya Postma (Sulat Mangyan advocate and Daughter of anthropologist and linguist Antoon Vreeze Postma), Mr. Christopher Ray Miller (Linguist, scholar, and expert on Philippine and SouthEast Asian scripts), Mr. Auraeus Solito( a.k.a. Kanakan Balintagos, internationally acclaimed and award-winning filmmaker and indigenous peoples rights advocate) and Mr. Michael Raymon Pangilinan (a.k.a. Siuálâ ding Meángûbié, Kapampangan Culture activist, scholar, and author of "Kulitan")

The abstracts and proceedings of everyone who presented can be accessed here: http://lingdy.aacore.jp/en/activity/endangered-scripts-issea/docs.html

My well-received handout on Baybayin Typography and Standardization.

My paper and abstract are available at the LyngDy page linked above.

My handout is available here:

Note: You can download and print a copy of the handout image above for your own personal use. However, please don't publish or distribute this image commercially without prior consent or licensing from the author.

The workshop answered a lot of questions regarding the history & relationships of SEA scripts and Philippine scripts. It opened up a lot of ideas and it offered up a lot of insight and exchange between academic and non-academic culture bearers. Expect that my experience and what we've learned in Tokyo will work its way into my font development.


Essential Links:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/surat2014/

http://blog.baybayin.com/2014/01/30/event-japan-tokyo-university-of-foreign-studies/

http://lingdy.aacore.jp/en/activity/endangered-scripts-issea.html

http://www.mangyan.org/

http://siuala.com/


http://www.angkulet.com/2012/10/25/auraeus-solitos-baybayin-first-trailer/#sthash.i70lMHOr.dpbs



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