82. Hanunó'o

 

The Hanunó'o or Mangyan script is one of a number of closely related scripts used in the Philippines until the 17th Century. It is thought to have descended from the Kawi script of Java, Bali and Sumatra, which in turn descended from the Pallava script, one of the southern Indian scripts derived from Brahmi.
Hanunó'o writing is used mainly to write love songs or ʼambāhan, and also for correspondence. About 70% of the Hanunó'o are able to read and write their language, and there is at least one person in each family who is literate.

Notable features

• Type of writing system: syllabic alphabet in which each consonant has an inherent vowel [a]. Other vowels are indicated by diacritics.
• Syllable final consonants are not written and readers have to use context to work out which final consonants are intended.
• Direction of writing: traditionally written with the point of a knife on bamboo in vertical columns from bottom to top and left to right. Though it is usually read from left to right in horizontal lines.

Used to write

Hanunó'o, an Austronesian language spoken in the southern part of the Philippine island of Mindoro by about 10,000 to 12,000 people. Speakers of this language are known as Hanunó'o or Hanunó'o-Mangyan. The term Mangyan is the collective name for the eight indigenous peoples of Mindoro.

The letters are all pronunced in the same way as their IPA equivalents, with the exception of ng = [ŋ] and y = [j].

Sample text

Source: http://iloko.tripod.com/Hanunoo.html

Links

Information about the Hanunó'o/Mangyan language and people
http://iloko.tripod.com/Hanunoo.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanunó'o_alphabet http://kcm.co.kr/bethany_eng/p_code3/1118.html
http://scriptsource.org/cms/scripts/page.php?item_id=script_detail&key=Hano
Mangyan Heritage Center
http://www.mangyan.org
Ancient scripts of the Philippines
http://www.mts.net/~pmorrow/bayeng1.htm
http://iloko.tripod.com/scripts.html