Why is Baybayin, the ancient Philippine, alphabet so easy to learn?

Answer 1

Baybayin is an abugida (alphasyllabary), which means that it makes use of consonant-vowel combinations. Each character or titík, written in its basic form, is a consonant ending with the vowel "A". To produce consonants ending with other vowel sounds, a mark called a kudlit is placed either above the character (to produce an "E" or "I" sound) or below the character (to produce an "O" or "U" sound). To write words beginning with a vowel, three characters are used, one each for A, E/I and O/U.

It has only 17 letters.

You spell the way you pronounce, so any language can be written in Baybayin as long as you know the right pronunciation.

In ancient Baybayin, I/E and O/U are the same, the way the Bisayans are pronouncing it even today. Now, it has already A-E-I-O-U.

To produce a consonant, you must remove the vowel first through Kudlit, above or below the alphasyllabary consonant. This is a very important Spanish invention because a long time ago, ancient Filipinos did not have this “vowel killer”. So, when they write “buhay”, they will write it as “buha” , or Dulay, they will write it as Dula, as in Lakan Dula (this is the origin of the surname Dula), otherwise, “buhay” will just become “buhaya”, and "Dulay" will become "Dulaya". This was explained in several lectures of Pastor Jay Enage, the leading advocate of Baybayin revival in the Philippines. It was in the later part of the Spanish occupation where the Spaniards invented the “vowel killer” in Baybayin, thereby producing a consonant without a vowel accompanying it.