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Hanunó'o script

Hanunó'o
ᜱᜨᜳᜨᜳᜢ
Type
Languages Hanunó'o
Time period
c. 1300–present
Parent systems
Sister systems
Balinese
Batak
Baybayin
Kulitan
Buhid
Javanese
Lontara
Sundanese
Rencong
Rejang
Tagbanwa
Direction Left-to-right
ISO 15924 Hano, 371
Unicode alias
Hanunoo
U+1720–U+173F

Hanunó’o is one of the indigenous scripts of the Philippines and is used by the Mangyan peoples of southern Mindoro to write the Hanunó'o language. It is an abugida descended from the Brahmic scripts, closely related to Baybayin, and is famous for being written vertical but written upward, rather than downward as nearly all other scripts (however, it's read horizontally left to right). It is usually written on bamboo by incising characters with a knife. Most known Hanunó'o inscriptions are relatively recent because of the perishable nature of bamboo. It is therefore difficult to trace the history of the script.

Fifteen basic characters of the Hanunó'o script each represent one of the fifteen consonants /p t k b d ɡ m n ŋ l r s h j w/ followed by the inherent vowel /a/. Other syllables are written by modifying each of these characters with one of two diacritics (kudlit) which change the vowel sound to /i/ or /u/. The glyph for /la/ is the same as that for /ra/ but the glyphs for /li/ and /ri/ are distinct, as are those for /lu/ and /ru/. There are also three glyphs that represent vowels which stand alone (phonetically preceded by a glottal stop, written q in Roman transliteration).Final consonants are not written, and so must be determined from context. Dutch anthropologist Antoon Postma, who went to the Philippines from the Netherlands in the 1950s, introduced the pamudpod sign (   ) to indicate a syllable final consonant. (The pamudpod functions as a virama.)

Note: With the proper rendering support, the Hanunó'o syllable NGU above (ᜥᜳ) should resemble a V joined with two short, parallel diagonal lines ( \\ ).


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