
KNOWLEDGE AND ART 203 
Writing. With the Sanskrit words camea form of 
writing based on the Sanskrit alphabet. This was not 
only considerably modified, but much abbreviated, 
yet the connection is perfectly clear. The Tagalog 
wrote with three signs for vowels and twelve for con- 
sonants; which, with the simple phonetic character of 
his tongue, sufficed. In reality, this script was a syl- 
labary rather than an alphabet. The vowels were 
written only when they stood alone or at the beginning 
of words. Each consonant sign stood for the con- 
sonant followed by a sound a. A mark or point above 
changed the vowel of the syllable to e or 7, and the same 
point below the character caused it to be sounded with 
the vowel o or u. The Bisaya, Pampanga, and other 
nations followed a very similar system of writing, and 
only the Mohammedans came to use Arabic script, 
which is much less adapted to the genius of the Malayan 
languages. The alphabets of Hindu origin have long 
since gone out of use among all the Christian nations, 
who now employ the ordinary Roman letters with their 
Spanish values. Two distinctly primitive people, 
however, the Mangyan of Mindoro and some of the 
Tagbanua of Palawan, have preserved forms of this 
ancient writing. The Mangyan write horizontally 
from left to right; the Tagbanua in vertical columns 
reading from top to bottom and the columns fol- 
lowing in order from right to left. The latter 
seems to have been the method also of the Tagalog. 
The inscriptions consist of incisions in the surface 
of strips of bamboo. The Tagbanua alphabet betrays 
its close affiliation to the Tagalog letters as they 
have been preserved in the handwriting of Father 
Chirino; although most of the letters have been turned 
one-quarter way round from their proper position in 
the column. 
