Abakada

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Abakada is the indigenized Latin alphabet of most Philippine languages (Meso Philippine languages) and was the original alphabet of the Wikang Pambansa Batay sa Tagalog (lit. Tagalog-Based National Language) or simply Wikang Pambansa (lit. National Language).^[1] The abakada is made up of 20 letters.

[edit] History

Before the arrival of the Spanish, most Philippine languages were written using the Baybayin syllabry. The Spaniards introduced the Latin script to the Philippines and, until the first half of the 20th century, Philippine languages were widely written in a variety of ways based on Spanish orthography. It was José Rizal who, years ago, first proposed the indigenization of Philippine writing.^[2].

When the Wikang Pambansa Batay sa Tagalog was introduced, grammarian Lope K. Santos created a new alphabet consisting of 20 letters called Abakada in school grammar books called balarilà. Based on Rizal's indigenization proposal, the abakada became the alphabet for both Tagalog and the Tagalog-Based National Language, and was eventually adopted by other Philippine languages.

[edit] Collation

The Tagalog Baybayin script, featuring the equivalent of each of the 20 letters of the Abakada

Abakada is arranged this way. Inside the quotation marks is the name of the letters.

A - "A"

B - "Ba"

K - "Ka"

D - "Da"

E - "E"

G - "Ga"

H - "Ha"

I - "I"

L - "La"

M - "Ma"

N - "Na"

NG - "Nga"

O - "O"

P - "Pa"

R - "Ra"

S - "Sa"

T - "Ta"

U - "U"

W - "Wa"

Y - "Ya"

[edit] Notes

[edit] See also