Free Baybayin font, and how to type Baybayin letters and words

Last updated June 9, 2023

Baybayin is an ancient Philippine script that according to records so far goes back to the early 1500s.

This is my first Baybayin font, and the first font I ever made. It was fun and fulfilling to accomplish. There are some imperfections here and there, but I had a lot of fun learning about the process of making fonts. I call this font Niwang Uno, niwang is Bisaya for thin or payat in Tagalog. I named the font after the thin brush strokes I made for it. 

You can download it here for free! Feel free to donate a small amount to support my work!

How I made my first Baybayin font

Initially these characters were drawn in Adobe Illustrator back in 2019. I used them for my first batch of illustrations for my Filipino Food Art and Philippine Wildlife Art projects. With each new artwork came a new word that had to be written in Baybayin, and because it took time to write them out one after the other, I made all the characters at once. I then took characters from the set for each new artwork. This helped me make the artworks faster.

A few months later, I found out that a popular font-making software called Glyphs Mini was available for a 30 day free trial. Since I already had the characters, I imported each one into the software and made painstaking adjustments to each one. Making fonts was harder than I thought because you have to go over each one and see how they look side-by-side with other letters. I did my best for a few days, and before the trial ended I exported my first Baybayin font. 

Baybayin letters vs. “western” letters and writing

Baybayin is not an alphabet, but an abugida. The English alphabet uses consonants and vowels like “A”, “B”, “C” and “E”, whereas Baybayin uses syllables and single vowels like “A” “Ba”, “Ka”, and “Nga”. An abugida is a writing system where consonants and vowels can be together as a unit, whereas an alphabet has vowels and consonants alone and separate by themselves.

The basic Baybayin abugida (without kudlits) total out to 17 characters. 14 are consonant-vowel syllables, and 3 are single vowels. These three vowel characters are the only ones that standalone and are separate by themselves. These are: “A”, “I/E”, and “O/U”. 

There is only one Baybayin character syllable that has three letters, and that’s “NGA.”

Baybayin kudlit

Baybayin characters can be marked to change the vowel character. A mark is added on top of the character if the vowel is an I or E, or at the bottom if it is O or U. No kudlit means A. The “default” vowel sound or Baybayin character without kudlits, is A.

The traditional Filipino alphabet is pronounced in the same way the Baybayin abugida is pronounced.

When the Baybayin characters with kudlits are included, the Baybayin abugida has 45 characters.

Writing in Baybayin the traditional way

All the characters in Baybayin represent consonant-vowel syllables, except for the lone vowels A, O/U, I/E, which have their own Baybayin characters. There are no standalone consonants in the Baybayin abugida like B, K, or T, only syllables and vowels like A, Ba, Ka, or Nga. So when writing words like ISDA or SALAMIN, Filipinos back then wrote them like: I-DA and SA-LA-MI, dropping all the lone consonants in the word when spelled in Baybayin. 

The traditional writing of Baybayin is evident in The Doctrina Christiana, one of the first printed books by the Spanish in the Philippines in the late 1500s. It used the traditional Baybayin where lone consonants were dropped. You can see the text here, and view or download a PDF of the actual print here.

In the graphic above highlighting an excerpt from the Doctrina Christiana, the first few Baybayin characters spell:

“A MA NA MI. NA SA LA NGI KA. I PA SA BA MO. A NGA LA MO.”

Which is the traditional Baybayin for the following Tagalog, including the dropped consonants:

“Ama namin. Nasa langit ka. Y pa samba mo ang ngalan mo.”

The “Ama Namin” today, in Tagalog, starts with the following:

“Ama namin, sumasalangit Ka. Sambahin ang ngalan mo…”

Which in English is a Catholic prayer, “Our Father”:

“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…”

Filipinos were already accustomed to writing and reading their traditional way by dropping these consonants, until the Spanish came and added a new kudlit to the abugida to make lone consonants. This made it easier for the Spanish to read and write in Baybayin. 

Spanish kudlit & making lone consonants: Modified Baybayin

The use of the Spanish kudlit was a way to alter Baybayin so that lone consonants in an actual pronunciation were not dropped from the writing itself. This way, it told the reader that the consonant in the Baybayin character should be read without its associated vowel. This was an attempt by Fr. Francisco Lopez in 1620, when he deemed the “Tagalog script” as “defective”.

Lopez’s Spanish kudlit was originally a cross, but in my font, I use an “X”. Baybayin, with this “vowel-canceling” kudlit, is also known today as Modified Baybayin. Modified Baybayin seems to be the favored Baybayin these days by artists and enthusiasts like me. Because I’m not a native speaker of any Filipino language, modified Baybayin is easier for me to read. Though as I write more and more in Baybayin, traditional Baybayin is indeed easier to write.

Writing non-Filipino words in Baybayin

Baybayin was obviously used to write Filipino words in Filipino languages, such as in Tagalog, Bisaya, Kapampangan, or Ilokano. If you want to write a non-Filipino word in Baybayin, translate it first into a Filipino language, and then write the Baybayin of the translated word. 

Names and proper nouns can still be written in Baybayin, but they must be “Filipinized” using Filipino sounds and syllables. Instead of writing English or non-Filipino words letter-by-letter in Baybayin, you must pay attention to the syllables and sounds of the word, and make that the basis for the Baybayin spelling.

Take for example “tricycle”. The Filipinized word for this is “trisikel.”

Random trivia: some Filipino and Philippine English words have been included in the Oxford English dictionary, such as Balikbayan and gimmick.

If you want to write your name, you do the same. Use Filipino sounds and pronunciations of the name, and then spell it in Baybayin.

Since Baybayin was traditionally (and is) used to write in Filipino languages, native or second language speakers of Filipino languages will have the easiest time getting acquainted with writing in Baybayin. So it helps to choose a Filipino language to learn while writing in Baybayin.

Two of the things I ask myself before writing a non-Filipino word with Baybayin are:

1. Is there a direct translation for the word in any Filipino language, or the Filipino language I want to write in? If yes, I will write that translation.
2. If the answer is no, I must write the word with Filipino pronunciation (how it sounds if said by a native Filipino-speaker).

How to type with my Baybayin font

Download the font here, and then install it in your computer. It is an OpenType font. Once installed you should be able to see the font “Niwang Uno” in any of your word processing software.

Type your Baybayin words by typing the first letter of the character. To add the I or E kudlit, type I or E right after the first letter. To add the O or U kudlit, type O or U right after the first letter.

If you want to write the NGA character, hold “shift” then press “N”.

If you want to cancel the vowel as done in modified Baybayin, type the desired character, then hold “shift” then press “+” or “plus” symbol.

Typing the “period” or “tuldok” brings you two downward slashes, which was a traditional way of ending a sentence or phrase in Baybayin.

Lastly, many Baybayin font designers differentiate the DA and RA Baybayin characters using a slash on the RA character. I apply this same concept to Niwang Uno as well.

And there you have it. My first Baybayin font, and a bit of guidance to help you along the way. Hope this font inspires you to write more Baybayin. And if you’re a designer, you can design more fonts for the Baybayin-writing community.

You can download it here for free. Feel free to donate a small amount to support my work!

Microsoft Word and Windows users

If you’re using Microsoft Word and/or Windows, and the kudlits do not appear when you try to type them, simply activate “ligatures” in Word. To enable ligatures:

1. Install the Niwang Uno font in your computer.
2. Open Microsoft Word.
3. Choose the Niwang Uno font.
4. Type any consonant, immediately followed by a vowel (a, o, u, e, or i) (be sure caps lock is off).
5. If the kudlit does not appear, right-click on the text, select Font, select the Advanced tab, and select “All” from the Ligatures dropdown box.
6. The kudlits should now appear.
7. If you still have trouble, feel free to comment below, or email me at albert (at) filipeanut (dot) art.

Special thanks to Gerardo who commented about the issue.

Line spacing issues

One issue with the font involves line spacing in word processing software like Microsoft Word or Pages for iOS. Unfortunately I had left a large space above each letter when creating them, so when writing them left to right in a paragraph, there will be large gaps between each line.

In iOS I use the Pages app as my word processor. When I start writing a paragraph you can see the spacing between the lines immediately. The default line spacing is “1”. To fix this, I change the spacing until it looks better depending on the font size.

For Microsoft Word, go to Home > Line and Paragraph Spacing. Select Line Spacing Options, and then choose the options you want under Spacing.

I plan to update the font and replace it with a new version where you don’t have to close the line spacing manually each time. I have yet to purchase the full Glyphs Mini software, but when I do, I’ll update here.

Special thanks to Gayle who commented about the issue.

Further reading

• How to Write the Ancient Script of the Philippines by Paul Morrow.
• How do I write my name in baybayin? By Paul Morrow.
• Brief overview at Baybayin.com by Kristian Kabuay.
• Baybayin guides in PDF by Lloyd Zapanta.
• Baybayin in public places and shops