The Philippines is a country of exceptional talents across a broad range of disciplines, from entertainment and sports to technology. With a profound historical legacy, many are tirelessly working to put the Philippine culture at the forefront of modern learning. Presently, the spotlight is on Baybayin, illuminating its cultural relevance in an era where technology seamlessly melds into the lives of Filipinos.

Baybayin in the digital age

Although Filipinos don’t use Baybayin anymore, the Filipino traditional syllabic writing system is seeing a rebirth in the digital era. Mathematicians from the University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman have created a computerized method to convert Baybayin texts into easily comprehensible words.

Associate Professor Dr. Renier Mendoza hopes to see the software on smartphones, saying, “We also dream of creating a mobile application that automatically and accurately translates Baybayin characters just by hovering over the phone.”

How does it work?

The team created an algorithm that scans a photograph and determines whether the characters are Baybayin or Latin. Over a thousand images of each Baybayin character were also collected from various sources to enhance the AI’s recognition rate.

When will it be available?

There’s no official date yet for the software’s release as of writing. Filipino mathematicians are still refining the software to make it more familiar in the context of Baybayin words and phrases to become a more reliable translator.

The developers behind the project said they want to preserve and pass the knowledge of Baybayin to future Filipino generations. “This can be forgotten. It’s important to have a record of each Baybayin character — even having digitized ones,” Associate Professor Dr. Rachelle Sambayan said.