gauâ, ualâ), and the diphthong /au/ is represented by AO (e.g. cayó, cong, cúlang), QU(before E and I, e.g. /k/ was represented by C (before A, O, and U, e.g.H, a common sound in Philippine languages, is pronounced, unlike in Spanish (Spanish /h/ is transcribed as J).Initial I was first written with Y until Spanish takes on its present orthography and modern form, e.g.Spanish loanwords were kept in their original spellings, except words that were corrupted as they were borrowed (e.g.Historical Tagalog spellings are as follows: K and W are not used until the introduction of the abakada. Tagalog, as well as most Philippine languagaes, was first written using a Spanish-based alphabet called the abecedario, with 28 to 32 letters. From the 1600s to the 1700s, the use of baybayin declined as the Spanish introduced the Latin alphabet. History Pre-Hispanic period īefore the Spanish arrived, the Tagalogs used the baybayin script, an abugida (alphasyllabary).
