Suyat

Suyat is the modern collective name of the indigenous scripts of various ethno-linguistic groups in the Philippines prior to Spanish colonization in the 16th century. The scripts are highly varied; nonetheless, the term was used by cultural organizations in the Philippines to denote a unified neutral terminology for Philippine indigenous scripts.

Suyat includes the baybayin script of the Tagalog people, the buhid/buid script of the Buhid Mangyan people, the hanunó'o/hanunoo script of the Hanuno'o Mangyan people, the apurahuano/tagbanwa script of the Tagbanwa people, the palaw'an/pala'wan script of the Palaw'an people, the kulitan script of the Kapampangan people, the badlit script of various Visayan ethnic groups, the kur-itan script of the Ilokano people, and many other indigenous scripts in the Philippines.

In 1999, four suyat scripts were inscribed in the UNESCO Memory of the World Programme, under the name Philippine Paleographs (Hanunoo, Buid, Tagbanua and Pala’wan). The four scripts, hanunó'o/hanunoo, buhid/buid, apurahuano/tagbanwa, and palaw'an/pala'wan, were recognized by UNESCO as the only existing suyat scripts still used by certain Philippine communities in their daily lives. UNESCO also recognized that the four scripts, along with thirteen other suyat scripts, have existed within the Philippine archipelago since the 10th century AD. The ambahan poetry made with the hanunó'o/hanunoo script was also cited. The inscription of the four suyat scripts was the first documentary heritage of the Philippines to be inscribed in the Memory of the World Programme.