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Samot-sari
Filipino Orthography
The graphemes (graféma) are a set or group of parts in a certain writing system. The graphemes in the practice of FIlipino orthography comprises letters (títik) and non-letters (di-títik). A letter (títik or létra) is a symbol used to represent a speech sound. This includes vowels (patínig or váwel) and consonants (katínig or kónsonánt). This series of letters is then referred to as an alphabet (alpabéto). The modern FIlipino alphabet consists of 26 letters which, for the most part, stand for one sound each—except for C, X, and Q. They are pronounced the same as in English, apart from the Spanish Ñ.
Rules in Spelling
Proper Use of the Eight New Letters
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One radical change in written language is the addition of 8 new letters to the modern Filipino alphabet: C, F, J, Ñ, Q, V, X, Z. Their primary use is to preserve the similar sounds of other native languages in the Philippines in writing. The letters F, J, V, and Z are indeed important to pay respect to the Philippine languages such Tëduray, Mëranaw, Blaan, Tausug, Ivatan, Cordilleran languages, and others, which possess these native sounds. This is in contrast to the times of the Abakada wherein, for example, “Ifugaw” was written as “Ipugaw” and “Ivatan” was “Ibatan.”
The letters F, J, V, Z can be freely utilized when respelling and thus, the Abakada way of spelling must be avoided in the inclusuion of new words from Spanish and English. Currently, they are already being used in some terms such as federalísmo, sábjek, váryant, and zoolohíya. On the other hand, there are some words which need not to undergo respelling at all and can be borrowed without any change. Some examples from Spanish are fútbol, fertíl, fósil, vísa, vertebrá, and zígzag. Likewise, plenty of words from English can also skip respelling such as fern, fólder, jam, jar, lével (which should not pronounced in the mabilís way—“lebél”—like how some speakers mistake it for a Spanish word), énvoy, devélop, ziggúrat, zip, etc.
Experimenting on Respelling
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In general, further respelling of new loanwords from English and other foreign languages towards the native orthography is allowed and highly encouraged. There is no problem with borrowed terms and accepting the growing influence of English on our vocabulary. However, this “problem,” as it is seen by purists, can be fixed through the matters of orthography. Early on, respelling has always been the tradition whenever words are assimilated into the Philippine languages. It is important that the following list be widened with the passage of time: atlís (at least), bílding (building), bísnes (business), bóksing (boxing), diskás (discuss), grádweyt (graduate), gróserí (grocery), háywey (highway), iskédyul (schedule), istámbay (stand by), kórni (corny), kúdetá (coup d'état), práktis (practice), pulís (police), risés (recess), ribyú (review), trápik (traffic), etsetera.