Literary treasures from the archives of the University of Santos Thomas

Rare manuscripts and Philippines’ literary history held in the University of Santo Tomas’ archives were highlighted in a recent history conference.

Examples of documents with Babayin scripts from the UST Archives, The Inquirer 20120116

UST collection of ancient scripts in ‘baybayin’ syllabary shown to public
The Inquirer, 16 January 2012

The University Of Santo Tomas (UST) has the biggest collection of extant ancient baybayin scripts in the world, according to Christopher Miller, a Canadian linguistics scholar who has been studying the ancient Philippine syllabary at the UST Archives and UST Heritage Library.

Miller was a plenary speaker during the International Conference on the Heritage and History of the University of Santo Tomas recently.

Miller credited the Spanish colonizers, especially the Catholic missionary friars, for preserving the ancient Filipino alphabet and said UST’s large collection of documents using the syllabary should disclose to historians and researchers glimpses of Philippine prehistory at the time of the Spanish contact.

Full story here.

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