Supporting the unique and beautiful Kulitan Script and its culture

I’m planning my usual annual Kickstarter campaign in October, but in the meantime a cause has come to my attention that I want to support, if at all possible, with a mini- campaign right now.

A couple of months ago I ran a global contest for handwriting in a minority or indigenous script, and one of the two winning entries was a chap from the Philippines named Rowel Buan, who sent me the phrase “”Kákú ka, kéká ku,” which means “You are mine and I am yours,” in a script called Kulitán.

The more I find out about this script and the Kapampangan community that gave birth to it, the more I want to help them.

Here’s the backstory. The Kapampangan people, who number about 3-4 million, living mostly on the island of Luzon in the Philippines, have their own cultural history, their own language and script, but as is all too common all over the world, are steadily losing ground against the English language, the Latin alphabet, and Tagalog, the most commonly-spoken indigenous language of the islands.

By the 1990s, more than 60% of Kapampangans had abandoned their mother tongue. By 2008 a researcher discovered that 90% of young Kapampangan parents spoke to their children in Tagalog. Older parents spoke Kapampangan to their adult children but Tagalog to their grandchildren.

The Kapampangan poet laureate Jose Gallardo said, “Anti ku neng akakit ing sisilim ning Amanung Sisuan” (I’m beginning to see the twilight of our language).

Ironically, it was the catastrophic 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo, which devastated their region that made them realize how much danger they were in: if they survived the lava only to be gradually buried by the inflow of other languages and cultural practices, where would that leave them?

The result was the creation of Aguman Sinupan Singsing, a cultural revival organization whose name means “Where the ring [of cultural heritage] is kept safe.”

Its young president, Nigel Christopher Ayson, explained to me what it is like to see one’s own culture being eroded almost day by day.

“In my area you can feel the decline of language in real time. More and more people speak Tagalog or English. It’s like being pushed out of your home.

“I don’t know what my culture is,” he went on. “I don’t know what festivals we have. It’s so dispiriting. I feel as if my soul is being taken out of my body. It feels dehumanizing not to have any culture to go back to, not to have anyone to speak my mother tongue to. [It causes] homesickness, nostalgia—it decreases people’s wellbeing.”

In the face of this loss, Sinupan teaches language classes in the community and “guerilla calligraphy workshops” at pop-up venues across the region, but they want to do more: to develop an app to teach Kulitan to children (check: done) and to develop online classes.

I’m supporting them by writing a magazine article about them and applying for a grant to digitize their script, but right now they badly need funding just to get their efforts under way.

I’m setting a modest goal of $7,500, which I’d like to reach by June 20—nine days’ time. As always, I’m going to offer some rewards, even if this isn’t a Kickstarter!

Anyone who donates $100 will receive a small print of Rowel Buan’s “You are mine and I am yours”—a perfect gift to a loved one.

Anyone who donates $1,000 will receive a carving of mine, in the Kulitan script, that translates to our word “Writing”—a perfect gift for a writer, a teacher, a librarian, or a linguist!

Donations can be made through PayPal via the button HERE.  I’m also on Venmo as @Tim-Brookes.

I hope you’ll consider helping me support this vital act of cultural revival.

Thanks so much!

Tim