 Until the first half of the 20th century, most Philippine languages were widely written in a variety of ways based on Spanish orthography.In the late 19th century, a number of educated Filipinos began proposing for revising the spelling system used for Tagalog at the time.In 1884, Filipino doctor and student of languages Trinidad Pardo de Tavera published his study on the ancient Tagalog script "Contribucion para el Estudio de los Antiguos Alfabetos Filipinos" and in 1887, published his essay "El Sanscrito en la lengua Tagalog" which made use of a new writing system developed by him.