Etymology of BELIAN

[Paz B. Naylor]

I wish to thank our AN-LANG colleagues who shared what they knew of this matter.  Jean-Paul, thanks for your anecdotes and your observations on your Philippine experiences.

>>From what I can gather so far, both from previous info and the info from Paul, Ben, Dan, and Jean-Paul, BABAYLAN (Visayan) is semantically associated with FEMALEness via the fact that spirit mediums/shamans/priests were mostly female or female-like.  However, formal-etymologically, it does not appear to be related to the word for woman/female in Tagalog (BABAE) + Visayan (BAqI) and BAYBAYIN (pre-Spanish orthography).  If BABAYLAN < BELIAN, it could not have developed from the same root BAI of BABAE and BAYBAY.

Any further comments?

Thanks again.   Regards, Paz

P.S.  I noticed on the envelope of the letter I recently received from my cousin in Manila, the official Postal Service stamp cancelling the postage stamp still read PILIPINAS.  It IS officially spelled FILIPINAS (and FILIPINO) even if many or most Filipinos pronounce the /f/ as /p/ - perhaps the government does not have enough money to change their machines accordingly.
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