Balinese script

The Balinese script, natively known as Aksara Bali and Hanacaraka, (Balinese: ᬅᬓ᭄ᬱᬭᬩᬮᬶ) is an abugida used in the island of Bali, Indonesia, commonly for writing the Austronesian Balinese language, Old Javanese, and the liturgical language Sanskrit. With some modifications, the script is also used to write the Sasak language, used in the neighboring island of Lombok. The script is a descendant of the Brahmi script, and so has many similarities with the modern scripts of South and Southeast Asia. The Balinese script, along with the Javanese script, is considered the most elaborate and ornate among Brahmic scripts of Southeast Asia.
Though everyday use of the script has largely been supplanted by the Latin alphabet, the Balinese script has a significant prevalence in many of the island's traditional ceremonies and is strongly associated with the Hindu religion. The script is mainly used today for copying lontar or palm leaf manuscripts containing religious texts.
The Belanjong pillar, also Blanjong pillar or Blanjong inscription (Indonesian: Prasasti Blanjong, Balinese: ᬧ᭄ᬭᬰᬵᬲ᭄ᬢᬶᬩ᭄ᬮᬜ᭄ᬚᭀᬂ), is a pillar established in 914 CE in the harbour of Belanjong, in the southern area of Sanur in Bali. This is the earliest evidence of Balinese literary script and language.
The inscription is written in both the Indian Sanskrit language and Old Balinese language, using two scripts, the Nagari script and the Old Balinese script (which is used to write both Balinese and Sanskrit). The Old Balinese in pre-Nagari script is on one side of the pillar, while the Sanskrit inscription in Pallava-derived old Javanese script (also called Kawi script) is on the other side.
The pillar is dated according to the Indian Shaka era, on the seventh day of the waxing half ('saptāmyāṁ sita') of the month Phalguna of the Śaka year 835, which corresponds to 4 February 914 CE as calculated by Louis-Charles Damais.
There are 47 letters in the Balinese script, each representing a syllable with inherent vowel /a/ or /ə/ at the end of a sentence, which changes depending on the diacritics around the letter. Pure Balinese can be written with 18 consonant letters and 9 vowel letters, while Sanskrit transliteration or loan words from Sanskrit and Old Javanese utilizes the full set. A set of modified letters are also used for writing the Sasak language. Each consonant has a conjunct form called gantungan which nullifies the inherent vowel of the previous syllable.
Punctuation includes a comma, period, colon, as well as marks to introduce and end section of a text. Musical notation uses letter-like symbols and diacritical marks in order to indicate pitch information. Text are written left to right without word boundaries (Scriptio continua).
There is also a set of "holy letters" called aksara modre which appears in religious texts and protective talismans. Most of them are constructed using diacritic ulu candra with corresponding characters. A number of additional characters, known to be used inline in text (as opposed to decoratively on drawings), remains under study and those characters are expected to be proposed as Balinese extensions in due course.
A basic letter in Balinese is called aksara (ᬅᬓ᭄ᬱᬭ), and each letter stands for a syllable with inherent vowel /a/.
Consonants are called wianjana (ᬯ᭄ᬬᬜ᭄ᬚᬦ) or aksara wianjana (ᬅᬓ᭄ᬱᬭᬯ᭄ᬬᬜ᭄ᬚᬦ). Balinese script has 33 consonants, of which only 18 called wreṣāstra (ᬯᬺᬱᬵᬲ᭄ᬢ᭄ᬭ) are used for writing basic vocabulary in Balinese language. The other 15, known as sualalita (ᬰ᭄ᬯᬮᬮᬶᬢ), are mainly used for writing Sanskrit and Kawi loanwords in Balinese language. The consonants can be arranged into Sanskrit order and hanacaraka traditional order.
The modern Balinese languages does not make use of the whole inventory of consonants inherited from Sanskrit. The 18 consonants used in Balinese (Balinese: ᬅᬓ᭄ᬱᬭᬯᬺᬱᬵᬲ᭄ᬢ᭄ᬭ, romanized: aksara wreṣāstra) are traditionally arranged following the Javanese hanacaraka sequence, in which 20 letters form a four-line pangram narrating the myth of Aji Saka. The remaining consonants (Balinese: ᬅᬓ᭄ᬱᬭᬰ᭄ᬯᬮᬮᬶᬢ, romanized: aksara sualalita) are used in Sanskrit transcription.
As in other members of the Brahmic family, consonant clusters are written cursively, by combining a consonant an appended letter (Balinese: ᬕᬦ᭄ᬢᬸᬗᬦ᭄, romanized: gantungan) or attached letter (ᬕᬾᬫ᭄ᬧᬾᬮᬦ᭄, gempelan). For example, ⟨ᬦ᭄ᬤ⟩, a ⟨ᬦ, na⟩ appended with ⟨◌᭄ᬤ, da⟩ is pronounced [nda]. Each consonant letter has a corresponding gantungan or gempelan.
A consonant may be marked with both a gantungan or gempelan and a vowel diacritic (pangangge), but attaching two or more gantungan to one letter is forbidden. When three consonants occur together, vowel-killer (adeg-adeg) may be used in the middle of a word. For example, in the word ᬢᬫ᭄‌ᬩ᭄ᬮᬂ, temblang, the consonant cluster mbl is spelled ⟨ᬫ + ◌᭄ + ᬩ + ◌᭄ᬮ⟩.
For a few letters, ⟨ᬧ, pa⟩, ⟨ᬨ, pha⟩, ⟨ᬲ, sa⟩ and ⟨ᬰ, ṣa⟩ adding a gantungan or gempelan also eliminates the letter's inherent vowel [a].
Vowels, called suara (ᬲ᭄ᬯᬭ) or aksara suara (ᬅᬓ᭄ᬱᬭᬲ᭄ᬯᬭ), can be written as independent letters when vowels appear in initial position.
Diacritics (Balinese: ᬧᬗ᭢‌ᬗ᭄ᬕpangangge (ᬧᬗ᭢‌ᬗ᭄ᬕ) are symbols that cannot stand by themselves. When they are attached to the independent letters, they affect the pronunciation. The three types of diacritics are pangangge suara, pangangge tengenan, and pangangge aksara.
Vowel diacritics (Balinese: ᬧᬗ᭢‌ᬗ᭄ᬕᬲ᭄ᬯᬭ, romanized: pangangge suara) change the inherent vowel of a consonant letter. For example, the letter ⟨ᬦ, na⟩ plus ⟨◌ᬶ, ulu⟩ becomes ⟨, ni⟩.
Pangangge tengenan (ᬧᬗ᭢‌ᬗ᭄ᬕᬢᭂᬗᭂᬦᬦ᭄), except adeg-adeg, adds a final consonant to a syllable. It can be used together with pangangge suara. For example, the letter ᬦ (na) with bisah (◌ᬄ) becomes ᬦᬄ (nah); ᬓ (ka) with suku (◌ᬸ) and surang (◌ᬃ) becomes ᬓᬸᬃ (kur). Compared to Devanagari, bisah is analogous to visarga, cecek to anusvara, and adeg-adeg to virama.
Adeg-adeg is zero vowel diacritics as in other Brahmic scripts in Balinese script. Adeg-adeg, as virama in Devanagari, suppress the inherent vowel /a/ in the consonant letter. Adeg-adeg is used on impossibility of gantungan and gempelan usage such as succeeded by punctuation marks, attachment of two or more gantungan to one letter (tumpuk telu, lit. three layers), preservation of combination (watek ksatriya, ᬯᬢᭂᬓ᭄‌ᬓ᭄ᬱᬢ᭄ᬭᬶᬬ rather than ᬯᬢᭂᬓ᭄ᬓ᭄ᬱᬢ᭄ᬭᬶᬬ) and disambiguation.
Pangangge aksara (ᬧᬗ᭢‌ᬗ᭄ᬕᬅᬓ᭄ᬱᬭ) is appended below consonant letters. Pangangge aksara are the appended (gantungan) forms of the ardhasuara (semivowel) consonants. Guwung macelek is the appended form of the vowel ra repa (ᬋ).
Balinese numerals are written in the same manner as Arabic numerals. For example, 25 is written with the Balinese numbers 2 and 5.
If the number is written in the middle of a text, carik has to be written before and after the number to differentiate it from the text. Below is an example of how a date is written using Balinese numerals (date: 1 July 1982, location: Bali):
There are some special symbols in the Balinese script. Some of them are punctuation marks, and the others are religious symbols. The symbols are described in the following list:
Balinese have many loanwords from Sanskrit and Old Javanese. In general, the Balinese orthography in Balinese script preserve the original orthography. The preservation of original orthography result on several rules:
Assimilation in Balinese occurs within the conjuncts/consonant clusters. Balinese script represents assimilation occurred, however Latin script sometimes may not represent this. In general, alveolar consonants are assimilated into palatal, retroflex or labial. There are more specific descriptions in assimilation combination:
Liquid consonant, ᬭ [r] and ᬮ [l], may not be combined with ◌ᭂ (pepet, schwa) [ə] as ᬭᭂ and ᬮᭂ. These combination, rě [rə] and lě [lə], should be written as ᬋ (re repa) and ᬍ (le lenga). Word kěrěng (lit. eat a lot) and lekad are written as ᬓᭂᬋᬂ and ᬍᬓᬤ᭄. While combination of ◌᭄ᬮ (gantungan [l]) and ◌ᭂ (pepet) is possible as in ᬩᬼᬕᬜ᭄ᬚᬸᬃ (bleganjur), combination of ◌᭄ᬭ (cakra or gantungan [r]) and ◌ᭂ pepet is not allowed. If the combination follows a word which ends in a consonant, ◌᭄ᬋ (gempelan re repa) may be used as in ᬧᬓ᭄ᬋᬋᬄ (Pak Rěrěh, Mr. Rěrěh). If the combination is in a word, ◌ᬺ (guwung macelek) may be used instead as in ᬓᬺᬱ᭄ᬡ (Krěsna, Krishna).
Latin script transliteration into Balinese script is based on phonetics. As vocabulary expands, foreign sounds are introduced and have no equivalent on Balinese script. In general, transliteration of foreign sounds is shown as below.
The Sasak language, spoken in Lombok Island east of Bali, is related to Balinese, is written in a version of the Balinese script known as Aksara Sasak, which is influenced by the Javanese script and is given additional characters for loanwords of foreign origin.
There are some fonts for Balinese script as of 2016. Bali Simbar, Bali Galang, JG Aksara Bali, Aksara Bali, Tantular Bali, Lilitan, Geguratan and Noto Sans Balinese are some fonts that included Balinese script. The fonts have different degree of compatibility each other, and most contain critical flaws.
Bali Simbar is first font for Balinese script by I Made Suatjana Dipl Ing at 1999. Bali Simbar is not compatible for Mac-OS and Unicode. JG Aksara Bali, was designed by Jason Glavy, has over 1400 Balinese glyphs, including a huge selection of precomposed glyph clusters. The latest version of JG Aksara Bali was released on 2003, thus has no compatibility with Unicode. Bali Simbar and JG Aksara Bali, in particular, may cause conflicts with other writing systems, as the font uses code points from other writing systems to complement Balinese's extensive repertoire as Balinese script was not included in Unicode at the creation time.
Aksara Bali by Khoi Nguyen Viet is the first hacked Unicode Balinese font with a brute-force OpenType implementation. The results depend on how well other OpenType features are implemented in the renderer. The font has about 370 Balinese glyphs, but does not display the vowel ⟨é⟩ correctly. The team of Aditya Bayu Perdana, Ida Bagus Komang Sudarma, and Arif Budiarto has created a small series of Balinese fonts: Tantular Bali, Lilitan, and Geguratan, all using hacked Unicode and a brute-force OpenType implementation. Tantular has about 400 Balinese glyphs. These all have serious flaws.
Another Unicode font is Noto Sans Balinese from Google. However, Noto Sans Balinese exhibits several critical flaws, such as an inability to correctly display more than one diacritic per consonant.
The free font Bali Galang, maintained by Bemby Bantara Narendra, displays correctly apart from the consonant-spanning vowels ⟨o⟩ and ⟨au⟩. However, those vowels can be manually substituted by their graphic components, ⟨é⟩ and ⟨ai⟩ followed by the length sign (tedung), which together display as ⟨o⟩ and ⟨au⟩. It also automatically assimilates some consonants within words. It displays corresponding Balinese glyphs instead of Latin letters.
Balinese script was added to the Unicode Standard in July, 2006 with the release of version 5.0.
The Unicode block for Balinese is U+1B00–U+1B7F:
ᬲᬫᬶᬫᬦᬸᬲᬦᬾᬲᬦᬾᬜ᭄ᬭᬸᬯᬤᬶᬯᬦ᭄ᬢᬄᬫᬭ᭄ᬤᬾᬓᬢᬸᬃᬫᬤᬸᬯᬾᬓᬳᬸᬢ᭄ᬢᬫᬳᬦ᭄ᬮᬦ᭄ᬳᬓ᭄ᬳᬓ᭄ᬲᬦᬾᬧᬢᭂᬄ᭟ᬲᬫᬶᬓᬮᬸᬕ᭄ᬭᬵᬳᬶᬦ᭄ᬧᬧᬶᬦᭂᬄᬮᬦ᭄ᬳᬶᬤᭂᬧ᭄ᬢᬸᬃᬫᬗ᭄ᬤᬦᬾᬧᬟᬫᬲᬯᬶᬢ᭄ᬭᬫᭂᬮᬭᬧᬦ᭄ᬲᭂᬫᬗᬢ᭄ᬧᬓᬸᬮᬯᬭ᭄ᬕᬳᬦ᭄᭞
Sami manusané sané nyruwadi wantah mardéka tur maduwé kautamaan lan hak-hak sané pateh. Sami kalugrähin papineh lan idep tur mangdané paḍa masawitra melarapan semangat pakulawargaan.
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.