Sabtu, 15 September 2012

Balinese

Origin

The Balinese alphabet or Carakan descended ultimately from the from Brahmi script of ancient India by way of the Pallava and Old Kawi scripts. The oldest known inscriptions in the Balinese alphabet date from the 11th century AD, but they are thought to be reproductions of texts originally written on palm leaves at an earlier date.

The Balinese alphabet is still used to this day, although very few people are familiar with it and it is mainly used for religious works. Generally a version of the Latin alphabet is used instead, though what little Balinese printed material exists in the Latin alphabet consists mainly of school books, religious works and a few books of stories. Balinese children are taught to read and write Balinese in the Latin alphabet at primary school, though few read or write it in later life.

Notable features

Type of writing system: syllabic alphabet / abugida.
Each consonant has an inherent vowel. Other vowels can be indicated using diacritics which appear above, below, in front of or after the consonant. If the vowels appear in the middle of a word, the vowel signs are attached to the syllable ha. Independent vowel letters are used when a word begins with a vowel.
Each consonant has an appended form (Pangangge Akśara) which is used when one consonant follows another without a vowel in between.
Direction of writing: left to right in horizontal lines.
There are no spaces between words.

Used to write

Balinese (Basa Bali), an Austronesian language spoken by about 3 million people mainly on the Indonesian island of Bali and in western part of the neighbouring island of Lombok. Balinese is also spoken in Nusapenida, Java and Sulawesi.