Balinese alphabet

Characteristics

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 metrical 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.

Letters

A basic letter in Balinese is called aksara (ᬅᬓ᭄ᬱᬭ), and each letter stands for a syllable with inherent vowel /a/.

Consonants

Consonants are called wianjana (ᬯ᭄ᬬᬜ᭄ᬚᬦ) or aksara wianjana (ᬅᬓ᭄ᬱᬭᬯ᭄ᬬᬜ᭄ᬚᬦ). Balinese script has 33 consonants, however only 18 consonants called wreṣāstra (ᬯᬺᬱᬵᬲ᭄ᬢ᭄ᬭ) are used for writing basic vocabulary in Balinese language. The rest consonants are, known as sualalita (ᬰ᭄ᬯᬮᬮᬶᬢ), mainly used for writing Sanskrit and Kawi loanwords in Balinese language. The consonants can be arranged into Sanskrit order and hanacaraka traditional order.

Hanacaraka traditional order

The consonants can be arranged in hanacaraka traditional order. The sequence forms a poem of 4 verses narrating the myth of Aji Saka. However, the hanacaraka sequence only has the 18 consonants of aksara wreṣāstra (ᬅᬓ᭄ᬱᬭᬯᬺᬱᬵᬲ᭄ᬢ᭄ᬭ) and exclude aksara sualalita (ᬅᬓ᭄ᬱᬭᬰ᭄ᬯᬮᬮᬶᬢ). However, this table below include aksara sualalita as the current romanization have no diacritics for the consonants.

Sanskrit order

As other Brahmic scripts, consonants in Balinese script can be arranged into Sanskrit order. Thus, Balinese script had been influenced by Shiksha. The table below uses Sanskrit order.

^1 Aksara wreṣāstra. They are, in traditional order: ha na ca ra ka / da ta sa wa la / ma ga ba nga / pa ja ya nya.
^2 The consonant ha is sometimes not pronounced. For example, ᬳᬸᬚᬦ᭄ hujan (lit. rain) is pronounced ujan.
^3 The exact form of ca laca is unknown because only the appended (gantungan) form is left. However, the independent form is included in Unicode.
^4 alpaprana ^5 mahaprana
^6 Actually an alveolar consonant, but classified as dental by tradition
^7 The former of the two letter forms is more frequently used.

Vowels

Vowels, called suara (ᬲ᭄ᬯᬭ) or aksara suara (ᬅᬓ᭄ᬱᬭᬲ᭄ᬯᬭ), can be written as independent letters when vowels appear in initial position. They are described in the following list:

Gantungan and Gempelan

Gantungan (ᬕᬦ᭄ᬢᬸᬗᬦ᭄) (appended letters) and gempelan (ᬕᬾ‌ᬾ‌ᬫ᭄ᬧᬮᬦ᭄) (attached letters) has to be used to represent consonant cluster as zero vowel sign (adeg-adeg) may not used in middle of sentence in general. Thus, as some Brahmic family (Javanese), consonant cluster is written in stack. Each consonant letter has a corresponding either gantungan or gempelan (for pa, pha, sa and ṣa only) form, and the presence of gantungan and gempelan eliminate the inherent vowel [a] of the letter it is appended to. For example, if the letter na (ᬦ) is appended with gantungan da (◌᭄ᬤ), the pronunciation becomes nda (ᬦ᭄ᬤ).

Gantungan or gempelan can be applied with pangangge (diacritic) to a letter. However, attaching two or more gantungan to one letter is forbidden; this condition is known as tumpuk telu (three layers). Adeg-adeg may be used in the middle of a sentence to avoid such situation. For example, tamblang with consonant cluster mbl is written as ᬢᬫ᭄‌ᬩ᭄ᬮᬂ.

The forms of gantungan and gempelan are as follows:

Diacritics

Diacritics (pangangge (ᬧᬗ᭢‌ᬗ᭄ᬕ), pronounced /pəŋaŋɡe/, also known as sandhangan when referring to the Javanese script) are symbols that cannot stand by itself. When they are attached to the independent letters, they affect the pronunciation. The three types of diacritics are pangangge suara, pangangge tengenan (pronounced /t̪əŋənan/) and pangangge aksara.

Pangangge suara

Pangangge suara (ᬧᬗ᭢‌ᬗ᭄ᬕᬲ᭄ᬯᬭ) change inherited vowel of consonant letter. For example, the letter ᬦ (na) with ulu (◌ᬶ) becomes ni (ᬦᬶ); ka (ᬓ) with suku (◌ᬸ) becomes ku (ᬓᬸ). The diacritics in this category is summarized in the following list:

^1 As first romanization of Balinese Language was developed during Dutch Colonial Era, letter e represents sound [ə] and letter é represents sound [e] and [ɛ] as in Van Ophuijsen Indonesian and Dutch orthography. After 1957, sounds [ə], [e] and [ɛ] are represented with e as in current Indonesian orthography with exception for new learner and dictionary usage.

Many consonants can form ligatures with tedung:

Pangangge tengenan

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 kills 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

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 Hindu 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):

Other symbols

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:

Assimilation

Assimilation in Balinese occurs with-in the word. 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-Schwa 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], sholuld 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 ᬩ᭄ᬮ‍ᭂᬕᬜ᭄ᬚᬸᬃ (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

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.

Font

There are some fonts for Balinese script as of 2016. Bali Simbar, 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.

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 is 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. 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. Due to the script's complexity, some fonts have different input methods compared to other Indic scripts and may exhibit several flaws.

The other font is Noto Sans Balinese from Google. Noto Sans Balinese is compatible with Unicode. Due to the script's complexity, Noto Sans Balinese may exhibit several flaws.

Unicode

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: