The Balinese Alphabet

By: Ida Bagus Adi Sudewa

v0.6 - May 14th, 2003

 


Change Control Sheet

Ver

Remarks

Initiator

v0.4

The first version sent to Unicode experts

Dewa

v0.5

  • AA KARA changes name to A KARA TEDONG
  • II KARA changes name to I KARA TEDONG
  • UU KARA changes name to U KARA TEDONG
  • EE KARA changes name to AIRSANIA
  • OO KARA changes name to O KARA TEDONG
  • Adding two syllables borrowed from Javanese: CHA and KHA
  • Add new examples ‘ksatria’, ‘smerti’ and ‘stri’ to demonstrate the use of non semi-vowel as semi-vowel
  • Finally added the romanization of ULU RICEM as /m/ and its example
  • Add the abbreviation rule endorsed by the government

Dewa

v0.6
  • Remove the normal form of CHA, leaving only the appended/subscript form
  • Add "guwung macelek matedong" for semi-vowel RO
Dewa

 

Overview

The Balinese script is used for writing the Balinese language, the native language of the people of Bali. It is a descendent of the ancient Brahmic script from India; therefore it has some notable similarities with modern scripts of South Asia and Southeast Asia that also are descendent of the Brahmic script. The Balinese script is also used for writing Kawi, or Old Javanese, which had a heavy influence to Balinese language in the 11th century. Some Balinese words are also borrowed from Sanskrit, thus Balinese script is also used to write words from Sanskrit.

The basic elements of the alphabet are syllables. Each syllables has inherent sound of /a/ or /ĕ/ depending of the position of the syllable within a word.

The text direction of the Balinese script is from left to right, with vowel signs attached to either before, after, below or above the syllable. Some vowel signs are split vowels, that means that they appear at more than one position to the syllable.

 

Character Repertoire

The Basic Syllables (Akśara Wreşāstra)                 

There are eighteen basic syllables that are used for writing pure Balinese language. Each syllable has an appended form, which kill the previous syllable sound. The appended form appears below the syllable that precedes it. For example, the word ‘bakta’ (translation: ‘bring’) is written as:

There are some exceptions as well, like the appended form of pa appears after the syllable that precedes it. The appended form of SA and YA appear below and after the syllable that precede them.

In Balinese, the basic syllable is called Akśara Wreşāstra. The appended form of the syllable in general is called Pangangge Akśara. The one that is hanging below is called Gantungan while the one that appears after the syllable is called Gempelan.

Table 1 Basic Syllables

No

Regular Form

Appended Form

Romanized

 

No

Regular Form

Appended Form

Romanized

1

ha or a

 

10

la

2

na

 

11

ma

3

 

ca

 

12

ga

4

ra

 

13

ba

5

ka

 

14

nga

6

da

 

15

pa

7

ta

 

16

ja

8

sa

 

17

ya

9

wa

 

18

nya


More examples follow:

Kala (time)

Paksa (force)

Raka (bigger brother)

Cakra (disc)

Walaka (a non-priest)

Krama (member)

The Vowels (Akśara Suara)

There are twelve distinct vowel sounds in Balinese. They appear as either vowel signs attached to the syllables, or as independent letters if the word started with a vowel. If the vowels appear in the middle of a word, the vowel signs are attached to the syllable ha

Suku and suku ilut can be attached to gantungan or gempelan as well.

Table 2 Vowel Signs

No

Vowel Sign

Name

Romanized

 

No

Vowel Sign

Name

Romanized

1

N/A (implied)

N/A (implied)

a

 

7

taleng

e

2

tedong

ā

 

8

taleng-repa

ai

3

ulu

i

 

9

taleng tedong

o

4

ulu-sari

ī

 

10

taleng-repa tedong

au

5

suku

u

 

11

pepet

ě

6

suku-ilut

ū

 

12

pepet tedong

ö


Tedong, ulu sari, and suku ilut are pronounced longer than their counterparts (inherent vowel, ulu, suku). It is often used for prefixing words. One example is prefix ‘ma’ + ‘adep’ becoming mādep. If it appears in the holy texts, that are meant to be recited, those vowels can be pronounced even longer than normal reading.

Examples:

Kādep (sold)

Jěro (house)

Siya (nine)

Kayu (wood)

Sela (yam)

Angklung (musical instrument)

Daitya (giant)

Patūt (should be)

Dwī (two)

           

Table 3 Independent Vowels

No

Independent Vowel Form

Name

Romanized

 

No

Independent Vowel Form

Name

Romanized

1

a kara

a

 

6

u kara tedong

ū

2

a kara tedong

ā

 

7

e kara

e

3

i kara

i

 

8

airsania

ai

4

i kara tedong

ī

 

9

o kara

o

5

u kara

u

 

10

o kara tedong

au

 

Examples:

 

Akśara (Alphabet)

Işwara (God’s name)

Upacāra (Ceremony)

Eka (One)

Airlangga (A Javanese King)

Ong (One Holy Letter)

OM (Symbol of God)

                                               

All of the basic syllables can have any of the vowel signs, except:

  • ra cannot have ě or ö appended to it.
  • la cannot have ě or ö appended to it.

The exceptions are summarized in the following table.

 

Table 4 Illegal Combination of Syllable - Vowel Signs

No

Illegal Combination

Replaced by

The appended form

Name

Romanized

1

ra + ě

ra repa

2

ra + ö

3

la + ě

la lenga

4

la + ö

 

Examples:

 

Talěr (therefore)

Kěrěng (eat a lot)

Semi-Vowels (Arda Suara)

The Balinese script has four semi-vowels attached to syllable: ra, wa (ua), la, ya (ia).

Table 5 Semi Vowels

No

Semi Vowel Sign

Name

Romanized

Remarks

1

guwung

ra

Same glyph as gantungan ra

guwung macelek

Only happened when arda suara ra + ě (pepet)

guwung macelek tedong

Only happened when arda suara ra + ö (pepet tedong)

2

suku kembung

ua

Same glyph as gantungan wa

3

gantungan la

la

Same glyph and name as gantungan la

4

nania

ia

Same glyph as gantungan ya

 

Examples:

 

Pak Raman (Mr. Raman)

Pakraman (Membership)

Baglug (A person’s name)

Rubag lugu (Naive Rubag)

 

Please note that even the written glyph looks the same, but the pronunciations are actually different. ‘kra’ in ‘pakraman’ is pronounced faster than ‘kra’ in ‘Pak Raman’.

‘Pak Raman’ also can be legally converted to use the adegadeg sign to avoid confusion.

Pak Raman (Mr. Raman)

 

Semi vowels can be stacked together, with nania or suku kembung attached to guwung or gantungan la

Briag (laughter)

Akśara Şwalalita

In addition to the eighteen basic syllables, there are other syllables that are used for writing Kawi (Old Javanese) language. The rule of usage is the same as the basic syllables.

Table 6 Aksara Şwalalita

No

Regular Form

Appended Form

Name

Romanized

1

na rambat

ņa

2

da madu

dha

3

ta tawa

tha

4

ta latik

ţa

5

sa saga

şa

6

sa sapa

śa

7

ga gora

gha

8

ba kembang

bha

9

pa kapal

pha

Examples:

Gaņitri (chain)  

Garudha (big eagle)

Partha (man's name)

Jaţayu (a bird in Ramayana)

Bhiśama (decree)

Şiwa (God’s name)

Laghu (low tone in singing)

Sound Killers (Pangangge Tengenan)

To end the sound of a syllable, one may add one of the signs: ardha chandra, surang, cecek, bisah, or adegadeg.

Table 7 Sound Killers

No

Sign

Name

Romanized

Remarks

1

cecek

...ng

Only appears at the end of a word, with exceptions for words with same vowels

2

surang

...r

Can appear anywhere

3

bisah

...h

Only appears at the end of a word, with exceptions for words with same vowels

4

adegadeg

N/A

Appear after a syllable, kill the inherent sound of the syllable. This is the default sound killer.

Examples:

Cengceng (musical instrument)

Bangkung (pig) 

Manah (logic)

Karņa (ear)      

Kapal (ship)

Miscellaneous Signs

The following two signs, if combined with some syllables, become part of the Akśara Modre, which are used to write words in Sanskrit, usually part of prayers.

Table 8 Miscellaneous Signs

No

Sign

Name

Romanized

Remarks

1

or

Ulu candra

...ng

Only appears in holy letters

2

or

Ulu ricem

...m

Only appears in Sanskrit texts

Examples:

Mang (Holy Letter)      

Siddham

Holy Symbol Ongkara

When Au Kara meets Ulu Candra, the romanization is not “Aung”, but “Om”. And the letter has a special name Ongkara This word is used almost everywhere in the text, as it is the symbol of God Himself. The most notable sentences using OM are the greetings:

Om Swastiastu
(May God blesses you)

Om Şanti  Şanti  Şanti, Om
(May peace be everywhere)

Miscellaneous Syllables

There are two more syllables that apparently borrowed from Javanese. Their existence in Balinese script is very rare, but they exist. For the syllable CHA, the normal form of it does not exist. If CHA appears in a text, it is always paired with the normal form of CA

Table 9 Miscellaneous Syllables

No

Syllable

Appended Form

Name

Romanized

1

N/A

cha

cha

2

kha

kha

 

Numerals

The Balinese use decimal system for numbers. There is a simple one-to-one mapping to the Arabic digits, as shown in the following table.

Table 10 The Digits

Digit

Glyph

Digit

Glyph

0

5

1

6

2

7

3

8

4

9

Punctuations

These are some punctuations and symbols specific to the Balinese text.

Table 11 Punctuations

Glyph

Name

Usage

Carik

Comma

Carik Pareren

Period. Used at the end of a sentence.

Panten

Used at the beginning of letter, story, or verse

Pasalinan

Used at the end of letter, story, or verse

Pamada

Used at the beginning of religious texts

Carik Agung

Used at the end of religious texts

Carik Pamungkah

Colon

Idem Idem

 

Some Variation of Usages

Although the most common used characters are already listed in the previous sections, some manuscripts were using non-standard variants of the characters.

Usage of a kara as a syllable

In various texts, a kara is not always stand alone, but also paired with ulu, suku, taleng, and other vowel signs. This practice is not correct, and should not be considered valid. For any vowel sounds, there are independent vowel glyphs already available for use.

Illegal:

For ‘ě’ and ‘ö’ that don’t have independent vowel form, they can be written with HA as:

Pa kapal is never attached with suku or suku ilut

As a syllable, pa kapal can be paired with any vowel signs. But the shape of pa kapal is not the same with other syllables. The final stroke of pa kapal is not going down. Hence suku and suku ilut cannot be attached to pa kapal. These combinations should still be considered, and suku or suku ilut is positioned below pa kapal but not attached to it.

Other syllable

Pa kapal with suku

Romanization of the inherent sound

A stand-alone syllable has inherent sound that is always romanized as a. But it is common to a Balinese to pronounced an a at the end of a word as ĕ.

Sekala (real), romanized as ‘sekala’ but pronounced ‘sekalě’

Usage of Pangangge Akśara

There are four forms of gantungan/gempelan usages:

  • Killing the inherent sound of the base syllable.

    Example word:

Samping (side)

This form is equivalent with the one using adegadeg sign,

Samping
(with Adeg adeg)

  • This form of gantungan/gempelan happens very rarely, when a non semi-vowel acts like a semi vowel. The term for this in Balinese is pluta.

    Example word:

Sukśma (thank you)

Kśatria’ (warrior)

Strī’ (wife)

Smerti (books of Vedha)

  • As a double consonant syllable, but actually a single sound. This occurrence is called dwita.

    Example:

the ‘t’ in ‘Utama’ (means ‘primary’)

the ‘m’ in ‘Dharma’ (religion)

It is not so nice to have adegadeg in the middle of a word, so the preferred form is always the one without the adegadeg. Sometimes the use of adegadeg is inevitable, to avoid stacking gantungan and gantungan altogether.

Example of inevitable adegadeg, ‘tamblang’ (a village’s name):

Ligatures and Other Presentation Issues

Two glyphs can be written using one pen strokes, thus form what so called ligatures.

  • Tedong form ligatures with the following syllable (see table). The ligature form is desirable but not mandatory.

Table 13 Tedong Ligatures

No

Syllable

Ligature

    

No

Syllable

Ligature

    

No

Syllable

Ligature

1

ha

 

10

la

 

19

sa saga

2

na

 

11

ma

 

20

sa sapa

3

ca

 

12

ga

 

21

ga gora

4

ra

 

13

pa

 

22

ba kembang

5

ka

 

14

ya

 

23

gempelan pa

6

da

 

15

na rambat

 

24

gempelan sa

7

ta

 

16

da madu

 

25

gempelan ya

8

sa

 

17

ta tawa

 

26

gempelan
sa sapa

9

wa

 

18

ta latik

   
 
  • Suku and suku ilut form ligatures with the following gantungan or gempelan

Table 14 Suku and Suku-Ilut Ligatures

No

Syllable

Glyph

    

No

Syllable

Glyph

1

na

  

 

6

ya

2

ra

  

 

7

na rambat

  

3

wa

  

 

8

ta tawa

  

4

la

  

 

9

ga gora

  

5

ba

  

   
 
  • Ulu, ulu sari, pepet, cecek, surang, ardha chandra must be centered. If ulu or ulu sari or pepet appears with surang or cecek, then surang/cecek is positioned on the right. Both signs are then centered relative to the syllable.

Table 15 Repositioning of Ulu/ Ulu-Sari/ Pepet

No

Combination

Glyph

1

ulu/ ulu-sari with surang

2

ulu/ ulu-sari with cecek

3

pepet with surang

4

pepet with cecek

Alphabet Order and Sorting

Balinese alphabet is never been computerized (except for font creation that enable people to type in) so that nobody has ever devised an alphabet order or a sorting scheme.

Apart from the order of ha-na-ca-ra-ka, there is no defined order of alphabets for Balinese. But if we take a closer look at what has been done to the cousin of Balinese, the Devanagari script, and what has been arranged for Latin in ASCII, then the alphabet order should look like this:

  • Start with the punctuations (7 characters)
  • Followed by the digits (10 characters)
  • Followed by the independent vowels (10 characters)
  • Followed by the aksara biasa (basic syllable) (18 characters)
  • Followed by the aksara wayah (9 characters)
  • Followed by the vowel signs (11 characters)
  • Followed by the semi-vowel signs (4 characters)
  • Followed by the final consonant signs (5 characters)

Please note that the above order is only a proposed one, since there are no standards defined for alphabet order.

 

Abbreviations

Just like in other languages or scripts, long words can be abbreviated as well. There are three different scheme for abbreviations:

  • The scheme endorsed by the government to abbreviate government institutions. The scheme is to follow the way the abbrevation pronounced in Indonesian language.
  • The one used by I Wayan Simpen A.B. in his schoolbook “Purwa Aksara. The scheme is to use the first syllable with all the vowel signs attached to it; or if it is an independent vowel, then the independent vowel itself is used.
  • The one less commonly used, but somehow the shortest one.The scheme is to use only syllable or independent vowel.

For example: “Bank Pembangunan Daerah Bali” (Development Bank of Bali Province) or BPD Bali is written like this:

Bank Pembangunan Daerah Bali

The abbrevation alternatives are:

1) Be Pe De

2) Ba Pe Da

3) Ba Pa Da

 

Word Boundaries and Line Break Rules

In Balinese script, there are no spaces to separate words.

Akeh akśarane, 47, luir ipun: akśara suara, 14, akśara wianjana, 33, akśara suara punika talěr dados pangangge suara, tur madrěwe suara kakalih, kawāśţanin: suara hrěswa miwah dīrgha

 

In the old time of writing on palm leaves, spaces were scarce and the “page setup” for lontar was always a thin landscape. The number of lines is small, with every space must be filled for optimal use. There was common practice to break the sentence at any places. For modern writing, the following rules of thumb should apply:

  • No line breaks allowed between syllable and any of its signs
  • No line breaks allowed just before a colon, comma or full stop

Because there are no spaces between words, there is no such thing as a justified paragraph. A Balinese text is left aligned (the most common), right aligned, or centered.


 

The Balinese Characters

Hex

Dec

Name

00

01

02

03

04

05

06

07

08

09

0A

0B

0C

0D

0E

0F

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

1A

1B

1C

1D

1E

1F

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

2A

2B

2C

2D

2E

2F

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

3A

3B

3C

3D

3E

3F

40

41

42

43

44

45

46

47

48

00

01

02

03

04

05

06

07

08

09

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

43

44

45

46

47

48

49

50

51

52

53

54

55

56

57

58

59

60

61

62

63

64

65

66

67

68

69

70

71

72

BALINESE CARIK (COMMA)

BALINESE CARIK PAREREN (PERIOD)

BALINESE CARIK PAMUNGKAH (COLON)

BALINESE PANTEN

BALINESE PASALINAN

BALINESE PAMADA

BALINESE CARIK AGUNG

BALINESE DIGIT 0

BALINESE DIGIT 1

BALINESE DIGIT 2

BALINESE DIGIT 3

BALINESE DIGIT 4

BALINESE DIGIT 5

BALINESE DIGIT 6

BALINESE DIGIT 7

BALINESE DIGIT 8

BALINESE DIGIT 9

BALINESE INDEPENDENT VOWEL A KARA

BALINESE INDEPENDENT VOWEL A KARA TEDONG

BALINESE INDEPENDENT VOWEL I KARA

BALINESE INDEPENDENT VOWEL I KARA TEDONG

BALINESE INDEPENDENT VOWEL U KARA

BALINESE INDEPENDENT VOWEL U KARA TEDONG

BALINESE INDEPENDENT VOWEL E KARA

BALINESE INDEPENDENT VOWEL AIRSANIA

BALINESE INDEPENDENT VOWEL O KARA

BALINESE INDEPENDENT VOWEL O KARA TEDONG

BALINESE LETTER HA

BALINESE LETTER NA

BALINESE LETTER CA

BALINESE LETTER RA

BALINESE LETTER KA

BALINESE LETTER DA

BALINESE LETTER TA

BALINESE LETTER SA

BALINESE LETTER WA

BALINESE LETTER LA

BALINESE LETTER MA

BALINESE LETTER GA

BALINESE LETTER BA

BALINESE LETTER NGA

BALINESE LETTER PA

BALINESE LETTER JA

BALINESE LETTER YA

BALINESE LETTER NYA

BALINESE LETTER NA RAMBAT

BALINESE LETTER DA MADU

BALINESE LETTER TA TAWA

BALINESE LETTER TA LATIK

BALINESE LETTER SA SAGA

BALINESE LETTER SA SAPA

BALINESE LETTER GA GORA

BALINESE LETTER BA KEMBANG

BALINESE LETTER PA KAPAL

BALINESE LETTER CHA

BALINESE LETTER KHA

BALINESE VOWEL SIGN TEDONG

BALINESE VOWEL SIGN ULU

BALINESE VOWEL SIGN ULU SARI

BALINESE VOWEL SIGN SUKU

BALINESE VOWEL SIGN SUKU ILUT

BALINESE VOWEL SIGN TALENG

BALINESE VOWEL SIGN TALENG REPA

BALINESE VOWEL SIGN TALENG TEDONG

BALINESE VOWEL SIGN TALENG REPA TEDONG

BALINESE VOWEL SIGN PEPET

BALINESE VOWEL SIGN PEPET TEDONG

BALINESE SIGN ULU CHANDRA

BALINESE SIGN ULU RICEM

BALINESE SIGN CECEK

BALINESE SIGN SURANG

BALINESE SIGN BISAH

BALINESE SIGN ADEGADEG

Music

Hex

Dec

Name

00

01

02

03

04

00

01

02

03

04

BALINESE MUSICAL NOTE NDANG

BALINESE MUSICAL NOTE NDING

BALINESE MUSICAL NOTE NDUNG

BALINESE MUSICAL NOTE NDENG

BALINESE MUSICAL NOTE NDONG

 

Glossary of Terms

Akśara Wreşāstra The basic syllables. It is also called the hanacaraka alphabet
Akśara Suara Vowels, both vowel signs and the independent vowels
Akśara Şwalalita              The additional syllables used to write Kawi language
Akśara Wayah See ‘Akśara Şwalalita’
Akśara Wianjana Consonants
Gantungan The appended form of a syllable, hanging below base syllable
Gempelan The appended form of a syllable, positioned after base syllable
Pangangge Akśara         Gantungan or Gempelan
Pangangge Suara The various vowel signs attached to a syllable
Pangangge Tengenan   Final consonants: surang, bisah, cecek, adegadeg.

 

 

 

References

  • Example of words came from book of I Wayan Simpen A.B. “Pasang Aksara Basa Bali” – published year unknown, publisher name unknown. Most probably it was published during the sixties, because it refers to the Balinese Language Congress of 1963.
  • Some example words came from book of I Wayan Simpen A.B. “Purwa Aksara” for 4th grade primary school. Publisher Upada Sastra 2002.
  • US Library of Congress has a romanization table for Balinese script. It can be downloaded from the website http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/roman.html  
  • Pedoman Pasang Aksara Bali, by I Nengah Medra, et. al. April 2001. Based on Balinese Language Congress of December 1997.