Batak alphabet - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Batak script, called locally surat Batak, is an abugida

Abugida

An abugida , also called an alphasyllabary, is a segmental writing system in which consonant–vowel sequences are written as a unit: each unit is based on a consonant letter, and vowel notation is obligatory but secondary...

used to write the Austronesian

Austronesian languages

The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia that are spoken by about 386 million people. It is on par with Indo-European, Niger-Congo, Afroasiatic and Uralic as one of the...

Batak languages

The Batak languages are spoken by Batak and Alas people of North Sumatra, Indonesia.Historically they were written using Batak script but the Latin alphabet is now used for most writing....

spoken by several million people on the Indonesia

Indonesia

Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

n island of Sumatra

Sumatra

Sumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 with a population of 50,365,538...

History

In most Batak communities, only the priests, or datu were able to use the Batak script, and used it mainly for magical texts and calendars. After the arrival of Europeans in the Batak lands, first German missionaries and, from 1878 onwards, the Dutch, the Batak script was, alongside the Roman script, taught in the schools, and teaching and religious materials were printed in the Batak script. Soon after the first World War the missionaries decided to discontinue printing books in the Batak script, not only for financial reasons but also because generally the Batak preferred using the Roman script. The script soon fell out of use and is now only used for ornamental purposes.

Origin

The Batak script was probably derived from Pallava

Pallava

The Pallava dynasty was a Tamil dynasty which ruled the northern Tamil Nadu region and the southern Andhra Pradesh region with their capital at Kanchipuram...

and Old Kawi

Old Kawi

Kawi is the name given to the writing system originating in Java and used across much of Maritime Southeast Asia in inscriptions and texts from the 8th century to around 1500 AD...

alphabets, which ultimately were derived from the Brahmi alphabet, the root of almost all the Indic and Southeast Asian abugidas.

Structure

Batak is written from up to down within one line, and left to right for lines.
Like most abugidas, each consonant has an inherent vowel of /a/, unless there is a diacritic (in Toba Batak called pangolat) to indicate the lack of a vowel. Other vowels, final ŋ
Eng (letter)
Eng or engma is a letter of the Latin alphabet, used to represent a velar nasal in the written form of some languages and in the International Phonetic Alphabet.-History:...

, and final velar fricative [x] are indicated by diacritic

Diacritic

A diacritic is a glyph added to a letter, or basic glyph. The term derives from the Greek διακριτικός . Diacritic is both an adjective and a noun, whereas diacritical is only an adjective. Some diacritical marks, such as the acute and grave are often called accents...

s, which appear above, below, or after the letter. For example, ba is written ba (one letter); bi is written ba.i (i follows the consonant); bang is written ba^ŋ (ŋ is above the consonant); and bing is ba^ŋ.i. Final consonants are written with the pangolat (here represented by "#"): bam is ba.ma.#. However, bim is written ba.ma.i.#: the first diacritic belongs to the first consonant, and the second belongs to the second consonant, but both are written at the end of the entire syllable. Unlike most Brahmi-based scripts, Batak does not form consonant conjuncts.

Letters

Batak script is called surat na sampulu sia (the nineteen letters) or si-sia-sia.
Each consonant has an inherent vowel of /a/.

The script varies by region and language. The major variants are between
Karo

Batak Karo language

Batak Karo, referred to in Indonesia simply as Bahasa Karo , is an Austronesian language that is spoken by the Karo people of Indonesia. It is used by around 600,000 people in North Sumatra...

,
Mandailing

Mandailing language

Mandailing or Batak Mandailing is an Austronesian language spoken in Indonesia, the northern island of Sumatra. The language pertains to the Malayo-Polynesian of Austronesian languages....

,
Pakpak/Dairi,
Simalungun/Timur, and
Toba:

LatinTrans. Transliteration Transliteration is a subset of the science of hermeneutics. It is a form of translation, and is the practice of converting a text from one script into another...	Batak Script
class="wikitable" summary="Batak Letters (part 1)">
	Karo	Mand.	Pakp.	Sima.	Toba
a
ha
ka
ba
pa
na
wa
ga
ja
da
ra
ma

LatinTrans.	Batak Script
LatinTrans.	Karo	Mand.	Pakp.	Sima.	Toba
ta
sa
ya
nga
la
nya
ca
nda
mba
i
u

Batak letters are ordered differently depending on the language:

Karo: a, ha, ka, ba, pa, na, wa, ga, ja, da, ra, ma, ta, sa, ya, nga, la, ca, nda, mba, i, u
Mandailing: a, ha, ka, ba, pa, na, wa, ga, ja, da, ra, ma, ta, sa, ya, nga, la, nya, ca, i, u
Pakpak/Dairi: a, ha, ka, ba, pa, na, wa, ga, ja, da, ra, ma, ta, sa, ca, ya, nga, la, i, u
Simalungun/Timur: a, ha, ka, ba, pa, na, wa, ga, ja, da, ra, ma, ta, sa, ya, nga, la, nya, i, u
Toba: a, ha, ka, ba, pa, na, wa, ga, ja, da, ra, ma, ta, sa, ya, nga, la, nya, i, u

Diacritics

Diacritic

s are used to change the pronunciation of a letter. They can change the vowel from the inherent /a/, mark a final [velar nasal] /ŋ/, mark a final velar fricative

Voiceless velar fricative

The voiceless velar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The sound was part of the consonant inventory of Old English and can still be found in some dialects of English, most notably in Scottish English....

/x/, or indicate a final consonant with no vowel:

	Karo	LatinTrans.	Karo
LatinTrans. Transliteration Transliteration is a subset of the science of hermeneutics. It is a form of translation, and is the practice of converting a text from one script into another...	Batak Diacritics	LatinTrans.	Batak Diacritics with /ka/
-a		ka
-e		ke
-i		ki
-o		ko
-ou		kou
-u		ku
-ng		kang
-h		kah
–		k

Ligatures with U

The diacritic for U used by Mandailing, Pakpak, Simalungun, and Toba can form ligatures with its base letter:

Batak Script			Description
class="wikitable" summary="Ligatures with -U (Part 1)">
	+	=	a + -u = u
	+	=	a + -u = u (Simalungun)
	+	=	ha + -u = hu (Mandailing)
	+	=	ha + -u = hu (Simalungun)
	+	=	ha + -u = hu
	+	=	ka + -u = ku (Mandailing)
	+	=	ba + -u = bu
	+	=	pa + -u = pu (Mandailing)
	+	=	pa + -u = pu (Pakpak, Toba)
	+	=	pa + -u = pu (Simalungun)
	+	=	na + -u = nu
	+	=	na + -u = nu (Mandailing)
	+	=	wa + -u = wu (Mandailing, Toba)
	+	=	wa + -u = wu (Pakpak, Toba)
	+	=	wa + -u = wu (Simalungun)
	+	=	ga + -u = gu
	+	=	ga + -u = gu (Simalungun)
	+	=	ja + -u = ju

		Description
+	=	da + -u = du
+	=	ra + -u = ru
+	=	ra + -u = ru (Simalungun)
+	=	ma + -u = mu
+	=	ma + -u = mu (Simalungun)
+	=	ta + -u = tu
+	=	ta + -u = tu
+	=	sa + -u = su (Pakpak)
+	=	sa + -u = su (Mandailing)
+	=	sa + -u = su (Mandailing)
+	=	sa + -u = su (Simalungun)
+	=	ya + -u = yu
+	=	ya + -u = yu (Simalungun)
+	=	nga + -u = ngu
+	=	la + -u = lu
+	=	la + -u = lu (Simalungun)
+	=	nya + -u = nyu
+	=	ca + -u = cu (Mandailing)

Tompi

In Mandailing, the diacritic tompi can be used to change the sound of some letters:

+	=	+	=
+	=	+	=
+	=	+	=
+	=	+	=

Placement of diacritics for Ng and H

The diacritics for Ng and H are usually written above spacing vowel diacritics instead of above the base letter.

Examples: ping, pong, peh, and pih.

Diacritic reordering for closed syllables

Vowel diacritics are reordered for closed syllables (that is, syllables where the final consonant has no vowel).
Consonants with no vowel are marked by the Batak pangolat or panongonan diacritic, depending on the language.
When they are used for a closed syllable (like "tip"), both the vowel diacritic and the pangolat/panongonan are written at the end of the syllable.

Examples of closed syllables using pangolat:

ta	+	vowel	+	pa	+	pangolat	=	syllable
			+		+		=
ta			+	pa	+	pangolat	=	tap
	+		+		+		=
ta	+	e	+	pa	+	pangolat	=	tep
	+		+		+		=
ta	+	e	+	pa	+	pangolat	=	tep
	+		+		+		=
ta	+	i	+	pa	+	pangolat	=	tip
	+		+		+		=
ta	+	o	+	pa	+	pangolat	=	top
	+		+		+		=
ta	+	u	+	pa	+	pangolat	=	tup

Punctuation and Ornaments

Batak is normally written without spaces or punctuation (as scriptio continua

Scriptio continua

Scriptio continua is a style of writing without spaces or other marks between words or sentences....

). However special marks or bindu

Bindu

Bindu is a Sanskrit term meaning "point" or "dot". The feminine case ending is bindi which denotes a small ornamental, devotional and/or mystical dot that is cosmetically applied or affixed to the forehead in Hinduism....

are occasionally used.
They vary greatly in size and design from manuscript to manuscript.

Examples	Name	Function
	Bindu na metek (small bindu)	Begins paragraphs and stanzas
	Bindu panarboras (rice-shaped bindu)	Variant of bindu na metek, serves same function
	Bindu judul (title bindu)	Separates a title from the body of the text
	Bindu pangolat	Trailing punctuation

Unicode

Batak script was added to the Unicode

Unicode

Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...

Standard in October, 2010 with the release of version 6.0.

Block

The Unicode block for Batak is U+1BC0 ... U+1BFF. Grey areas in the chart below indicate non-assigned code points:

Rendering

Unicode fonts for Batak must handle several requirements to properly render text:

Rendering Requirements	Examples
Rendering Requirements	Latin Trans. Transliteration Transliteration is a subset of the science of hermeneutics. It is a form of translation, and is the practice of converting a text from one script into another...	Image	Unicode Text
Correct placement of one or more diacritics	ke		ᯂᯩ
	ke (Mand.)		ᯄ᯦ᯩ
	ping		ᯇᯪᯰ
	reng		ᯓᯩᯰ
Ligatures with U	hu (Mand.)		ᯄᯮ
	hu (Sima.)		ᯃᯮ
	gu		ᯎᯮ
	lu		ᯞᯮ
Diacritic reordering for closed syllables	tip		ᯖᯪᯇ᯲

Sources

External links

Entry on Batak at Omniglot.com – A guide to writing systems
Transtoba2 – Roman to Toba Batak script transliteration software by Uli Kozok and Leander Seige (GNU GPL)
Uli Kozok's Batak Script website with free Batak fonts.

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.