The Buginese or Lontara script was traditionally used to write the Bugis, Makassarese and Mandar languages of Sulawesi in Indonesia. During the period of Dutch colonisation, it was largely replaced by the Latin alphabet, and is now considered to be endangered. However, it still persists for ceremonial purposes, such as weddings, and for writing personal documents such as letters and notes. There is also some use for printing traditional Buginese literature.
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ᨒᨚᨈᨑlotrLontara
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The Buginese or Lontara script was traditionally used to write the Bugis, Makassarese and Mandar languages of Sulawesi in Indonesia. During the period of Dutch colonisation, it was largely replaced by the Latin alphabet, and is now considered to be endangered. However, it still persists for ceremonial purposes, such as weddings, and for writing personal documents such as letters and notes. There is also some use for printing traditional Buginese literature.
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ᨒᨚᨈᨑ
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ᨅᨔ ᨕᨘᨁᨗ
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The script is originally derived from the Brahmi script, but has evolved considerably along similar lines to other scripts in the Indonesian archipelago. Wikipedia relates that the term Lontara "is derived from the Malay name for palmyra palm, lontar, whose leaves are traditionally used for manuscripts. In Buginese, this script is called urupu sulapa eppa which means "four-cornered letters", referencing the Bugis-Makasar belief of the four elements that shaped the universe: fire, water, air and earth."
The Buginese script, also known as Lontara (ᨒᨚᨈᨑ), is an abugida. Consonants carry an inherent vowel which can be modified by appending vowel-signs to the consonant. See the table to the right for a brief overview of features for the modern Buginese orthography.
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Modern Buginese runs left to right in horizontally stacked lines.
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Words can be separated by spaces, or spaces can be used to separate units longer than words. In some texts words are not separated at all.
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Buginese has 18 basic consonants, but is a defective script, meaning that it doesn't represent all the sounds of the spoken language.
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With the exception of prenasalised onsets, the no consonant clusters or gemination are indicated by the Buginese orthography.
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Single code points are, however, provided for 4 syllable-initial prenasalised clusters.
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Syllable-final consonant sounds are also not written.
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The Buginese orthography has an inherent vowel, and represents vowels using 5 vowel-signs (including 1 prescript). All vowel-signs are combining marks, and are stored after the base character.
There are no composite vowels, but repetition can be shown by duplication of the vowel sign,
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There are no native numbers.
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The Buginese script, also known as Lontara (ᨒᨚᨈᨑ), is an abugida. Consonants carry an inherent vowel which can be modified by appending vowel signs to the consonant. See the table to the right for a brief overview of features for the modern Buginese orthography.
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Modern Buginese runs left to right in horizontally stacked lines.
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Words can be separated by spaces, or spaces can be used to separate units longer than words. In some texts words are not separated at all.
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Buginese has 18 basic consonants, but is a defective script, meaning that it doesn't represent all the sounds of the spoken language. ❯ consonants
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With the exception of prenasalised onsets, no consonant clusters or gemination are indicated by the Buginese orthography. Single code points are, however, provided for 4 syllable-initial prenasalised clusters. ❯ onsets
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Syllable-final consonant sounds are also not written. ❯ finals
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The Buginese orthography has an inherent vowela, and represents vowels using 5 vowel signs (including 1 pre-base vowel). All vowel signs are combining marks, and are stored after the base character. ❯ vowels
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There are no composite vowels, but repetition can be shown by duplication of the vowel sign.
The Buginese orthography has an inherent vowela, and represents vowels using 5 vowel signs (including 1 pre-base vowel). All vowel signs are combining marks, and are stored after the base character.
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There are no composite vowels, but repetition can be shown by duplication of the vowel sign.
For a mapping of sounds to graphemes see vowel_mappings.
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Inherent vowel
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a following a consonant is not written, but is seen as an inherent part of the consonant letter, so ka is written by simply using the consonant letter.
Buginese vowel signs are all combining characters. A single character is used per base consonant. All vowel signs are typed and stored after the base consonant, whether or not they precede it when displayed. The font takes care of the glyph positioning.
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An orthography that uses vowel signs is different from one that uses simple diacritics or letters for vowels in that the vowel signs are generally attached to the orthorgraphic syllable, rather than just applied to the letter of the immediately preceding consonant. This means that pre-base vowel signs and the left glyph of circumgraphs appear before a whole consonant cluster if the cluster is rendered as a conjunct (see prescript_vowels).
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Two of the vowel signs are spacing marks, meaning that they consume horizontal space when added to a base consonant.
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Combining marks used for vowels
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Buginese uses the following dedicated combining marks for vowels. They may be used on their own, or in combination with others (see composite_vowels).
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+ᨗ␣ᨘ␣ᨙ␣ᨚ␣ᨛ
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Pre-base vowel sign
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+ᨙ
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One vowel sign appears to the left of the base consonant letter or cluster, eg. ᨀᨙke.
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This is a combining mark that is always stored after the base consonant. The font places the glyph before the base consonant.
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+The pre-base e vowel appears to the left of the base character after which it is pronounced.
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ᨕᨔᨙ
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Because a vowel sign is associated with a syllable, rather than the immediately preceding consonant, the vowel sign doesn't need to split letters that represent pre-nasalised consonants (see clusters), eg. ᨋᨙnre
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Standalone vowels
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+ᨕᨗ␣ᨕᨘ␣ᨕᨙ␣ᨕᨚ␣ᨕᨛ␣ᨕ
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Buginese uses ᨕ[U+1A15 BUGINESE LETTER A] to represent the sound a when there is no preceding consonant.
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Other syllable-initial vowel sounds are written using the same character with vowel signs attached.
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+A word that begins with BUGINESE LETTER A supporting a standalone ə vowel.
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ᨕᨛᨊᨛ
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Vowel absence
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Other than the characters representing consonant clusters mentioned in the section clusters, Buginese has no way to indicate missing vowels between consonants or at the end of a word.
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Vowel sounds to characters
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Vowel sounds to characters
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Inherent vowel
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a following a consonant is not written, but is seen as an inherent part of the consonant letter, so ka is written by simply using the consonant letter ᨀ [U+1A00 BUGINESE LETTER KA].
An orthography that uses vowel-signs is different from one that uses simple diacritics or letters for vowels in that the vowel-signs are generally attached to the syllable, rather than just applied to the letter of the immediately preceding consonant. This means that pre-base vowel-signs and the left glyph of circumgraphs appear before a whole consonant cluster if the cluster is rendered as a conjunct (see prescript_vowels).
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Buginese vowel-signs are all combining characters. A single character is used per base consonant. All vowel-signs are typed and stored after the base consonant, whether or not they precede it when displayed. The font takes care of the glyph positioning.
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Two of the vowel-signs are spacing marks, meaning that they consume horizontal space when added to a base consonant.
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Buginese has 18 basic consonants, but is a defective script, meaning that it doesn't represent all the sounds of the spoken language.
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With the exception of prenasalised onsets, no consonant clusters or gemination are indicated by the Buginese orthography. Single code points are, however, provided for 4 syllable-initial prenasalised clusters.
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Combining marks used for vowels
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Syllable-final consonant sounds are also not written.
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Buginese uses the following dedicated combining marks for vowels. They may be used on their own, or in combination with others (see composite_vowels).
One vowel-sign appears to the left of the base consonant letter or cluster, eg. ᨀᨙke.
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This is a combining mark that is always stored after the base consonant. The font places the glyph before the base consonant.
+ᨆ␣ᨊ␣ᨎ␣ᨂ
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-The pre-base e vowel-sign appears to the left of the base character after which it is pronounced in the word ᨕᨔᨙ.
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+ᨓ␣ᨑ␣ᨒ␣ᨐ
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Because a vowel-sign is associated with a syllable, rather than the immediately preceding consonant, the vowel-sign doesn't need to split letters that represent pre-nasalised consonants (see clusters), eg. ᨋᨙnre
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Similarly, geminated consonants sounds (which are distinctive and frequent in Buginese) are not written, eg. the following sequence can be read as lapalava or lappajoint
+ᨒᨄlp
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These omissions can lead to ambiguities in the written text that are exploited for Buginese word games.
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Onset consonants
+ᨇ␣ᨏ␣ᨃ␣ᨋ␣
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Standalone vowels
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-ᨕᨗ␣ᨕᨘ␣ᨕᨙ␣ᨕᨚ␣ᨕᨛ␣ᨕ
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Buginese uses ᨕ[U+1A15 BUGINESE LETTER A] to represent the sound a when there is no preceding consonant.
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Other syllable-initial vowel sounds are written using the same character with vowel-signs attached.
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-The word ənəngsix begins with BUGINESE LETTER A supporting a standalone ə vowel.
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Four dedicated characters are used to represent pre-nasalised consonant clusters in Buginese (but not Makassarese).
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Vowel absence
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Other than the characters representing consonant clusters mentioned in the section clusters, Buginese has no way to indicate missing vowels between consonants or at the end of a word.
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Final consonants
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Syllable-final consonant sounds (normally ʔ and ŋ) are not written, eg. the final consonant sound is not written at the end of
+ᨕᨙᨔᨙᨊᨙ
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Consonant clusters
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Other than the prenasalised onsets mentioned just above, Buginese doesn't mark clusters.u There is no virama-like character.
Similarly, geminated consonants sounds (which are distinctive and frequent in Buginese) are not written, eg. the following sequence can be read as lapalava or lappajoint
-ᨒᨄlp
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These omissions can lead to ambiguities in the written text that are exploited for Buginese word games.
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Onset consonants
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-ᨇ␣ᨏ␣ᨃ␣ᨋ␣
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Four dedicated characters are used to represent pre-nasalised consonant clusters in Buginese (but not Makassarese).
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Final consonants
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Syllable-final consonant sounds (normally ʔ and ŋ) are not written, eg. the final consonant sound is not written at the end of
-ᨕᨙᨔᨙᨊᨙ
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Consonant clusters
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Other than the prenasalised onsets mentioned just above, Buginese doesn't mark clusters.u There is no virama-like character.
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Context-based shaping & positioning
The positioning of diacritics depends on the related base components, eg. compare ᨊᨗᨊninninᨕᨗᨐǝ̣iyiyaᨐᨗyiyi
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One vowel-sign, ᨙ[U+1A19 BUGINESE VOWEL SIGN E], is displayed to the left of the base consonant, although it is typed after the consonant, eg. ᨕᨙᨔᨙᨊᨙ
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One vowel sign, ᨙ[U+1A19 BUGINESE VOWEL SIGN E], is displayed to the left of the base consonant, although it is typed after the consonant, eg. ᨕᨙᨔᨙᨊᨙ
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