Indonesia: Balinese copper plate grant inscribed with Balinese letters

Balinese is an Austronesian language spoken by about three million people on the Indonesian island of Bali. However, Balinese script has largely been replaced by the Roman alphabet in modern times. Although it is learned in school, few people use it. It is mostly used in temples and for religious writings.

The Balinese script was derived from the Old Kawi alphabet, which ultimately derived from the Brahmi alphabet, the root of all the Indic and Southeast Asian abugidas. The alphabet consists of 47 characters, 14 of which are vowels, and the remaining 33 are consonants. Among the 33 consonants, only 18 are commonly used; the rest are mainly used to write loanwords from Kavi and Sanskrit.

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Scripts and Writing