An abugida – sometimes also called alphasyllabary, neosyllabary, or pseudo-alphabet – is a segmental writing system in which consonant–vowel sequences are written as units; each unit is based on a consonant letter, and vowel notation is secondary, similar to a diacritical mark. This contrasts with a full alphabet, in which vowels have status equal to consonants, and with an abjad, in which vowel marking is absent, partial, or optional – in less formal contexts, all three types of the script may be termed "alphabets". The terms also contrast them with a syllabary, in which a single symbol denotes the combination of one consonant and one vowel.
The Brahmic scripts, also known as Indic scripts, are a family of abugida writing systems. They are used throughout the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia and parts of East Asia. They are descended from the Brahmi script of ancient India and are used by various languages in several language families in South, East and Southeast Asia: Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Tibeto-Burman, Mongolic, Austroasiatic, Austronesian, and Tai. They were also the source of the dictionary order (gojūon) of Japanese kana.
The Burmese alphabet is an abugida used for writing Burmese. It is ultimately adapted from a Brahmic script, either the Kadamba or Pallava alphabet of South India. The Burmese alphabet is also used for the liturgical languages of Pali and Sanskrit. In recent decades, other, related alphabets, such as Shan and modern Mon, have been restructured according to the standard of the Burmese alphabet
The Balinese script, natively known as Aksara Bali and Hanacaraka, is an abugida used in the island of Bali, Indonesia, commonly for writing the Austronesian Balinese language, Old Javanese, and the liturgical language Sanskrit. With some modifications, the script is also used to write the Sasak language, used in the neighboring island of Lombok. The script is a descendant of the Brahmi script, and so has many similarities with the modern scripts of South and Southeast Asia. The Balinese script, along with the Javanese script, is considered the most elaborate and ornate among Brahmic scripts of Southeast Asia.
The Tamil script is an abugida script that is used by Tamils and Tamil speakers in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore,and elsewhere to write the Tamil language. It is one of the official scripts of the Indian Republic. Certain minority languages such as Saurashtra, Badaga, Irula and Paniya are also written in the Tamil script.
The Gupta script was used for writing Sanskrit and is associated with the Gupta Empire of the Indian subcontinent, which was a period of material prosperity and great religious and scientific developments. The Gupta script was descended from Brāhmī and gave rise to the Śāradā and Siddhaṃ scripts. These scripts in turn gave rise to many of the most important Indic scripts, including Devanāgarī, the Gurmukhī script for Punjabi, the Odia script, the Bengali-Assamese script and the Tibetan script.
Khmer script is an abugida (alphasyllabary) script used to write the Khmer language, the official language of Cambodia. It is also used to write Pali in the Buddhist liturgy of Cambodia and Thailand.
Telugu script, an abugida from the Brahmic family of scripts, is used to write the Telugu language, a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana as well as several other neighbouring states. It is one of the official scripts of the Indian Republic. The Telugu script is also widely used for writing Sanskrit texts and to some extent the Gondi language. It gained prominence during the Eastern Chalukyas also known as Vengi Chalukya era. It also shares extensive similarities with the Kannada script.
Kharosthi script, also known as the Gandhari script, was an ancient Indic script used by various peoples from the north-western outskirts of the Indian subcontinent to Central Asia via Afghanistan. An abugida, it was introduced by the middle of the 3rd century BCE, possibly during the 4th century BCE, and remained in use until it died out in its homeland around the 3rd century CE.
Javanese script is one of Indonesia's traditional scripts developed on the island of Java. The script is primarily used to write the Javanese language and has also been used to write several other regional languages such as Sundanese and Madurese, the regional lingua franca Malay, as well as the historical languages Kawi and Sanskrit. It heavily influenced the Balinese script from which the system for Sasak developed. Javanese script was actively used by the Javanese people for writing day-to-day and literary texts from at least the mid-16th century CE until the mid-20th century CE, before it was gradually supplanted by the Latin alphabet. Today, the script is taught in the Yogyakarta Special Region as well as the provinces of Central Java and East Java as part of the local curriculum, but with very limited function in everyday use.
The Kawi script or the Old Javanese script is a Brahmic script found primarily in Java and used across much of Maritime Southeast Asia between the 8th century and the 16th century. The script is an abugida, meaning that characters are read with an inherent vowel. Diacritics are used, either to suppress the vowel and represent a pure consonant, or to represent other vowels.
The Batak languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages spoken by the Batak people in the Indonesian province of North Sumatra and surrounding areas.
Toba Batak is an Austronesian language spoken in North Sumatra province in Indonesia. It is part of a group of languages called Batak. There are approximately 1,610,000 Toba Batak speakers, living to the east, west and south of Lake Toba. Historically it was written using the Batak script, but the Latin script is now used for most writing.
Standard Sundanese script is a writing system which is used by the Sundanese people. It is built based on Old Sundanese script which was used from the 14th to the 18th centuries.
Karo, referred to in Indonesia 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. It is mainly spoken in Karo Regency, southern parts of Deli Serdang Regency and northern parts of Dairi Regency, North Sumatra, Indonesia. It was historically written using the Batak alphabet which is descended from the Brahmi script of ancient India by way of the Pallava and Old Kawi scripts, but nowadays only a tiny number of Karo can write or understand the script, and instead the Latin script is used.
Pegon is a modified Arabic script used to write the Javanese, Sundanese, and Madurese languages, as an alternative to the Latin script or the Javanese script and the Old Sundanese script. It was used in a variety of applications, from religion, to diplomacy, to poetry. But today particularly, it is used for religious (Islamic) writing and poetry, particularly in writing commentaries of the Qur'an. Pegon includes letters that are not present in Modern Standard Arabic. Pegon has been studied far less than its Jawi counterpart which is used for Malay, Acehnese and Minangkabau.
Batak is a Unicode block containing characters for writing the Batak dialects of Karo, Mandailing, Pakpak, Simalungun, and Toba.
Boraspati ni Tano or Boraspati, also known as Ilik, is the earth deity in Batak mythology. Boraspati ni Tano is represented as a tokay gecko. Images of Boraspati can be found decorating the door of a Batak Karo and Batak Toba buildings as well as other Batak objects e.g. the cover of the pustaha or the pupuk container naga morsarang.
Pustaha is the magic book of the Batak people of North Sumatra, Indonesia. The book contains magical formulas, divinations, recipes, and laws. The pustaha is written and compiled by a Batak magician-priest (datu).
Pupuk is the name given to a magical substance which was used by the Batak shamans of North Sumatra. The pupuk is the main feature to perform black magic, e.g. to inflict damage to enemies. Method of creating the pupuk is inscribed in the pustaha, the magic book of the Toba people, among which involved the kidnapping and murder of a child from neighboring village.
