Batak alphabet
| Surat Batak ᯘᯮᯒᯖ᯲ ᯅᯖᯂ᯲ |
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| Type | |
| Languages | Batak languages |
|
Time period
|
c. 1300–present |
|
Parent systems
|
Origins of Brahmi script unclear. On Aramaic origin hypothesis: Proto-Sinaitic alphabet
|
|
Sister systems
|
Direct family relationships unclear. Sister scripts on hypothesis of common Kawi origin: BalineseBaybayin Kulitan Buhid Hanunó'o Javanese Lontara Old Sundanese Rencong Rejang Tagbanwa |
| Direction | Left-to-right |
| ISO 15924 | Batk, 365 |
|
Unicode alias
|
Batak |
| U+1BC0–U+1BFF | |
Direct family relationships unclear. Sister scripts on hypothesis of common Kawi origin:
The Batak script, natively known as surat Batak, surat na sapulu sia (the nineteen letters), or si-sia-sia, is an alphabet used to write the Austronesian Batak languages spoken by several million people on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. The script may be derived from the Kawi and Pallava script, ultimately derived from the Brahmi script of India, or from the hypothetical Proto-Sumatran script influenced by Pallava.
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. The script soon fell out of use and is now only used for ornamental purposes.
The Batak script was probably derived from Pallava and Old Kawi alphabets, which ultimately were derived from the Brahmi alphabet, the root of almost all the Indic and Southeast Asian abugidas.
Batak is written from bottom to top within one column, and left to right for columns. 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, and final velar fricative [x] are indicated by diacritics, 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 baŋ (ŋ is above the consonant); and bing is baŋ.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.
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Wikipedia