Balinese

Vowel signs

ᬓᬶ ki U+1B13 BALINESE LETTER KA + U+1B36 BALINESE VOWEL SIGN ULU

Balinese uses the following dedicated combining marks for vowels. They are all vowel signs.

To represent the sounds rə or lə, Balinese uses vocalic letters. A sequence such as *ᬭᭂ U+1B2D LETTER RA + U+1B42 VOWEL SIGN PEPET is not used. See vocalics.

Six of the vowel signs are spacing marks, meaning that they consume horizontal space when added to a base consonant.

All vowel signs are typed and stored after the base consonant, and the glyph rendering system takes care of the positioning at display time. The glyphs used to represent vowels, whether alone or in multipart vowels, are arranged around an orthographic syllable, which may be 2 consonants, rather than just around the immediately preceding consonant. See prebase and circumgraphs.

Multipart vowels

Multipart vowels are only produced when text is decomposed; 5 of the circumgraphs split off the 1B35 glyph, to create the following pairs:

Pre-base vowel signs

ᬓᬾ ke U+1B13 BALINESE LETTER KA + U+1B3E BALINESE VOWEL SIGN TALING

Two vowel signs appear to the left of the base consonant letter or cluster.

These are combining marks that are always typed and stored after the syllable-initial consonant. The rendering process places the glyph before the consonant for display or printing.
Click on the following word to see the sequence of characters in storage.

ᬘᬾᬮᬾᬂ

These vowel characters are actually placed before the start of the orthographic syllable. This means that a word with a consonant cluster at the start separates the pre-base vowel from any post-base vowels by more than one consonant character (see fig_prebase).

Circumgraphs

ᬓᭀ ko U+1B13 BALINESE LETTER KA + U+1B40 BALINESE VOWEL SIGN TALING TEDUNG

Five vowel or vocalic sounds are represented by a vowel sign that is a single code point in memory, but when displayed it has visually separate parts that appear on different sides of the preceding consonant or cluster.

This section includes some vowel signs described in the section vocalics.

Like pre-base glyphs, these are combining marks that are always stored after the base consonant. The rendering process places the glyphs around the base consonant, as needed.
Click on 'Show composition' to see the sequence of characters in storage for the following word.

Glyphs can appear on up to 3 sides of the base. Some of the glyphs merge with the base character's glyph (see context).

These circumgraphs have canonically equivalent decomposed forms (see vs_encoding).

Vowel sign placement

Vowel length

The sources are not very clear about whether Balinese vowels vary in length during pronunciation (see phonemesV). The Balinese vowel sign repertoire does, however, contain glyphs that distinguish between short and long vowels (see basicV).

Nasalisation

If Balinese nasalises any vowel sounds, it is not explicitly marked in the orthography.

Independent vowels

At the beginning of a word, most standalone vowels are represented using one of the 10 independent vowel characters. The set includes a character to represent the inherent vowel sound.

ᬉᬱᬥ

ᬆᬤᬶ

The vowel signs for ə (1B42) and əː (1B43) don't have an independent form, and have to be used after ᬳ at the beginning of a word, ie. 1B33 1B42 and 1B33 1B43, respectively, eg.

ᬳᭂᬫ᭄ᬧᬢ᭄

In Sasak, independent vowel ᬅ can be followed by an explicit 1B44 in word- or syllable-final position, where it indicates the glottal stop. Other consonants can also be subjoined to it. eg. ᬳᬫᬅ᭄ hmạ͓ amaʔ

Vowel signs

Typically, a standalone vowel is represented by a vowel sign attached to ᬳ, which acts as a carrier, eg. ᬤᬳᬾᬭᬄ

Without a vowel sign the letter ᬳ may represent a, eg. ᬳᬮᬲ᭄

However, it may be unclear from the written text whether ᬳ represents the sound h or is used as a carrier for a vowel, eg. compare ᬳᬶᬕ ᬳᬶᬕᭂᬮ᭄

Plain vowels

Diphthongs and other combinations

Vocalics

Combining marks

However, there is also a set of combining marks for syllable-final consonants that don't need to be followed by the adeg adeg.

1B02 and 1B04 only appear at the end of a word, eg.

ᬓᭂᬋᬂ

ᬫᬗᬄ

unless the word involves repetition, eg.

ᬘᬾᬂᬘᬾᬂ

1B03 can appear at the end of any syllable.

ᬓᬃᬡ

A syllable-final diacritic may appear above a stack. It is typed and stored after the other components in the stack, eg. ᬩᬗ᭄ᬓᬸᬂ

When the syllable has a spacing vowel sign, any above-base final-consonant mark appears over the base character, rather than over the vowel sign. This is positioned by the font; the final consonant mark is still typed and stored after the other syllable components, eg. ᬕᭂᬤᭀᬂ

See also cchar_modre.

Conjunct formation

See a table of 2-consonant clusters.
The table allows you to test results for various fonts.

Stacked and conjoined consonant clusters are referred to as conjuncts.

In Unicode, the stacking and conjoining behaviour is achieved by adding 1B44 between the consonants. The font hides the glyph automatically when a conjunct is formed.

In some cases, however, the adeg adeg remains visible (see adegadeg).

Stacking

To represent consonant sounds without intervening vowels, the non-initial consonant letter is typically drawn below the initial consonant letter, and with a slightly different shape. These subjoined forms are called gantungan (ᬕᬦ᭄ᬢᬸᬗᬦ᭄).

Many of the subjoined forms are just slightly smaller versions of the original, but several have very different shapes altogether, most of which ligate with the cluster initial consonant by joining strokes.

There can be up to 3 consonants combined in this way, but the third consonant must be one of ya, ra, la or wa.

The lists below show consonants in their normal and subjoined forms

Conjoined consonants

In conjoined clusters, the consonant glyphs remain side by side, but the non-initial consonant is reduced on the left side. These conjoined forms are called gempelan (ᬕᬾᬫ᭄ᬧᬾᬮᬦ᭄).

This list shows consonants in their normal and conjoined forms

The conjoined ᬲ is unusual in that it also adds a stroke below the initial consonant (see fig_conjoined_sa). This helps distinguish it from the conjoined p.

Visible adeg adeg

Because there is no word separator, consonants at the end of one word and beginning of the following word are normally stacked, too.

In some cases this leads to ambiguity about whether this is one or two words. If you really want to make clear which is which, you can use an explicit adeg-adeg, eg. compare ᬧᬓ᭄ᬭᬫᬦ᭄ ᬧᬓ᭄‌ᬭᬫᬦ᭄

The Unicode Standard recommends the use of 200C (ZWNJ) after the adeg-adeg in order to prevent conjunct formation. However, not many people understand the function of ZWNJ or can access it easily from the keypad. It also doesn't introduce line-break opportunities. A better solution may be to use 200B (ZWSP). This character is needed anyway on most systems in order to allow line-breaking, and it appears to work equally well for this.

A somewhat ambiguous situation arises where conventions prevent certain combinations stacking. For example, the name of the village tamblung should not stack the mbl, but should look as follows.

ᬢᬫ᭄‌ᬩ᭄ᬮᬂ

The Unicode Standard advises to use a zero-width non-joiner after ma, to achieve this.

Observation: Note that this may also be achieved by intelligence in the font, as was actually the case when I generated this example (click on it to see). It's not clear to me what is the preferred approach: put ZWNJ in only when the font doesn't do what you want, or use it always. The latter may lead to more consistent content where different fonts are applied to the text (eg. after cut and paste). In theory, this shouldn't affect searching and sorting, although some applications may not ignore the ZWNJ as they should.

Dedicated final marks

Balinese represents some final consonants using dedicated marks (see finals). Such final marks are followed by ordinary consonant shapes in consonant clusters. There is no visual indication of missing vowel sounds other than the use of the mark itself.

Grapheme clusters

Base Combining_mark* Joiner?

Combining marks may include zero or more of the following types of character:

1. Nukta (see extendedC)
2. Dependent vowels (see combiningV and vocalics)
3. Final consonants (see finals)
4. Virama (adeg adeg) (see clusters and novowel)

Any of the above may occur after a consonant base. Independent vowel bases usually only have final consonant marks.

The following examples show a variety of grapheme clusters:

Click on the text version of these words to see more detail about the composition.

	ᬢᬷᬃᬢ
	ᬅᬃᬣ
	ᬓᬺᬰ᭄ᬡ
	ᬤᬍᬫ᭄
	ᬤᬦ᭄ᬢ

Note how grapheme clusters break up the conjuncts. This is not usually desirable (see orthographicS just below).

Larger typographic units

(Consonant Rerekan? Adeg_adeg)* Grapheme_cluster

Balinese commonly stacks or conjoins glyphs, to form conjuncts. The conjuncts represent consonant clusters, which can arise (a) where one phonetic syllable ends in a consonant letter and the following syllable begins with a consonant, or (b) when most medial consonants are written, since Balinese uses conjunct forms for sequences such as Cr-, Cy-, Cw-, Cry-, etc. The cluster of consonants that make up the conjunct are all encoded with adeg adeg between them (see clusters).

Balinese is unusual in that these conjuncts occur across word boundaries, so the word-final consonant of the first word may be stacked above the word-initial consonant of the second. See fig_kahananlankwasa2 for an example.

Grapheme clusters terminate after a sequence of marks containing an adeg adeg, but editorial operations that change the visual appearance of the text, such as letter-spacing, first-letter highlighting, line-breaking, and justification, should never split conjunct forms apart. For this reason, an alternative way of segmenting graphemes is needed. This may not apply, however, for some other operations such as cursor movement or backwards delete.

Where conjuncts appear, a typographic unit contains multiple grapheme clusters. The non-final grapheme clusters all end with ᭄, and the final grapheme cluster begins with a consonant.

The following are examples.

Click on the text version of these words to see more detail about the composition.

	ᬤᬦ᭄ᬢ
	ᬢᬶᬫ᭄ᬧᬮ᭄
	ᬩ᭄ᬭ᭄ᬬᬕ᭄
	ᬰᬵᬲ᭄ᬢ᭄ᬭ

Note that one of the characteristic features of the Indic category of Virama is that the adeg adeg is visible when not followed by a consonant, but invisible when a consonant does follow (creating a stack). This means that the adeg adeg sometimes participates in a simple grapheme cluster, but when followed by a consonant it becomes the 'glue' that creates an orthographic syllable.

On the infrequent occasions when an adeg adeg needs to be visible even though it is followed by another base, an invisible character must be added to prevent it joining with the following base. A zero-width space can achieve that.

ᬧᬓ᭄​ᬭᬫᬦ᭄

Browser behaviour

Cursor movement. Move the cursor through the text.
Gecko steps through the whole text using grapheme clusters. It takes 2 or more steps (depending on the number of GCs) to get through the stacks, one grapheme cluster at a time. Blink and WebKit step through all words using the orthographic syllables described here (ie. they step over a stack and all associated combining characters in one jump).

Selection. Place the cursor next to a character and hold down shift while pressing an arrow key.
The behaviour is the same as for cursor movement.

Deletion. Forward deletion works in the same way as cursor movement. The backspace key deletes code point by code point, except for WebKit, which deletes one grapheme cluster at a time.

Line-break. See this test. The CSS sets the value of the line-break property to anywhere. Change the size of the box to slowly move the line break point.
Gecko appears to segment on orthographic syllable, per the description here, except for one case where the complex stack is split. WebKit and Blink appear to sometimes wrap inside stacks and other times not. It's not obvious why, but both segment in the same way.

Phrase & section boundaries

See type samples.

Balinese has its own punctuation marks.

᭝ is used as a colon, and ᭞ and ᭟ are used as comma and full stop respectively. 1B4E and 1B4F were introduced in Unicode v16 to express finer distinctions than the former, used in some manuscripts. u,#G27140

Both ᭚ and ᭛ are used to begin a section in text. 1B7F was introduced in Unicode v16 to represent finer subdivisions in some manuscripts.

At the end of a section, ᭜ is usually used between two other punctuation marks that vary according to the section opener. Typical sequences include carik siki ᭞᭜᭞, carik pareren ᭟᭜᭟ (sometimes called pasalinan), panti ᭚᭜᭚, and carik agung ᭛᭜᭛.u,#G27140

End of text markers include ᭽ and ᭾, or a combination of those or their shorter counterparts with ᭜, such as ᭽᭜᭽ or ᭚᭜᭽.u,#G27140

Line breaking & hyphenation

Because there are no spaces between words, and because the end of one word and the beginning of another often form conjuncts (see fig_kahananlankwasa2), Balinese doesn't wrap at word boundaries. See graphemes for a description of the typographic units that are used for line break opportunities.

Unfortunately, modern browsers are often unable to detect appropriate break points for Balinese, so in the sample text at the beginning of this page 200B is used at places where the line could be broken. Otherwise, the line would continue, unbroken off the right side of the page.

Pameneng

᭠

In lontar texts where a word must be broken at the end of a line (always after a full syllable), the sign ᭠ is inserted. This sign is not used as a word-joining hyphen; it is used only in linebreaking.

Observation: The images appear to show a gap before the pameneng.

In online use, an application would need to insert the pameneng, rather than the content author. As line-length is changed by stretching a window, or as content is added earlier in the same paragraph, the location of the word relative to the line edge will change. The insertion of pameneng is only appropriate at those instants when the appropriate sequence of characters appears at the line end.

For an application to use this correctly, it would need to know where the word boundaries are in the text, and then put this character at the end of the line only when a multisyllabic word is broken. This would require a dictionary to be applied to the text, since it would not be appropriate to insert the pameneng at the boundary of 2 words.

Observation: Aditya Bayu Perdana has found instances in lontar where ᬄ is moved to the beginning of a line, alone, while a pameneng appears at the end of the previous line. If this is not just a scribal inconsistency (eg. it's not clear why you wouldn't put the bisah at the end of the line if there's space for a pameneng), it may indicate that this letter should not be a combining mark in Unicode; however, the usage needs to be verified first. See pictures.

Text alignment & justification

According to Sudewa, full justification is not a feature of Balinese text in traditional palm-leaf manuscripts, and only left, or occasionally centred or right alignment is relevant.

Baselines, line height, etc.

Balinese uses the so-called 'alphabetic' baseline, which is the same as for Latin and many other scripts.

fig_baselines shows glyphs from the Noto Serif fonts. The basic height of Balinese letters is the same as the Latin x-height, however extenders and combining marks, extend well beyond the Latin ascenders and descenders, creating a need for larger line heights.

General page layout & progression

Traditionally, Balinese was written on thin, landscape palm-leaf manuscripts, called lontar.

The text was packed in without paragraph breaks.