Javanese

Vowel absence

ꦏ꧀ k U+A98F JAVANESE LETTER KA + U+A9C0 JAVANESE PANGKON

Where no letter follows a consonant and the vowel is silent, for example at the end of a sentence or isolated word or before a number, a visible A9C0 is used to indicate that the inherent vowel is suppressed, eg. the example to the right explicitly represents just the sound k.

The pangkon is also used to produce conjunct forms for consonant clusters (stacking or conjoined shapes), in which case it is invisible (see clusters). Because Javanese commonly combines the last character of one word and the first of another into a conjunct, the pangkon is often not visible after words that end with a consonant within a sentence.

There are some exceptions, especially where the pangkon may be used to disambiguate words, eg. ꦧꦶꦱ꧀ꦠꦿꦤ꧀​ꦱ꧀ꦗꦏꦂꦠ

No pangkon is needed between an onset consonant and a medial consonant, or after a dedicated final consonant.

Vowel signs

ꦏꦶ ki U+A98F JAVANESE LETTER KA + U+A9B6 JAVANESE VOWEL SIGN WULU

Javanese uses the following dedicated combining marks for vowels. They may be used on their own, or in combination with others (see compositeV).

Additional information about archaic forms and variants of these characters and others mentioned below can be found in the character notes document.

A9B4 was originally a length mark, but in modern Javanese it is only used in the combination described in the section compositeV.

Modern Javanese doesn't write the sounds rə and lə using the consonant+vowel combinations *ꦫꦼ U+A9AB LETTER RA + U+A9BC VOWEL SIGN PEPET or *ꦭꦼ U+A9AD LETTER LA + U+A9BC VOWEL SIGN PEPET. Vocalic letters are used instead,ws,#Swara eg. ꦊꦩꦃꦊꦩ꧀ꦧꦸꦠ꧀

When a vowel sign follows a subjoined consonant it appears above the stack.

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

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 an orthographic 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 it is rendered as a conjunct (see prebase).

See also vocalics.

Composite vowel signs

In Javanese, unlike many other scripts, including Balinese, when a vowel is represented by multiple glyphs either side of a base character two separate combining marks need to be added to the base. Javanese has no circumgraphs (ie. a single code point that places glyphs around the base).

Only one such composite vowel sign is used for modern Javanese, A9BA A9B4, which represents the sound o. Both characters are typed and stored after the base character, and should be in the order shown.

A two-part vowel associated with a consonant cluster appears before and after the whole cluster, whether it is conjoined or stacked. This is a reminder that vowel signs are applied to the orthographic syllable, rather than to a single letter. In fig_composite_word_break this actually extends across a word boundary, since the last and first letters of the adjoining words form a conjunct cluster. This means that the pre-base part of the vowel sign appears to be within the previous word.

Pre-base vowel sign

One vowel sign appears to the left of the base consonant letter or cluster in modern Javanese.

This is a combining mark that is always stored after the base consonant. The rendering process places the glyph before the base consonant.

Vowel signs

The normal approach combines a vowel sign with A9B2, eg. ꦧꦲꦸꦱꦱ꧀ꦠꦿ ꦩꦲꦺꦴꦱ꧀

Without a vowel sign the letter A9B2 represents a, eg. ꦲꦕꦫ

However, it may alternatively represent the sound ha. The reading is ambiguous, eg. compare the previous example with this: ꦲꦤꦕꦫꦏ

The same applies for other combinations of this base letter and vowel sign.

Independent vowels

There are 8 independent vowel letters in the Javanese block, of which 5 are used in modern text.

The independent vowel letters are used in Javanese to distinguish proper nouns or foreign words from ordinary wordsu, eg. compare the following two words, which include an adjective and a personal name (both have the same pronunciation): ꦲꦪꦸ ꦄꦪꦸ

Other forms

Unlike Javanese, Kawi uses A985 and A986 for short and long, respectively.d

Conjunct formation

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

In Unicode, the stacking and conjoining behaviour is achieved by adding A9C0 between the consonants. The font hides the glyph automatically when a stacked conjunct is formed. However, in some cases the glyph needs to remain visible.

Stacking

To represent consonants without intervening vowels, the non-initial consonant is typically drawn below the initial consonant.

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

This list shows 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. fig_conjoined_p shows an example in the word ꦱꦩ꧀ꦥꦸꦤ꧀.

This list shows consonants in their normal and conjoined forms

The conjoined A9B1 is unusual in that it also adds a glyph (resembling the vowel sign A9B8) below the initial consonant. This helps distinguish it from the conjoined p. See fig_conjoined_p for an example in the word ꦲꦏ꧀ꦱꦫ.

Visible pangkon

Occasionally A9C0 may be visible in the middle of a word, eg. ꦧꦶꦱ꧀ꦠꦿꦤ꧀​ꦱ꧀ꦗꦏꦂꦠ

The Javanese section of the Unicode Standard doesn't indicate how to force the pangkon to remain visible, but the Balinese section 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.

Dedicated medial & final marks

Javanese represents some final consonants using dedicated marks. There are also dedicated marks for medial consonants. Such marks are preceded and/or 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.

Shaping

Glyph shaping is required for Javanese. One principle area is that of subjoined or postfixed consonants, which often interact typographically with the preceding consonant.

Not all fonts show the same shaping behaviours.

In fig_k_joins, the three syllables, each containing a k-k stack, show how the font adapts the subjoined A98F at the bottom right according to what follows it.

The following two syllables show how the font changes the shape of A9BF to match the depth of the syllable.

The fig_ku_shaping the font shows different renderings of the u vowel sign after the second character in a consonant cluster. In kru the lines suggest that the medial r is drawn after the u, although it is pronounced the other way around.

Note that the middle cluster contains only one u character. The similar-looking shape in the middle of the word is just part of the kS conjoined shape. The rightmost cluster uses a ligature for -ru, where the chakra appears to be drawn after the u, although actually stored before it.

Context-based positioning

Obviously the principle of subjoining consonants requires rules about positioning, and those rules need to be disregarded for combinations where the second character of a cluster is not subjoined (though it usually changes shape).

In the following example we see ka with cecak telu on the left. In the middle syllable cecak telu has shifted slightly to the left to make room for the other diacritic. In the right-hand syllable the cecak telu has both moved and reduced in size to fit with the other diacritic.

Another example of the need for special positioning occurs when a vowel sign is pronounced after a subjoined consonant but appears above the previous consonant in the stack (see the example earlier).

Grapheme clusters

Base Combining_mark*

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

1. Cecak telu (nukta) [1] (see extendedC)
2. Medial consonants [3] (see onsets)
3. Vowel signs [5] (see combiningV)
4. Final consonants [4] (see finals)
5. Virama (pangkon) [1] (see novowel)

Javanese grapheme clusters that include a syllable nucleus usually begin with a consonant, but can also begin with an independent vowel, and occasionally numbers also constitute a base (and by some reports may be followed by combining marks).

Syllable codas may be represented by a combining mark, or may be incorporated into a consonant cluster, but they may also be written using a sequence of consonant letter (possibly including a cecak telu) followed by a pangkon, which is visible if no base immediately follows it, eg.

The following examples show a variety of grapheme clusters:

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

	ꦠꦶꦂꦠ
	ꦏꦿꦶꦪ
	ꦱꦼꦏꦺꦴꦭꦃ
	ꦏꦔꦼꦤ꧀
	ꦏꦤ꧀ꦛꦶ
	ꦲꦏ꧀ꦱꦫ

Note how grapheme clusters break up the conjuncts in the last 2 examples. This is not usually desirable (see orthographicS just below).

Larger typographic units

(Base Cecak_telu? Pangkon)* Grapheme_cluster

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

Javanese 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_pangandika for an example.

Grapheme clusters terminate after a sequence of marks containing a pangkon, 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 A9C0, and the final grapheme cluster begins with a consonant.

The following are examples. The first 2 examples were shown in the previous section: here the conjunct is treated as a single typographic unit.

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

	ꦏꦤ꧀ꦛꦶ
	ꦲꦏ꧀ꦱꦫ
	ꦏꦭꦶꦱ꧀ꦠꦿꦶꦏꦤ꧀

Note that one of the characteristic features of the Indic category of Virama is that the pangkon is visible when not followed by a consonant, but invisible when a consonant does follow (creating a stack). This means that the pangkon 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 a pangkon 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.

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 Balinese 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.

Letters

Letters may begin with ꧋꧆꧋ if the writer doesn't want to indicate a distinction regarding age or rank between themselves and the reader. Otherwise, for more formal letters, they can choose one of three alternatives provided as single characters in the Javanese Unicode block.

• A9C5 is used for letters to people of greater age or higher rank,
• A9C4 for people of equal age/rank, and
• A9C3 for people of lower age/rank. The difference between these three is the height of the swash to the far left.

The end of a letter can be signaled using ꧉꧆꧉ This combination may also involve just ꧆꧉or may be repeated with spaces between to fill the linee, eg.
꧉ ꧆ ꧉ ꧆ ꧉ ꧆ ꧉

Poetry

In poetry ꧅ꦧ꧀ꦖ꧅ or ꧅ꦧ꧀ꦕ꧅ (purwapada) introduces a poem; ꧅ꦟ꧀ꦢꦿ꧅ (madyapada) introduces a new song within a poem; and ꧅ꦆ꧅ (wasanapada) indicates the end of a poem.

Optionally, A9C9 can be added to the above with some space around it. The spaces should be non-breaking, since there should be no line-breaks between the constituent partse, eg.
꧅ ꧉ ꦧ꧀ꦖ ꧉ ꧅

Titles

Titles may be marked by a pair of rerenggan characters, ie. ꧁...꧂ The glyphs for these characters may vary substantially.

Bracketed text

Javanese commonly uses native punctuation to insert parenthetical information into text.

Typically a pair of A9CA characters are used.

Alternatively, the pair of characters A9CC and A9CD may be used.

Abbreviation

According to Everson A9C8 is used for acronyms, eg. ꧈ꦢꦺ꧈ꦲ꧈ꦌꦭ꧀꧈

It is also used after initials in a name,e eg. ꦫ꧈ꦩ꧈ꦯꦸꦭꦂꦠ

Repetition

A repeated syllable can be represented by A9CF, which is derived from the arabic-indic digit for 2, eg. ꦧꦸꦏꦸꧏ buku-buku books It can be transcribed as buku2.

For 'ditto' marks in vertical lists, Javanese uses A9C9 .

Correction marks

According to Wikipedia A9DF is used in handwriting to indicate a correction in Yogyakarta, eg. where a scribe wanted to write pada luhur but actually wrote pada wu.. they would use this mark as follows: ꦥꦢꦮꦸ꧟꧟꧟ꦭꦸꦲꦸꦂ

In Yogyakarta they would use the character A9DE instead.

Taling duplication

In some materials, when a new line begins with A9BA, an additional spacing taling is placed at the end of the previous line.

In online use, an application would need to create the extra taling, 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 an extra taling is only appropriate at those instants when the taling happens to appear at the line start.

Line-edge rules

As in almost all writing systems, certain punctuation characters should not appear at the end or the start of a line. The Unicode line-break properties help applications decide whether a character should appear at the start or end of a line.

Show line-breaking properties for characters in the modern Javanese orthography.

The following list gives examples of typical behaviours for some of the characters used in modern Javanese. Context may affect the behaviour of some of these and other characters.

Click/tap on the Javanese characters to show what they are.

• ꧈ ꧉ ꧇   should not begin a new line.
• ꧊ ꧋ ꧌ ꧍ ꧁ ꧂ ꧅ ꧄ ꧃   should not allow a linebreak unless next to whitespace or another character that allows line breaks.

Paragraph indents

Observation: One of the articles in the Kajawen publication uses paragraph indents. See an example.