This page brings together basic information about the Kayah Li script and its use for the Western Kayah language. It aims to provide a brief, descriptive summary of the modern, printed orthography and typographic features, and to advise how to write Western Kayah using Unicode.
Sample
Select part of this sample text to show a list of characters, with links to more details. Change size: 28px
Kayah Li is used to write the Eastern and Western Kayah Li languages, spoken by 360,000 and 210,000 people, respectively. Although native to Myanmar, these languages are now also spoken by significant numbers of refugees in Thailand, where the Kayah Li script is taught in schools.
ꤊꤢ꤬ꤛꤢ꤭ꤜꤟꤤ꤬ ꤢ꤬ꤜꤤ꤬ꤊꤢ꤬ꤛꤢ꤭ꤜꤟꤤ꤬ ꤍꤟꤥ
The Kayah Li script was invented in 1962 by Htae Bu Phae (also written Hteh Bu Phe).
The Kayah Li script is an alphabet. Both consonants and vowels are indicated by letters. See the table to the right for a brief overview of features for the Western Kayah language.
Kayah Li text runs left to right in horizontal lines.
It is a fairly simple and straightforward writing system.
Words are separated by spaces, and can be multi-syllabic.
Kayah Li has 24 basic consonant letters. Two are not commonly used, and one is used for more than one sound. Otherwise, things are very phonetic. ❯ consonants
There are no syllable or word final consonants, but syllable-initial clusters may include up to 4 consonants. ❯ clusters
Kayah Li has a mixed approach to vowel letters. 4 basic letters are written as simple characters, and 5 more vowels are written using ꤢ [U+A922 KAYAH LI LETTER A] and a combining character. The one common diphthong, ɯə, is somewhat more complicated, however, and uses different sequences of consonant characters to write breathy and non-breathy forms. The combining vowel diacritics can also be used with ꤣ [U+A923 KAYAH LI LETTER OE] to write diphthongs used in loan words. ❯ vowels
Kayah Li has 3 combining tone marks, which are always used in a straightforward way at the end of every syllable to indicate one of 4 tones. One tone is not marked. ❯ tones
Kayah Li has its own set of decimal digits. ❯ numbers
Character index
Letters
Show
Basic consonants
ꤟ␣ꤛ␣ꤕ␣ꤙ␣ꤖ␣ꤒ␣ꤘ␣ꤓ␣ꤊ␣ꤋ␣ꤌ␣ꤡ␣ꤠ␣ꤞ␣ꤎ␣ꤐ␣ꤏ␣ꤗ␣ꤔ␣ꤑ␣ꤍ␣ꤝ␣ꤚ␣ꤜ
Vowels
ꤢ␣ꤤ␣ꤥ␣ꤣ
Combining marks
Show
Vowels
ꤦ␣ꤧ␣ꤨ␣ꤩ␣ꤪ
Tones
꤬␣꤫␣꤭
Numbers
Show꤁␣꤂␣꤃␣꤄␣꤅␣꤆␣꤇␣꤈␣꤉␣꤀
Punctuation
Show꤯␣“␣”␣꤮
ASCII
,␣;␣:␣?␣!␣(␣)
Items to show in lists
Phonology
The following represents the repertoire of the Western Red Karen language.
Click on the sounds to reveal locations in this document where they are mentioned.
Phones in a lighter colour are non-native or allophones. Sources Helgerson, Wikipedia.
Vowel sounds
Plain vowels
Diphthongs
The diphthongs beginning with schwa are used in loanwords.ws
Consonant sounds
labial
dental
alveolar
post-
alveolar
retroflex
palatal
velar
glottal
stops
pb
td
kɡ
aspirated
pʰ
tʰ
kʰ
affricates
d͡ʒ
fricatives
v
θ
sz
ʃ
ʂ
x
h
aspirated
sʰ
nasals
m
n
ɲ
ŋ
approximants
w
l
j
trills/flaps
r
The sounds g and s are used in loan words.h
Structure
Kayah has 4 syllable types. The CV syllable pattern is the most common.h
V, CV, CCV, CCCV
The syllable-initial consonant clusters involve one or more of the following after the initial.
j, w, r, l
For a list of possible combinations, see clusters.
Tones and breathiness are applied to the syllable nucleus. There are 4 tones.
Kayah words can be 1 – 3 syllables in length, and compound words are relatively common.h
Vowels
Basic vowels
Some of the vowel sounds for Kayah are written with single characters, and the rest use a combination of ꤢ [U+A922 KAYAH LI LETTER A] and one of the following diacritics.
ꤦ␣ꤨ␣ꤩ␣ꤧ␣ꤪ
This makes for a basic set of vowels as follows:
ꤤ␣ꤢꤦ␣ꤢꤨ␣ꤢꤩ␣ꤥ␣ꤢꤧ␣ꤢꤪ␣ꤣ␣ꤢ
The diphthong ɯə is written in two different ways, one with and one without breathiness.h
ꤛꤣ␣ꤟꤌꤣ
Additional diphthongs
Five additional diphthongs, used for loan words, are represented using diacritics over ꤣ [U+A923 KAYAH LI LETTER OE],ws
ꤣꤧ␣ꤣꤦ␣ꤣꤨ␣ꤣꤩ␣ꤣꤪ
Breathiness
Apart from the diphthong mentioned earlier, breathiness of vowels is indicated by immediately preceding the vowel with ꤟ [U+A91F KAYAH LI LETTER HA].
ꤍꤟꤥ
However, when ꤛ [U+A91B KAYAH LI LETTER YA] is the second or third consonant in a cluster, the HA is written before the YA,h eg. ꤡꤟꤛꤢ
Vowel sounds to characters
This section maps Kayah vowel sounds to common graphemes in the Kayah Li orthography, grouped by word-initial ( i ), medial ( m ), and final ( f ) types. Click on a grapheme to find other mentions on this page (links appear at the bottom of the page). Click on the character name to see examples and for detailed descriptions of the character(s) shown.
Sounds listed as 'infrequent' are allophones, or sounds used for foreign words, etc.
Observation: Different sources describe Kayah tones slightly differently, and this is an attempt to synthesise them.
Kayah Li has four tones, although the high tone is rarely seen. Each syllable is marked for tone, unless it has the mid-high tone. They are written as follows:
The tone marks all combine below the base (whereas vowel diacritics combine above). Examples:rꤞꤢꤨ꤬ꤞꤢꤨ꤭ꤞꤢꤨ
The tone mark is normally written as the last component of a syllable, ie. after the vowel.e (Some fonts will correctly display the sequence vowel_base+tone+vowel_diacritic, but in that case the application must be relied upon to treat both orders the same for comparisons.)
ꤌ [U+A90C KAYAH LI LETTER GA] is only normally found as part of the breathy diphthong ɯ̤ə,h though Helgerson says it may be used as in loan words, eg. ꤥ꤬ꤊꤟꤌꤣ
Breathy vowels add another consonant, ꤟ [U+A91F KAYAH LI LETTER HA], to these groups. It usually occurs immediately after the cluster, eg.
ꤗꤝꤟꤤ꤭ꤊꤜꤛꤢꤩ꤬ꤕꤜꤟꤢꤧ
But when the cluster contains j in second or third position it occurs before that,h eg. ꤢ꤬ꤕꤟꤛꤢꤞꤥ꤬ꤕꤜꤟꤛꤢꤩ꤬
Consonant sounds to characters
This section maps Kayah consonant sounds to common graphemes in the Kayah Li orthography. Click on a grapheme to find other mentions on this page (links appear at the bottom of the page). Click on the character name to see examples and for detailed descriptions of the character(s) shown.
Sounds listed as 'infrequent' are allophones, or sounds used for foreign words, etc.
Visually, two diacritics look as it they could be composed of smaller parts. This section gives guidance on which approach is best.
It is possible that someone may occasionally try to use 2 characters rather than the single character which is canonical. Doing so produces text that will not match correctly encoded text for search, spell-checking, and so on, and so should be avoided. The list below shows the characters in question.
This section brings together information about the following topics:
writing styles;
cursive text;
context-based shaping;
context-based positioning;
baselines, line height, etc.;
font styles;
case & other character transforms.
Kayah Li text is not cursive (ie. joined up like Arabic).
There are no pre-base vowels or circumgraphs, but combining vowel letters and (especially) tones need to be applied to each base character in an optimal way.
Kayah Li has no special requirements for baseline alignment between mixed scripts or in general.
The orthography has no case distinction, and no special transforms are needed to convert between characters.
Font styling & weight
tbd
Observation:Panels of text in a Tamil newspaper that uses oblique fonts, but all the body text of the panel uses that font. Other fonts used for the body text in other articles tended to also have a slight lean, though not as much. The verticals in headings tend to be upright.
Graphemes
Grapheme clusters
tbd
Punctuation & inline features
Word boundaries
Words are separated by spaces.
Phrase & section boundaries
,␣;␣:␣꤯␣?␣!
Kayah punctuation is mostly ASCII, however ꤯ [U+A92F KAYAH LI SIGN SHYA] is used as a phrase/sentence delimiter.u
This section looks at ways in which spacing is applied between characters over and above that which is introduced during justification.
Baselines, line height, etc.
tbd
Kayah uses the so-called 'alphabetic' baseline, which is the same as for Latin and many other scripts.
Counters, lists, etc.
tbd
Styling initials
tbd
Page & book layout
This section is for any features that are specific to Kayah Li and that relate to the following topics:
general page layout & progression;
grids & tables;
notes, footnotes, etc;
forms & user interaction;
page numbering, running headers, etc.
