Variation in the Bugis/Makasarese script

Abstract

VARIATION IN THE BUGISIMAKASARESE SCRIPT''...there can he no writing of history without a history of writing. ' Yuen Ren Chao (196159) As is wel1 known to those interested in the languages and literature of South Sulawesi, Indonesia, the Bugis and Makasarese living there have been using a specific script of their own for severai centuries.As to its structural, inner form, this Bugis/Makasarese script belongs to the Indian and Indian-derived scripts. As is characteristic of this type of script, it is made up of basic characters representing syllables each consisting of a consonant followed by the inherent vowel lal and diacritic marks representing vowels other than /a/ added to the basic character and replacing the inherent /al. A significant aspect of the BugislMakasarese script is that it has no sjxxial basic characters for syllable-initial vowels other than lal; the basic character for initial lal is useù for the other initial vowels by adding the appropriate vowel marks. The script is defective or incomplete in that it does not express consonant gemination, syllable-tinal consonants (nasals, except some homorganic ones in Bugis, and glottal stop) and (Bugis) finai vowel lengthening.The outer form of this syllabic-phonemic script can most adequately be illustrated with its special font of printing types, in their characteristic, (distantly) Indian-derived order (see Table 1).General works on the writing systems of the world seldom make mention of the Bugis andor Makasarese script (or of Indonesi'w scripts in general, for that matter). Even those which aim at exhaustiveness pay -t little attention to it, usually only including the characters in a table and giving a

A Gujarati Origin for Scripts of Sumatra, Sulawesi and the Philippines

“…We can conclude that the BM dot is a simplification of more complex strokes in an earlier BM variety similar to Ph. This conclusion is reinforced by the dot on the palm-leaf script ‹l› (Noorduyn 1993, Tol 2008) that appears instead of the usual arch. The curling stroke on the underside of the Ph and proto-script ‹t› has disappeared rather than turn into a dot in BM, perhaps to maintain contrast with ‹n›, whose PS and Ph shapes have more complex strokes under the arch.…”

“…No contrast with other letters hinges on the flourish; in fact, it is a final position variant of a plain up-angled stroke that follows an up-down stroke sequence. It is absent in some variants shown in Noorduyn (1993), in palm leaf script, and some early documents, and in the modern script never occurs on letters with a final upstroke preceded only by a downstroke. We may assume it is a later development and the earlier forms more closely approximate the original letter shapes.…”

“…Variation between these shapes is consistent with the hypothesis that Ph ‹s› developed by moving the tail to the end of the letter: modern standard ᨔ ‹s› corresponds to a form with the tail attached in situ to the "V" body of the letter, whereas the palm leaf ribbon variants, as in Ph, result from moving the tail. Variants of ‹k› include a cross shape (Noorduyn 1993) and the usual double dash, both with close counterparts in Mangyan scripts.…”

“…Noorduyn (1993) discusses an old variant of ‹a› with a single dot under the left arch rather than under the right arch as in standard ᨕ, which he attributed to individual scribal variation. However, several manuscripts illustrated in Tol (1996) show evidence for a left-dotted ‹a› and there is evidence from at least one manuscript (National Library of Indonesia No.…”

“…Current specialist consensus is that absent further discoveries, the similarities between the modern scripts and putative relatives are still too unclear for any convincing demonstration of their origins (de Casparis 1975, Noorduyn 1993, Cummings 2002, Kozok 1996. This paper presents evidence for a new theory that SSP scripts are descendants of an early variety of Gujarati script introduced into the archipelago, thus placing them in the Nagari group.…”