30 Facts About Javanese script

Javanese script is one of Indonesia's traditional scripts developed on the island of Java.

Javanese script was actively used by the Javanese people for writing day-to-day and literary texts from at least the mid-15th century CE until the mid-20th century CE, before its function was gradually supplanted by the Latin alphabet.

Today the script is taught in DI Yogyakarta, Central Java, and the East Java Province as part of the local curriculum, but with very limited function in everyday use.

Javanese script is an abugida writing system which consists of 20 to 33 basic letters, depending on the language being written.

Traditionally, the Javanese script is written without space between words but is interspersed with a group of decorative punctuation.

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Javanese script is one of the Brahmi descendants in Indonesia in which its evolutionary history can be traced fairly well due to the numerous inscriptional evidences that permitted epigraphical studies.

The oldest root of the Javanese script is Indian Brahmi script which evolves into Pallava script in Southern India and Southeast Asia between the 6th and 8th centuries.

Pallava Javanese script, in turn, evolved into Kawi Javanese script which was actively used throughout Indonesia's Hindu-Buddhist period between the 8th and 15th centuries.

At least 500 years, from the 15th until the mid 20th century, Javanese script was actively used by the Javanese people for writing day-to-day and literary texts with a wide range of a theme and content.

Javanese script was used throughout the island at a time when there was no easy means of communication between remote areas and no impulse towards standardization.

Javanese script writing traditions are especially cultivated in the Kraton environment, but Javanese script texts are known to be made and used by all layers of society.

Javanese script literature is almost always composed in metrical verses that are designed to be sung, thus Javanese script texts are not only judged by their content and language but by the merit of their melody and rhythm during recitation sessions.

Javanese script has been written with numerous media that have shifted over time.

Kawi script, which is ancestral to Javanese script, is often found on stone inscriptions and copper plates.

Alongside the increase of European paper supply, attempts to create Javanese script printing type began, spearheaded by several European figures.

At least 500 years, from the 15th century until the mid 20th century, Javanese script was used by all layers of Javanese society for writing day-to-day and literary texts with a wide range of theme and content.

Javanese script poets are not expected to create new stories and characters; instead the role of the poet is to rewrite and recompose existing stories into forms that are suitable to local taste and prevailing trends.

Javanese script's typeface was first put in use in the Bataviasche Courant newspaper's October 1825 issue.

The use of Javanese script only started to drop significantly during the Japanese occupation of Indonesia beginning in 1942.

Nevertheless, the use of Javanese script did decline significantly during the Japanese occupation and it never recovered its previous widespread use in post-independence Indonesia.

In contemporary usage, Javanese script is still taught as part of the local curriculum in Yogyakarta, Central Java, and the East Java Province.

However, many contemporary attempts to revive Javanese script are symbolic rather than functional; there are no longer, for example, periodicals like Kajawen magazine that publish significant content in Javanese script.

Javanese script contains around 45 letters, but not all of them are used equally.

The modern Javanese script only uses 20 consonants and 20 basic letters known as aksara nglegena.

Javanese script has 14 vowel letters inherited from the Sanskrit tradition.

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Javanese script has its own numerals that behave similarly to Arabic numerals.

However, most Javanese script numerals has the exact same glyph as several basic letters, for example the numeral 1 ? and wyanjana letter ga ?, or the numeral 8 ? and murda letter pa ?.

Traditional Javanese texts are written with no spaces between words with several punctuation marks called pada.

For Sanskrit and Kawi orthography that requires 33 basic letters, the Javanese script can be arranged phonologically by its place of articulation in accordance to the Sanskrit principle established by Panini.

Javanese script was added to the Unicode Standard in October, 2009 with the release of version 5.