Talk:Lontara script

comments
I added the sections 'Structure' and 'Usage' as well as some minor edits throughout the article. Feedback is appreciated. Bob0513 (talk) 01:58, 6 November 2008 (UTC) I forgot to log in, IP#128.84.73.128 is me. I added a much longer sample text, as well as did some minor edits throughout the page, such as adding info on the pallawa punctuation character. Bob0513 (talk) 06:30, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi, you should never force special fonts like here < div style="font-family:Saweri,'MPH 2B Damase',Code2000,sans-serif"> – different fonts in the same text do not look good. The browser is perfectly able to render Lontara glyphs if there is one font installed in the system which knows them. If there is no such font on the visitor’s computer, even forcing a font does not help. --109.193.161.69 (talk) 17:14, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Comments for LING 1100-108 project
Great information on structure and usage, as well as the derivation of the name of the language. I also thought it was interesting that there is no marker for gemination, which seems to make the language kind of ambiguous. Suggestion for possible additional editing: add more about the origin and development of the writing system. Also, what other ancient languages does it relate to (others with the inherent "a" vowel)? Mmg86 (talk) 01:00, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

V syllables
Regarding undo's, independant vowels only can be used in the initial position. Refer to George Campbell's Compendium of the World's Language Bob0513 (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 02:09, 6 November 2008 (UTC).


 * Campbell discusses languages, and only gives the briefest coverage of scripts. The data here, from Daniels & Bright, contradicts that claim:   ᨙᨔᨕᨘᨓ seuwa and ᨆᨀᨘᨋᨕᨗ makunrai both have internal ᨕ. kwami (talk) 06:26, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Lontara's origin from Kawi
Is there any reliable source regarding this? I've been wondering, is it true that the script based on Kawi or Brahmic since the Bugis religion before Islam is Animism. As far as I know, Sureq Galigo didn't mentioned anything about Hinduism (they have their own story how the world been created), and I may be wrong. Based on this site, some group of Bugis still practive believes based on lontara (not the script but the manuscript). So, I think the script being originate from Kawi script or Brahmic family is still not a fact. Kurniasan (talk) 04:34, 7 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't know about Lontara being derived from Kawi, but it is incorrect to say that Hinduism and Buddhism never touched South Sulawesi. I can see that you're a Malaysian, so it's understandable. I'd expect Indonesians (especially the ones from South Sulawesi) to know that there have been influences of Brahmic religions prior to the coming of Islam. We have important artefacts such as the bronze Buddha statue, the name of the forefather of Gowa kingdom was "Batara Guru", and even the story you mentioned borrowed a lot of Hindu concepts. But yes, animism was stronger in Celebes than it was in Java, and later on, Islam was even stronger (it still is) that it's a bit difficult to see the traces of Hindu and Buddhist civilization in the area. Matahari Pagi (talk) 03:41, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I think the usage and development of Buginese script is not of religious doing, but of politics. In it's greatest extent, the Majapahit kingdom includes parts of Sulawesi. Majapahit was Hindu and used either Pallava or Kawi script for recording various official documents (not just religious). Difference between the two script are often blurry when I search it, as Kawi are just later development of Pallava with shape tweaks that can vary wildly from one inscriptions to another. So Buginese script are very likely to be based in Pallava or Kawi, but it got little to do with Animism, Hindu or Islam. It simply reached Sulawesi because of Majapahit kingdom's political extend. Alteaven (talk) 11:32, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

More Ling 1100-108 comments
Greetings! I agree with Madison. I thought that the organization into "usage" and "structure" and I'm actually strongly considering doing that for my own.

I was just a little confused in the usage section, however, where you start talking about how the script is still used in Bugis ceremonies. How is the script itself used in ceremonies? Do you use the script to make the wedding invitations? What did this mean? Along the same lines, I also think that the information regarding the evolution of the script needs to be expanded. If there isn't more information on how it developed (such as to which script family it belongs or some specific intricacies regarding its structure development), then that's okay, but the article hardly delves into it. This can go in "Usage" or maybe a separate "History" section.

Another suggestion is to cite some sources in your "Usage" section. Which of the sources did that information come from?

That's all! Otherwise, good job! --Rda2512 (talk) 01:42, 20 November 2008 (UTC) Rda2512 (talk • contribs) 01:37, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

W not labial
W does not represent the bilabial approximant in the IPA. If the sound is indeed, it should be recategorized as velar. ᛭ LokiClock (talk) 15:37, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
 * It's both. People don't generally bother with creating a separate column just for [w], but will place it with [kw], [gw], [xw] if they have a column. — kwami (talk) 20:54, 1 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Okay. I reviewed IPA classification of coarticulated sounds, which affirms this usage. What's the connection with [kw], [gw], [xw]? Are those allophonic alternations of [w]? ᛭ LokiClock (talk) 06:27, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * No, they're all just articulated the same way, just as [p], [b], [m] are. — kwami (talk) 08:39, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * They are not articulated the same way. They have the same place of articulation, but not the same manner of articulation. ᛭ LokiClock (talk) 12:24, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Incorrect encoding in chart for vowel /e/ (U+1A19)
The chart incorrectly encodes the vowel /e/ (U+1A19) before the base consonnant on which it applies. Unicode clearly says that the diacritic vowel must be encoded after the base consonnant, even if it visually appears on the left of the base consonnant. I corrected the chart to exhibit the expected logical encoding order (even if it displays wrong for now on most platforms, and that's why I also added a note at the bottom of the table, and then created the next sub-section about support of the script in Unicode applications).

There's no logical-order exception defined for this preposed vowel in the Lontara/Buginese script (unlike in the Thai, Lao, and Tai Viet scripts, that are encoded using the visual order).

May be you have drawn this chart using a font like "Saweri" or "MPH 2B Damase", but these fonts are incorrect (not conforming to Unicode) about the placement of this vowel, if they are used with a TrueType-only implementation for text rendering, or with an OpenType implementation that does not recognize the script and implements at least its mandatory glyph reordering (OpenType renderers on Windows, MAcOSX and Linux still don't implement it in their text shaping/layout engine, only MacOSX can support the script but only if using OpenType fonts containing AAT layout tables, which are specific to the MacOSX platform and ignored on other platforms). Note that I also don't know if the script can be supported in other platforms, using TrueType fonts containing SIL Graphite feature tables, rather than OpenType feature tables, and a Graphite-enabled application (such as OpenOffice), and I also don't know if such TrueType font with Graphite features exists for now (it does not seem to be the case).

Still, you should not encode the vowel blindly before the consonnant because it breaks the analysis of grapheme cluster boundaries, (in the chart, the vowel currently appears combined with the previous space; this should not occur, because the vowel may also occur in the middle of a word and must be correctly ordered).

A temporary workaround is possible, but it requires encoding the vowel E as a separate letter in isolation, using a non-breaking space to hold it. But this has caveats, notably because it breaks the logical ordering of words, and does not warranty that the letter shown in isolation this way will not have spacing on both sides, increasing the normal side-bearings (unless the TrueType or OpenType font contains a special kerning or positioning pair for the space glyph followed by the spacing glyph of the diacritic vowel, to properly adjust the width and placement of the combination; but for now, no TrueType or OpenType font contain such kerning pair, despite of the fact that the Unicode standard specifies that all diacritics should be properly shown in isolation by encoding it after a space (either U+0020 for the usual space or the stronlgly recommanded non-breaking space U+00A0).

This issue is in fact not specific to the Buginese script, but occurs with any Brahmic script that uses prepended diacritics (for example the Devanagari script, also for a vowel, requires reordering support in the text layout/shaping engine itself rather than within tweaked tables in TrueType/OpenType fonts; all other solutions are not portable and will break the Unicode conformance for correctly supporting the script).

verdy_p (talk) 15:15, 23 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I think parts describing the rendering of vowel /e/ is too exhaustive. By comparison, pages of other native Indonesian writing system (which also render vowel /e/ before consonants) such as Javanese and Balinese, do not go to such extend explaining this fact. Maybe it should be simplified into "Vowel e is written preceding a consonant, which may cause rendering error in unsupported fonts. These can be solved by...". Something like that, perhaps. Alteaven (talk) 11:48, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

I agree with, and also wonder whether the might not be ? yoyo (talk) 04:40, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

I meant but couldn't preview before publishing! 😞 yoyo (talk) 04:43, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Agree. The section "Form" is about the inherent characteristics of the script; rendering issues are just an artefact of digital processing. I'm not sure if all of is OR or maybe just badly undersourced. I wouldn't miss it if thrown out completely. –Austronesier (talk) 07:47, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

Phonology
I moved the Phonology section into the Buginese language article since it seems to be more suitable there. --Kurniasan (talk) 15:20, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Interesting fact but where's the reference?
I am interested in finding out what the reference was for the following statement I read in the wiki entry on the Buginese Language which perhaps should be included in this entry on the Lontara alphabet:

"Older texts, however, usually did not use diacritics at all, and readers were expected to identify words from context and thus provide the correct pronunciation. As one might expect, this led to erroneous readings; for example, bolo could be misread as bala by new readers."

Could anyone help in finding a source or reference? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.194.240.1 (talk) 16:08, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Name of Article
Buginese is not an alphabet, but an abugida. Although it's a common misconception, it shouldn't be the tittle as it is misleading. Alteaven (talk) 22:28, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

About the image with this caption:

"Sample of a handwritten book, written in Makassarese language with the Lontara script, of a diary of the Princes of Gowa. The palláwa punctuation signs, typical of this script, are drawn and colored in red, as well as a few proper names and some inserts in Arabic."

I should point out that the text in the illustrated pages is not typical lontara', but jangang-jangang script. Since JJ was only used to write Makassarese, it would be more appropriate to use the Makassarese term for the divider, which is 'passimbang' and not 'pallawa', as in Bugis. The illustration comes from the manuscript generally referred to (to myself and other colleagues working in the field) by its reference number 668-216, and is part of the holdings of the KITLV Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam. Jangang-jangang actually merits an article of its own, since it is a quite different script from Bugis-Makassarese lontara': the two have slightly different spelling conventions (among them the innovation of "angka", the Arabic 2 numeral, as a null-consonant vowel-bearer to "double" a previous consonant when one of two syllables beginning with the same consonant has /a/ as its vowel; in BM script, you can only double up vowel signs on a shared initial consonant letter if neither syllable has /a/). Also, JJ is in all likelihood (despite the term "lontara' beru" i.e. "new lontara'") a younger script dating back to the mid-to late 1500s and based directly on a decorative, vertical "Gaja Muda" style of South Sumatran script with a very few borrowings from Javanese script in a style used around the very early 1600s. (See my work on this at https://independent.academia.edu/ChristopherRayMiller; I am preparing a manuscript following on my presentation at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies symposium on Endangered Scripts of Island Southeast Asia last February-March that deals with the origins of Jangang-jangang and lontara' in greater detail.)

Kiwehtin (talk) 20:08, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Lontara alphabet or rather Lontara script?
Shouldn't the entry be titled Lontara script rather than Lontara alphabet, reserving the term "alphabet" for true alphabets like Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Georgian or even Hangul. As for now there seems to be a mess -- there's Brahmi script and Kawi script, but Pallava alphabet and Lontara alphabet although they are all abugidas working more or less the same way. Zalmoksis (talk) 17:16, 13 May 2017 (UTC)