Tuttle Balinese-English Dictionary. Norbert Shadeg

figurative use, figuratively Fr French fut future gen general Gyanyar from the Gyanyar regency Gk Greek H High usage Heb Hebrew i.e. id est imp imperative indef indefinite interro interrogative intrans intransitive interj interjection It Italian Jav Javanese K Kawi (literary or religious) Kamus the Kamus Bali Indonésia Karang from the Karangasem regency L Low usage Lat Latin Lk the Balinese translation of St Luke’s gospel Lom from the Lombok region M Middle usage masc masculine Mal Malay n noun NBali North Balinese N-formi base with nasalized initial num number, numeral, numerical n noun OBali Old Balinese ord ordinal pass passive past past tense Pers Persian pl plural poet poetic, used in poetry Port Portuguese poss possessive prep preposition pron pronoun ps person(al) 1ps first person 2ps second person 3ps third person Raf Raffles (from Raffles’ History of Java) R Refined usage, when H is not required and L is not appropriate rel relative S Sanskrit SBali South Balinese SWBali Southwest Balinese S-formi the simple base with unnasalized initial sing singular sth something Tabanan from the Tabanan regency Tam Tamil Teganan from the Teganan regency trans transitive Tuuk from van der Tuuk’s Woordenboek van Eck from van Eck’s Woordenboek vb verb WBali West Balinese

      Balinese Writing

      The native script of Bali is of Indian origin and is ordered on the pattern of the principal Indian alphabets. The writing runs from left to right, and the letters are hung from a line, not written on a line. In this script the basic characters represent syllables, each character representing a consonant followed by the vowel a. By adding a sign above, below, or to left or right, this a is changed to another vowel. There are three signs that stand for vowelless h, ng, and -r at the end of a syllable. Otherwise, if it is necessary to indicate that a consonant has no vowel it is ‘killed’ (matyang) by putting a sign after it (tengenan or hadeghadeg).

      When a consonant is followed immediately by another consonant, the second is written in its conjunct form, usually differing in shape, sometimes very considerably. These conjunct consonants are called haksara wrehastra, and are usually written below the preceding one, but sometimes to its right. Since Balinese is written without separating words, these conjunct consonants occur very much more frequently than one would expect from the structure of single words. If a consonant-group would be very awkward to write the first (at the end of a word) is written with tengenan. Three consonants can be written together if the third is r, w, or y, or if the second is s, ş, or p (and ph), since these last are written beside the first, not below it; e.g. ntr, mpr, ngky, ksm. These grouped signs are treated as if they were single letters, the vowel-signs being written quite normally with them, the vowel being pronounced with the last consonant. (This can be disconcerting, since é will occur apparently within the preceding word.)

      Since the sound-system of Balinese is very simple, it can be written with 18 consonants. These are listed in the alphabet (hanäcaraka), which retains 18 signs of the Kawi alphabet, which had the 47 characters of Sanskrit. In common use, but not included in the hanäcaraka, are the syllables re and le; le only occurs as a syllable, but re has a conjunct form (used at the beginning of a word after a final consonant) and a form as a vowel-sign, used within words (e.g. tresna). These twenty characters are known to all Balinese. The literary language retains and uses the remaining 27 Kawi letters, known only to the learned. These are called haksara wayah (‘old letters’) and are also used by them in ordinary Balinese as we use capital