The Balinese script is an abugida that was used to write the Balinese language, an Austronesian language spoken by about three million people on the Indonesian island of Bali. The use of the Balinese alphabet has mostly been replaced by the Roman alphabet. Although it is learned in school, few people use it. It is mostly used in temples and for religious writings.

The Balinese script was derived from the Old Kawi alphabet, which ultimately derived from the Brahmi alphabet, the root of all the Indic and Southeast Asian abugidas.

Like most abugidas, each letter has an inherent vowel of /a/. Other vowels are indicated by using diacritics, which can appear above, below, to the left, or to the right of the consonant.

Similarities with the Javanese script

The Balinese and Javanese scripts are essentially typographic variants.

Balinese script	Javanese script

Balinese in Unicode

The Unicode range for Balinese is U+1B00 ... U+1B7F. Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points.

External links

• Entry on Balinese at Omniglot.com -- A guide to writing systems
• Computerization of Balinese Script
• Michael Everson, Coding of Balinese Script to Unicode