Rejang script

The Rejang script or Kaganga script, sometimes spelt Redjang and locally known as Surat Ulu ('upstream script'), is an abugida of the Brahmic family, and is related to other scripts of the region, like Batak, Lontara, and others. Rejang is a member of the closely related group of Surat Ulu scripts that include the script variants of Bengkulu, Lembak, Lintang, Lebong, and Serawai. Other scripts that are closely related, and sometimes included in the Surat Ulu group, are Kerinci and Lampung. The script was in use prior to the introduction of Islam to the Rejang area; the earliest attested document appears to date from the mid-18th century CE. The Rejang script is sometimes also known as the KaGaNga script following the first three letters of the alphabet. The term KaGaNga was never used by the users of the script community, but it was coined by the British anthropologist Mervyn A. Jaspan (1926–1975) in his book Folk literature of South Sumatra. Redjang Ka-Ga-Nga texts. Canberra, The Australian National University 1964.

Rejang
ꥆꤰ꥓ꤼꤽ ꤽꥍꤺꥏ
Type
LanguagesRejang
Time period
?–present
Parent systems
Proto-Sinaitic alphabet
Sister systems
Balinese
Batak
Baybayin scripts
Javanese
Lontara
Old Sundanese
Rencong
DirectionLeft-to-right
ISO 15924Rjng, 363
Unicode alias
Rejang
Unicode range
U+A930–U+A95F

The script was used to write texts in Malay and Rejang, which is now spoken by about 200,000 people living in Indonesia on the island of Sumatra in the southwest highlands, north Bengkulu Province, around Argamakmur, Muaraaman, Curup, and Kepahiang, and also in the Rawas area of South Sumatra Province, near Muara Kulam. There are five major dialects of Rejang: Lebong, Musi, Kebanagung, Pesisir (all in Bengkulu Province), and Rawas (in South Sumatra Province). Most of its users live in fairly remote rural areas, of whom slightly less than half are literate.

The traditional Rejang corpus consists chiefly of ritual texts, medical incantations, and poetry.

Letters

Letters of the script can be found in the inscription below:[1][2]

Rejang abugida, with transliterations

Letters with IPA

The script's diacritics are attached here to the base letter a (ꥆ) to disambiguate similar ones if the base letter isn't used, like in the case with /i/, /u/, /əu̯/, and /ɛa̯/. Exception for the virama, in which its base letter is ka (ꤰ).

Rejang abugida with IPA notation[3]
Rejang ꤰ ꤱ ꤲ ꤳ ꤴ ꤵ ꤶ ꤷ ꤸ ꤹ ꤺ ꤻ ꤼ ꤽ ꤾ ꤿ
IPA [k] [ɡ] [ŋ] [t] [d] [n] [p] [b] [m] [c] [ɟ] [ɲ] [s] [r] [l] [j]
Rejang ꥀ ꥁ ꥂ ꥃ ꥄ ꥅ ꥆ ꥆꥇ ꥆꥈ ꥆꥉ ꥆꥊ ꥆꥋ ꥆꥌ ꥆꥍ ꥆꥎ ꥆꥏ
IPA [w] [h] [mb] [ŋg] [nd] [ɲɟ] [a], [ə] [i], [ɪ] [u], [ʊ] [ɛ], [e] [ai̯] [o], [ɔ] [au̯] [əu̯] [ɛa̯] final [ŋ]
Rejang ꥆꥐ ꥆꥑ ꥆꥒ ꤰ꥓
IPA final [n] final [r] final [ʔ] (no vowel)

Unicode
Main article: Rejang (Unicode block)

Rejang script was added to the Unicode Standard in April, 2008 with the release of version 5.1. The Unicode block for Rejang is U+A930–U+A95F:

Rejang[1][2]
Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
 0123456789ABCDEF
U+A93x ꤰ ꤱ ꤲ ꤳ ꤴ ꤵ ꤶ ꤷ ꤸ ꤹ ꤺ ꤻ ꤼ ꤽ ꤾ ꤿ
U+A94x ꥀ ꥁ ꥂ ꥃ ꥄ ꥅ ꥆ ꥇ ꥈ ꥉ ꥊ ꥋ ꥌ ꥍ ꥎ ꥏ
U+A95x ꥐ ꥑ ꥒ ꥓ ꥟
Notes
1.^ As of Unicode version 13.0
2.^ Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points
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References
  1. Crawfurd, John. (1820). History of the Indian Archipelago (vol. 2).
  2. Everson, Michael. (2006). Proposal for encoding the Rejang script in the BMP of the UCS.
  3. Omniglot. Rejang. Retrieved 23 March 2019.

See also
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