Balinese language

Not to be confused with Bali language (disambiguation).

Balinese
ᬪᬵᬱᬩᬮᬶ, ᬩᬲᬩᬮᬶ Basa Bali, Bhāṣā Bali
Region	Bali, Nusa Penida, Lombok and Java, Indonesia
Ethnicity	Balinese, Bali Aga
Native speakers	3.3 million (2000 census)
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Nuclear Malayo-Polynesian Malayo-Sumbawan Bali–Sasak Balinese
Writing system	Latin, Balinese
Language codes
ISO 639-2	ban
ISO 639-3	ban
Glottolog	bali1278

Balinese or simply Bali is a Malayo-Polynesian language spoken by 3.3 million people (as of 2000) on the Indonesian island of Bali, as well as northern Nusa Penida, western Lombok and eastern Java. Most Balinese speakers also know Indonesian.

In 2011, the Bali Cultural Agency estimates that the number of people still using Balinese language in their daily lives on the Bali Island does not exceed 1 million, as in urban areas their parents only introduce Indonesian language or even English, while daily conversations in the institutions and the mass media have disappeared. The written form of the Balinese language is increasingly unfamiliar and most Balinese people use the Balinese language only as a spoken tool with mixing of Indonesian language in their daily conversation. But in the transmigration areas outside Bali Island, Balinese language is extensively used and believed to play an important role in the survival of the language.

The higher registers of the language borrow extensively from Javanese: an old form of classical Javanese, Kawi, is used in Bali as a religious and ceremonial language.

Phonology

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
Mid	e	ə	o
Low		a

The official spelling denotes both /a/ and /ə/ by a. However, a is usually pronounced [ə] when it ends a word, and [ə] occurs also in prefixes ma-, pa- and da-.

Consonants

	Labial		Dental		Palatal		Velar		Glottal
Nasal		m		n		ɲ		ŋ
Stop/Affricate	p	b	t	d	tʃ	dʒ	k	g
Fricative			s						h
Approximant (Lateral)						j		w
				l
Trill				r

Stress

Stress falls on the last syllable.

Grammar

The word order is similar to that of standard Indonesian, and verb and noun inflectional morphology is similarly minimal. However, derivational morphology is extensive, and suffixes are applied to indicate definite or indefinite articles, and optionally to indicate possession.

Registers

Balinese has different registers depending on the relationship and status of those speaking: low (basa ketah), middle (basa madia), and high (basa singgih). Basa singgih contains many loanwords from Sanskrit and Javanese.

Numerals

Main article: Balinese numerals

Balinese has a decimal numeral system, but this is complicated by numerous words for intermediate quantities such as 45, 175, and 1600.

Writing

Balinese has been written in two different writing systems: the Balinese script, and in modern times the Latin script.

Balinese script

Basic signs of the Balinese script
Note: The script is arranged in Javanese order.

Main article: Balinese script

The Balinese script (Aksara Bali, ᬅᬓ᭄ᬱᬭᬩᬮᬶ), which is arranged as Hanacaraka (ᬳᬦᬘᬭᬓ), is an abugida, ultimately derived from the Brāhmī script of India. The earliest known inscriptions date from the 11th century AD.

Few people today are familiar with the Balinese script. The Balinese Script is almost the same as Javanese script.

Latin alphabet

Schools in Bali today teach a Latin alphabet known as Tulisan Bali.

Note

^1 In Balinese script, sanskrit and kawi loanword has different orthography than native words. The first Balinese script is influenced by orthography of sanskrit and kawi as word basa derives from the Sanskrit word भाषा bhāṣā. Meanwhile, diacritics is not written in current romanization of Balinese language. Thus, ᬪᬵᬱᬩᬮᬶ and basa Bali are the standard forms.

See also

• Balinese (Unicode block)

External links

• The Balinese Digital Library.
• Widiadana R. A. & Erviani N. K. (29 January 2011). Ancient ‘lontar’ manuscripts go digital. The Jakarta Post.
• Erviani N. K. (14 January 2011). US scholar brings ancient Balinese scripts to digital age. The Jakarta Post.
• http://unicode-table.com/en/sections/balinese/
• Paradisec open access recording of Balinese song.