What Makes the Balinese Alphabet Unique?

[Hornbein]

The Balinese alphabet perhaps the prettiest in the world. It is in the style of Gujarati and has the unique feature that the alphabet is a poem. The translation is

There were (two) emissaries.
They met in battle
Their valor was equal
They both fell dead

 

[DaveC426913]

I am unable to parse this.

How can an alphabet be a poem?

 

[Hornbein]

I am unable to parse this.

How can an alphabet be a poem?

Read the letters aloud in order and they form words with this meaning.

 

[Hornbein]

It's easier because in eastern and southern Asian alphabets most of the letters are for a consonant followed by an "ah". The first line of the Balinese alphabet poem is five letters that form "anacharaka." [a-na-ca-ra-ka]. Indeed anacharaka is the name of the alphabet.

In English we have the alphabet song, same thing but it doesn't form words. Notice that we say the letter is "be" while in use it is actually "b", and so forth.

Most if not all eastern and southern Asian languages are like this.* They don't have isolated consonants. Usually every consonant is followed by a vowel. When Japan adopts an English word that ends in a consonant they tack on a vowel. Cardo, jazzu, banda, maido. These Asians have difficulty pronouncing words that have sequences of consonants, like "strength."

Japan now has words that end in "s" but this might be a later innovation. "Desu" is now pronounced dess.

The strangest thing is that in Bali I never could get my students to tack on an s to get a plural. Not even one time did they ever do that, no matter how I tried.


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*Maybe Han Chinese is different. I don't know what they do.