Balti-A
Script details
Section titled “Script details”See all script details: code, region, status and more
| Code | x-balti-a |
| Script type | abugida |
| Region | South Asian |
| Status | Current |
| Direction | RTL |
| Baseline | bottom |
| Case | unknown |
| White space | between words |
| Complex behaviors | diacritics |
| OpenType code | unspecified |
| ISO 15924 Number | 901 (private use, alias, or special) |
Script description
Section titled “Script description”The Balti script, now known as Balti-A, was used between the 15th and 17th centuries for writing the Balti language, closely related to Ladakhi and spoken by about 308,800 people in India and Pakistan.
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The script was replaced by Persian writing at the behest of Muslim leaders who considered the Tibetan-derived Balti script profane. The script is now considered to be extinct, although there is some evidence that it may still be used for writing the Brokskat language, an endangered language spoken by 10,000 people in Jammu and Kashmir. Further survey is needed to ascertain the extent to which the script is used for this language.
Balti-A was written from right to left, unlike most Brahmi-derived writing systems. As far as modern scholars can tell, it was an abugida, with each letter representing a consonant plus vowel syllable. An unmarked consonant represented a syllable having the vowel [a], and other vowels were written using one of six vowel diacritics attached to the base letter. One of these diacritics may have represented the vowel [a], despite it already being inherent in the base letter. It is not known why it was sometimes explicitly written.
Words were not written with spaces between them, but an overdot was written above the last letter in a word, fulfilling the same function as inter-word spacing.
This script is not currently recognized by the ISO 15924 standard
, but is included in Writing Systems Technical Resources for research purposes. If you have any information on this script, please add the information to this site. Your contributions can be a great help in refining and expanding the ISO 15924 standard. The Script Encoding Initiative is working to support the inclusion of this script in the standard, and contributions here will support their efforts.
Languages that use this script
Section titled “Languages that use this script”There are no known languages that use this script.
Unicode status
Section titled “Unicode status”The Balti-A script is not yet in Unicode. The script has a tentative allocation at U+10AA0..U+10ABF in the Roadmap to the SMP for the Unicode Standard.
Resources
Section titled “Resources”External links
- Balti Dialect (Wikipedia)