Balti-B
Script details
Section titled “Script details”See all script details: code, region, status and more
| Code | x-balti-b |
| Script type | abugida |
| Region | South Asian |
| Status | Historical |
| Direction | LTR |
| Baseline | unspecified |
| Case | unknown |
| White space | unspecified |
| Complex behaviors | diacritics |
| OpenType code | unspecified |
| ISO 15924 Number | none |
Script description
Section titled “Script description”Balti-B is one of a number of scripts that have been used for writing the Balti language, spoken in Gilgit-Baltistan (northern Pakistan) and Ladakh (Jammu and Kashmir).
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The language has variously been written in the Balti (sometimes called Balti-A to distinguish it from Balti-B), Tibetan, Arabic and Devanagari scripts, reflecting the multi-ethnic makeup and eventful political history of the region.
The Balti-B script is currently only known to be attested in one manuscript, “The Story of the Creation of Shigar”. This was written by the grandson of the man believed to have created the script, known only as Farhat. Some scholars believe that the existence of this manuscript is evidence of a Balti historic literary tradition, all other records of which have been lost. If this is the case, it is likely that there is, or was, also an indigenous name for the script; “Balti-B” is proposed as a tentative name until that is discovered.
The script is written from left to right. It is an abugida, with each consonant letter representing a consonant+vowel syllable. By default, this vowel is /a/, but it can be modified with the addition of dependent vowel diacritics. There are 30 consonant letters and 4 vowel diacritics. There is also a “vowel carrier” letter which is used for writing independent vowels (e.g. a vowel at the beginning of a word where there is no preceding consonant to which it can attach). By default this letter represents /a/, but it can also take any of the 4 vowel diacritics in order to represent the other vowels independently. Unlike in other abugidas in this region, there are no conjunct forms for writing consonant clusters; rather, all consonant clusters are written with a virama. A set of digits from 0-9 is also used.
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-B script is not yet in Unicode. The script has a tentative allocation at U+11CC0..U+11CFF in the Roadmap to the SMP for the Unicode Standard.