Had Lampung, Indonesian Traditional Script in The South of Sumatra Island

INDEPHEDIA.com - Lampung script or Had Lampung is a traditional Indonesian script that developed in the south of Sumatra Island.

The closest relatives of the Lampung tribal people's writing are the Surat Ulu family, such as the Rejang script and the Incung script.

This type of script was used by people in Rawas, Lintang, Ogan, Lakitan (in South Sumatra), Pasemah, Lembak (in South Sumatra and Bengkulu) and Serawai (in Bengkulu).

This family of characters has a distinctive feature, namely the shape of broken or curved strokes and does not have a partner.

In addition, the script is simpler than the descendants of other Kawi scripts, such as Javanese and Balinese.

Derivatives of The Brahmi Script

Based on a comparative study of the forms of Indonesian scripts, the Lampung script (Had Lampung) is one of the derivatives of the Brahmi script through the intermediary of the Kawi script.

This comparative study was first described by Holle, K F (1882) in "Table van oud-en nieuw-Indische alphabetten". Bijdrage tot de palaeographie van Nederlandsch-Indie. Batavia: W. Bruining.

Then, Kern, H (1882) in "Eene bijdgrade tot de paleographie van Nederlansch-Indie". Bijdrage tot de Taal-Land-en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-indie. S'Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff.

The Brahmi script family is a family of abugida scripts that are descended from the Brahmi script of Ancient India.

The scripts from this family are used in South Asia, Southeast Asia, parts of Central and East Asia.

Elements, How to Write and Read The Lampung Script

The direction of writing and reading Had Lampung is from left to right, with 20 main letters.

The twenty main letters in Had Lampung, namely Ka–Ga–Nga–Pa–Ba–Ma–Ta–Da–Na–Ca–Ja–Nya–Ya–A –La–Ra–Sa–Wa–Ha–Gha.

Lampung script, an abugida writing system consisting of three kinds of elements, namely letter kelabai (19 basic characters), letter text (12 diacritics) and punctuation.

Abugida or also known as alphasyllabic, is a segmental script based on consonants with obligatory but secondary vowel notation.

This is different from the alphabet, where vowels have the same status as consonants, and alphabets, where vowel markings do not exist or are optional.

The Brahmi script family that is widely used, among others in South and Southeast Asia, belongs to the abugida script type.

Like other Brahmi scripts, each Had Lampung consonant represents one syllable with an inherent vowel that can be changed with certain diacritics.

Meanwhile, the type of Had Lampung writing is phonetic in the type of syllables which are vowels like in Arabic letters.

The types of syllables in Had Lampung's writing use fathah signs on the top row and kasrah signs on the bottom line.

But, in writing, do not use the dammah sign in the front row, but use the sign behind. Each sign has its own name.

Judging from the way of writing, Had Lampung is influenced by two elements, namely Pallawa script and Arabic letters. (*)