Old Kawi
Type	Abugida
Spoken languages	Indonesian Languages, Philippine Languages, Malaysian Languages
Time period	c. 8th–16th century
Parent systems	Proto-Canaanite alphabet Phoenician alphabet Aramaic alphabet Brāhmī Pallava Old Kawi
Sister systems	Balinese Batak Baybayin Buhid Javanese Lontara Old Sundanese Rejang Tagbanwa
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Kawi (also known as Kavi) is the name given to the writing system originating in Java and used across much of Maritime Southeast Asia in inscriptions and texts from the 8th century to around 1500 AD.^[1] It is also the name of the language used in these inscriptions and texts, more generally called "old-Javanese".

The literary genre written in this alphabet is called Kakawin.

Kawi is derived from the so-called "Pallava script" mentioned by scholars of Southeast Asian studies such as George Coedes and D. G. E. Hall as the basis of several writing systems of Southeast Asia.

The earliest known texts in Kavi date from the Singhasari kingdom in eastern Java. The more recent scripts were extant in the Majapahit kingdom, also in eastern Java, Bali, Borneo and Sumatra.

The scripts are abugida, meaning that characters are read with an inherent vowel. Diacritics are used, either to suppress the vowel and represent a pure consonant, or to represent other vowels.

The Old-Kawi script was widely used across insular southeast Asia.

(The image on the right shows the Laguna Copperplate Inscription, found in 1989 ^[2] in Laguna de Bay, in the metroplex of Manila, Philippines. It has inscribed on it a date of Saka era 822, corresponding to May 10, 900 CE,^[3] and is written in a mixture of Old Tagalog, Old Javanese and Sanskrit).

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

Tiongson J. F. , (2008). Laguna copperplate inscription: a new interpretation using early tagalog dictionaries. Bayang Pinagpala. Retrieved September 10, 2008, from http://www.bayangpinagpala.org/

[edit] See also

• Baybayin
• Hanunoo
• Tagbanwa

Brāhmī The Brahmic script and its descendants Northern Brahmic Kusan Tocharian Meitei Mayek Gupta Śāradā Landa Old Kashmiri Gurmukhī Khojki Takri Dogri Chameali Siddhaṃ Tibetan ’Phagspa Hangul (hypothetical) Lepcha Limbu Nāgarī Devanāgarī Modi Nandināgarī Gujarati Proto-Bengali Kaithi Sylheti Nagari Eastern Nagari Bengali Assamese Mithilakshar Oriya Nepal Bhujimol Prachalit Nepal Ranjana Soyombo Southern Brahmic Tamil Brahmi Vatteluttu Kolezhuthu Tamil Pallava Grantha Malayalam Tulu Sinhala Dhives Akuru Saurashtra Khmer Lao Thai Cham Old Kawi Balinese Javanese Baybayin Batak Buhid Hanunó'o Tagbanwa Sundanese Lontara Rejang Mon Burmese Ojhopath Kalinga Bhattiprolu Script Kadamba Kannada Telugu Tai Le New Tai Lue Ahom  This box: view • talk • edit

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