Balinese Letter Sa

As of 2026, Keyman’s Aksara Bali keyboard uses S for ᬲ.

As a Balinese consonant, ᬲ carries an inherent “a.” A following vowel sign replaces it; ᭄, called adeg-adeg, suppresses it before another consonant.

At a word boundary, Space finalizes automatic shaping; Shift-Space inserts a visible space.

What sound does ᬲ represent?

It writes the plain s sound, with an inherent a.

Balinese script descends from Brahmi, an ancient Indian writing system that gave rise to many Asian scripts. It developed through regional traditions such as Kawi, a script used for Old Javanese and Old Balinese writing; it was not invented all at once. Related Balinese script forms are attested around 882 CE. The Blanjong inscription, an early-tenth-century bilingual royal monument, preserves another early form of the script.

Royal inscriptions recorded authority and ritual life; palm-leaf lontar manuscripts carried histories, medicine, poetry, and performance. After Dutch rule began in parts of Bali in 1849, Latin script gradually became dominant.

Why does ᬲ change shape?

A report in 2019 documents Balinese fonts that displayed some clusters incorrectly. If the characters are right but their joining looks broken, the font may be at fault.