Symbols
97Click a symbol to copy it and open its page.
Kaganga: the consonant series
The traditional order starts ka ga nga, which gives the script its name, then ta da na, pa ba ma, ca ja nya. Each letter carries the vowel a.
Kaganga: the other letters
sa ra la and ya wa ha, then four letters for a nasal fused with a stop (mba, ngga, nda, nyja), and ꥆ, the bearer of a vowel at the start of a syllable.
Vowel signs
Added after a letter to replace its a: ꤰ ka, ꤰꥇ ki, ꤰꥈ ku. Rejang has eight signs, more than most scripts of Sumatra, because the language has vowels and vowel pairs like eu and ea.
Final consonants and virama
Four signs add ng, n, r or h to the end of a syllable without writing a new letter; the virama silences the a of any other letter, as the p at the end of ꤹꥈꤽꥈꤶ꥓ Curup.
Kaganga punctuation
The section mark opens or closes a passage; old texts otherwise ran on without spaces or full stops.
Latin alphabet
Rejang in Latin letters follows Indonesian spelling with no accented letters: ng, ny and sy are written with two letters, and e stands for both the clear e and the short neutral vowel. F, Q, V, X and Z are mainly for loanwords and names.
Punctuation
The apostrophe stays in Arabic loanwords and names; quotations take curly double quotes as in Indonesian. Prices are in rupiah, written Rp, which has no Unicode sign.
Where it's spoken
Bengkulu province on Sumatra, Indonesia, with Rejang villages over the border in South Sumatra.
Rejang land in emoji
Bukit Kaba, the volcano above Curup; highland coffee; the bamboo and bark texts of Kaganga; and the buffalo horns that were carved with it too.
On the map
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The Rejang script: aksara Kaganga
The script associated with the Rejang region is a variety within the wider Surat Ulu tradition, 'upstream writing', of southern Sumatra, often called aksara Kaganga or aksara Rejang. The name Kaganga simply reads out the first three letters, ꤰ ꤱ ꤲ (ka ga nga), the way 'ABC' names the Latin alphabet; it was made familiar by the anthropologist M. A. Jaspan, who published Rejang texts in the 1960s. Like Javanese, Batak and Lontara, it descends from the Brahmi scripts of India, and its angular shapes come from being cut with a knife rather than drawn with a pen.
Each consonant letter carries the inherent vowel a: ꤰ is ka, ꤳ is ta, ꤸ is ma. The 23 letters follow a fixed order: ka ga nga, ta da na, pa ba ma, ca ja nya, sa ra la, ya wa ha, then four letters for a nasal fused with a stop, ꥂ mba, ꥃ ngga, ꥄ nda and ꥅ nyja, and finally ꥆ, the bearer that carries a vowel at the start of a syllable, so ꥆꥈ is u.
Vowel signs, final consonants and the virama
Eight vowel signs change a letter's a: ꥇ i, ꥈ u, ꥉ e, ꥊ ai, ꥋ o, ꥌ au, ꥍ eu and ꥎ ea. That is more than most Sumatran scripts have, because Rejang itself is rich in vowels and vowel pairs. In Unicode you always type the letter first and the sign after it: ꤰ ꥇ gives ꤰꥇ ki, ꤰ ꥈ gives ꤰꥈ ku.
Unlike Lontara, Kaganga can write a syllable that ends in a consonant. Four signs add a final ng ꥏ, n ꥐ, r ꥑ or h ꥒ, and for any other closing sound the virama ꥓ cancels the a of a full letter: ꤹꥈꤽꥈꤶ꥓ spells Curup, the main town of Rejang Lebong, ca-u ra-u pa with the virama. The section mark ꥟ sets off passages in texts that otherwise run on without spaces.
Bamboo, horn and bark: where Kaganga was written
Rejang texts were cut into bamboo tubes, buffalo horns and strips of tree bark, and later written on paper. They hold poems, charms and spells, medicine and customary law. Few people read the old texts fluently now, but aksara Kaganga is taught as local content in schools in Bengkulu and appears on signs, monuments and batik, and searches like 'aksara rejang lengkap' and 'aksara kaganga rejang lebong' are from people looking for the full chart.
Kaganga belongs to a family: the Kerinci script Incung, the scripts of Lampung and Komering, and the Surat Ulu of the Serawai and Pasemah are cousins, with letters that differ by region. Of them, Rejang is the one with its own Unicode block, so it is the form you can copy and paste. Modern Rejang is mostly written in Latin letters based on Indonesian spelling, though usage is not fully standardised.
How to type the Rejang script
The Rejang script has been in Unicode since version 5.1 in 2008, in the block UA930 to UA95F, which holds all 37 characters shown here. Few phones or computers come with a Rejang keyboard, so most people copy the letters from a page like this one or use an online converter that turns Latin text into Kaganga; check its output by reading it back syllable by syllable. The free Google font Noto Sans Rejang displays the script on any system, and empty boxes mean only that a font is missing.
In HTML, write a letter by its code, for example ꤰ for ꤰ. Unicode has no Rejang digits, so numbers are written with ordinary 0–9 or spelled out in words. Latin Rejang needs nothing beyond a standard keyboard; the curly quotes “ ” are Alt0147 and Alt0148 on Windows and Option[ and OptionShift[ on a Mac.
Where the Rejang language is spoken
Rejang is spoken by several hundred thousand people in Indonesia , almost all in Bengkulu province on the west side of Sumatra: in the highland regencies of Rejang Lebong, Lebong and Kepahiang, around Curup and Muara Aman, and down toward the coast in North and Central Bengkulu. Its dialects are usually listed as Lebong, Musi, Keban Agung, Pesisir and Rawas, the last spoken across the border in South Sumatra. The highlands are coffee and vegetable country under the Bukit Kaba volcano , beside the forests of Kerinci Seblat National Park.
Rejang is an Austronesian language of its own, not a dialect of Malay, and linguists still debate its closest relatives. Most speakers also use Indonesian, and Rejang has borrowed many words from Malay. See the Indonesian, Malay, Kerinci, Lampung Api, Komering and Minangkabau collections for the letters of its neighbours, and the Indonesia collection for the country's flag and emoji.
How to use them
5 situationsClick to copyRejang Script (Aksara Kaganga) combos
9Worth knowing
- Kaganga is named the way the Latin alphabet is called the ABC: by reading out its first three letters, ka ga nga.
- Rejang texts were carved into bamboo tubes and buffalo horns with a knife, which is why the letters are made of short straight strokes and sharp angles.
- Of the southern Sumatran scripts of the Kaganga family, only Rejang has a Unicode block, UA930 to UA95F, added in 2008.
- Bengkulu, the Rejang homeland, was a British post for more than a century; the giant Rafflesia flower, named after Stamford Raffles, was described from its forests and is now the province's emblem.
Questions people ask
7What is aksara Rejang?
A traditional South Sumatran script used in the Rejang region, part of the wider Surat Ulu group and often called aksara Kaganga. It was used to write both Rejang and Malay. The Unicode repertoire has 23 letters, with consonants carrying the inherent vowel a, plus 8 vowel signs, 4 final-consonant signs, a virama and a section mark.
Why is it called Kaganga?
After its first three letters, ꤰ ka, ꤱ ga and ꤲ nga, just as 'ABC' names the Latin alphabet. Kaganga is also used for the wider family of related southern Sumatran scripts.
How many letters are in aksara Rejang lengkap?
The full set in Unicode is 37 characters: 23 letters (ka ga nga ta da na pa ba ma ca ja nya sa ra la ya wa ha mba ngga nda nyja a), with consonants carrying the inherent vowel a, plus 8 vowel signs, 4 final consonant signs, the virama and the section mark.
Does the Rejang script have numbers?
Unicode has no Rejang digits. Numbers are written with ordinary 0–9 or spelled out in words.
How do I type the Rejang script?
Copy the letters from this page or use a Kaganga converter, typing each letter first and then its vowel or final sign. If you see boxes, install a font such as Noto Sans Rejang; the text itself is standard Unicode.
Is Rejang script the same as Lampung or Kerinci script?
They are close relatives in the same southern Sumatran family, with differently shaped letters. Only Rejang is encoded in Unicode; Incung of Kerinci and the Lampung script are still shared mostly as images and special fonts.
Where is the Rejang language spoken?
In Bengkulu province, Sumatra, Indonesia, mainly in Rejang Lebong, Lebong and Kepahiang and in North and Central Bengkulu, by several hundred thousand people.
