Southeast Asian Minority Scripts (Kayah Li, Kawi, Ahom, Cham …)

Kayah Li is the alphabet of the Kayah, also called Karenni or Red Karen, who live in Kayah State in eastern Myanmar and across the border in Thailand. Htae Bu Phae devised it in March 1962, after Latin spellings brought by missionaries had begun to compete for the language, and it is still taught in community schools and used in Kayah publishing, including the Kayah Li Bible, the most common search alongside the alphabet itself.

It is a true alphabet written left to right. The 24 consonants run ꤊ ka, ꤋ kha, ꤌ ga, ꤍ nga, ꤎ sa, ꤏ sha, ꤐ za, ꤑ nya, ꤒ ta, ꤓ hta, ꤔ na, ꤕ pa, ꤖ pha, ꤗ ma, ꤘ da, ꤙ ba, ꤚ ra, ꤛ ya, ꤜ la, ꤝ wa, ꤞ tha, ꤟ ha, ꤠ va and ꤡ ca. Four vowels are full letters, ꤢ a, ꤣ oe, ꤤ i and ꤥ oo; the other five, ꤦ ue, ꤧ e, ꤨ u, ꤩ ee and ꤪ o, are marks written on the letter ꤢ, so ꤢꤦ is the vowel ue on its own. Three tone marks, ꤫ high, ꤬ low and ꤭ mid, follow the syllable, and ꤮ and ꤯ are the punctuation. The digits ꤀ to ꤉ are Kayah Li's own.

Unicode encoded Kayah Li in version 5.1 (2008), in one block of 48 characters, which is exactly what the grid shows. The Kayah vowel marks ၲ ၳ ၴ in the last group belong to a different, older way of writing Kayah with the Myanmar script.

Pau Cin Hau (1859–1948) was a Tedim Chin religious leader in the Chin Hills of north-western Myanmar. Around 1902 he created a script of about 1,050 logographs to write down the teachings of the movement he founded, Laipian, and in 1931 his followers reduced it to an alphabet of 57 letters. That alphabet is what Unicode encoded, in version 7.0 (2014), and what this page shows; the logographs are not in Unicode. Tedim and the other Chin languages are today mostly written in Latin letters, and the Pau Cin Hau alphabet lives on in the Laipian community.

It is written left to right. The 21 consonants begin 𑫀 pa, 𑫁 ka, 𑫂 la, 𑫃 ma, 𑫄 da, 𑫅 za, 𑫆 va, the seven vowels are 𑫕 a, 𑫖 e, 𑫗 i, 𑫘 o, 𑫙 u, 𑫚 ua and 𑫛 ia, and a syllable-final consonant is written with one of nine separate final letters, 𑫜 p to 𑫤 y. Tone is spelled out: 20 marks distinguish rising, sandhi, mid-level and low-falling tones and the glottal stop, each with a long form and a form used before a pause at the end of a sentence, which is why the tone grid has four columns.

Kawi script: Old Javanese and the Laguna Copperplate

Kawi, from the Sanskrit kavi 'poet', is the classical script of maritime Southeast Asia. It grew out of the Pallava script of southern India and was used from about the 8th to the 16th century on Java, Bali and Sumatra, in the Malay peninsula and as far as the Philippines, for Old Javanese court poetry, Old Malay charters and Sanskrit. Every later script of the region descends from it: Javanese, Balinese, Sundanese, Lontara and, by way of its Sumatran branches, Baybayin. The Javanese Alphabet & Script and Balinese Alphabet & Script collections show two of its living children.

People searching 'kawi script philippines' mean the Laguna Copperplate Inscription, a sheet of copper found near Manila that is dated the equivalent of 21 April 900 and is the oldest known document written in the Philippines. It is written in Kawi letters, but mainly in Old Malay with Sanskrit and some Old Javanese and Old Tagalog words, not in Tagalog. Baybayin is a much later and simpler script, so 'kawi script vs baybayin' is ancestor against distant descendant.

Kawi is an abugida: each consonant carries an inherent a, the vowel signs 𑼴 𑼶 𑼸 𑼾 change it, and the killer 𑽁 removes it. The consonants are arranged here in the Sanskrit varga order that Javanese pupils still recite, 𑼒 𑼓 𑼔 𑼕 𑼖 for ka kha ga gha nga, and the 13 independent vowels 𑼄 to 𑼐 start words. The script also has its own digits 𑽐 to 𑽙 and an unusually rich set of punctuation, including the flower 𑽇 and the spirals 𑽎 𑽏 that open and close texts. Unicode added Kawi in version 15.0 (2022), so fonts are new: Noto Sans Kawi is the one to install.

Ahom and Tangsa: scripts of the India–Myanmar borderlands

The Ahom were a Tai people who crossed from what is now Myanmar into the Brahmaputra valley under Sukaphaa in 1228 and ruled Assam, in north-east India, until 1826. They brought a Brahmic script related to the Shan and Tai Le scripts and wrote their chronicles, the buranji, in it on strips of sanchi bark from the agarwood tree. Thousands of these manuscripts survive. The Ahom language fell out of daily speech by the 19th century as Assamese took over (see Assamese Alphabet & Letters), but priestly families kept the script, and since the 20th century a revival movement teaches both.

Ahom is an abugida written left to right. The core letters are 𑜀 ka, 𑜁 kha, 𑜂 nga, 𑜃 na, 𑜄 ta, 𑜆 pa, 𑜇 pha, 𑜈 ba, 𑜉 ma, 𑜊 ja, 𑜋 cha, 𑜌 tha, 𑜍 ra, 𑜎 la, 𑜏 sa, 𑜐 nya, 𑜑 ha and 𑜒 a, with alternate shapes 𑜅 𑜖 𑜚 for ta, ga and ba. Vowel signs 𑜠 to 𑜪 sit around the consonant, the medials 𑜝 𑜞 𑜟 add la and ra, and the killer 𑜫 silences a final consonant. Old Ahom never wrote tones or vowel length, which is one reason reading the manuscripts is hard. The numbers include 𑜺 ten and 𑜻 twenty, which the Ahom counting system uses as building blocks.

Unicode encoded Ahom in version 8.0 (2015) and added seven letters for Indic loan sounds, 𑝀 to 𑝆, in version 14.0 (2021). Noto Serif Ahom covers all of it.

Tangsa, also written Tangshang, is a cluster of Naga languages spoken on both sides of the India–Myanmar border, in Changlang district of Arunachal Pradesh and in the Sagaing region. Lakhum Mossang of Changlang developed the Tangsa script from 1990 as a common alphabet for the many Tangsa varieties, and it is taught in schools and used in church and community publishing.

The script is an alphabet with a design of its own. Tangsa languages have tones, so each vowel exists as four letters, one per tone: 𖩰 𖩱 𖩲 𖩳 are the vowel o in tones 1 to 4, and the Unicode names end in -z, -c, -q and -x, the letters Tangsa Latin spelling uses for the same tones. Tone 4 is the one for syllables that end in a stop. The grid above is laid out that way, vowels down the side and tones across, which is also how learners meet it. The 31 consonants 𖪠 ka to 𖪾 za and the digits 𖫀 to 𖫉 complete the set.

Unicode added Tangsa in version 14.0 (2021) with 89 characters. The free Noto Sans Tangsa font displays it; most systems have nothing else.

Cham alphabet: Akhar Thrah of the Cham of Vietnam

The Cham are the heirs of Champa, the kingdoms that ruled central and southern Vietnam from the 2nd century until 1832, and their language is Austronesian, a cousin of Malay. Their script came from India by way of the Pallava script; the Đông Yên Châu inscription in Old Cham, from the late 4th century, is the oldest surviving text in any Austronesian language and one of the oldest in any Southeast Asian script. The form shown here is Akhar Thrah, the script of the Eastern Cham of Ninh Thuận and Bình Thuận provinces in Vietnam, who still teach it and use it in religious and community life. The Cham of Cambodia, the Western Cham, mostly write with Arabic letters instead: see Cham Jawi Letters (Western Cham).

Cham is an abugida written left to right. The consonants come in the traditional rows ꨆ ka, ꨇ kha, ꨈ ga, ꨉ gha, ꨊ ngue, ꨋ nga, then the cha, ta and pa rows and ꨢ ya, ꨣ ra, ꨤ la, ꨥ va, ꨦ ssa, ꨧ sa, ꨨ ha; the six independent vowels ꨀ ꨁ ꨂ ꨃ ꨄ ꨅ start words. The vowel signs ꨩ to ꨲ and the medials ꨳ ꨴ ꨵ ꨶ modify a consonant, and a final consonant is written with one of the dedicated final letters ꩀ to ꩍ rather than by killing a full letter. The Cham digits ꩐ to ꩙ are still seen in dates, and texts open with the spiral ꩜ and end with the dandas ꩝ ꩞ ꩟.

Unicode encoded Cham in version 5.1 (2008), based on the Eastern variety; a separate encoding for the Western Cham script of Cambodia has been proposed but is not yet in the standard. Noto Sans Cham is the standard font.

Khamti, Pa'O, Karen and Palaung in the Myanmar script, and how to type it all

The Myanmar script writes far more than Burmese. Mon and Shan have their own pages (Mon Language Alphabet, Shan Alphabet & Letters), and the Burmese Alphabet & Letters page covers the base script. The last two groups collect the extra letters Unicode added for everyone else: in the main block in version 5.1 (2008) for S'gaw, Western Pwo, Eastern Pwo and Geba Karen, Kayah and Rumai Palaung; in Myanmar Extended-A in version 5.2 (2009) for Khamti Shan and Aiton, with Tai Laing tones and the Shwe Palaung letters ꩾ ꩿ added in 7.0 (2014); in Myanmar Extended-B in 7.0 (2014) for Tai Laing and a few Shan additions; and in Myanmar Extended-C in version 16.0 (2024) for the Pa'O digits 𑛐 to 𑛙 and the Eastern Pwo Karen digits 𑛚 to 𑛣.

Khamti is the Tai language of the upper Chindwin in Sagaing and of Arunachal Pradesh; Aiton and Phake are small Tai languages of Assam; Tai Laing (Red Shan) is spoken in Kachin State and has its own digits ꧰ to ꧹ and 14 letters ꧧ to ꧾ. The Khamti letters shared with Shan, such as the retroflex series, are on the Shan page, and the dotted letter shapes Khamti, Aiton and Phake prefer are font variants chosen with variation selector 1, not separate characters. Pa'O, Karen and Palaung are not Tai languages at all: Pa'O and the Karen languages are Karenic, spoken in Shan, Kayah and Kayin States and the Ayeyarwady delta, and Palaung is Austroasiatic. S'gaw Karen has used the Myanmar script since the 1830s, with the extra letter ၡ sha, the vowel ၢ and the tones ၣ ၤ.

Font support is uneven. Noto Sans Myanmar covers the main block and Extended-A and B; the Windows font Myanmar Text covers the main block well. The 2024 digits in Extended-C are too new for most fonts, so expect boxes for 𑛐 and 𑛚 outside freshly updated systems.

Tap any character above to copy it; all of them are plain Unicode text and paste into documents, messages and web pages. If you see empty boxes, the font is missing, not the character: Google's free Noto family has one font per script here, Noto Sans Kayah Li, Noto Sans Kawi, Noto Serif Ahom, Noto Sans Tangsa, Noto Sans Pau Cin Hau, Noto Sans Cham and Noto Sans Myanmar, and Android and Chrome OS ship several of them. On Windows and macOS install the Noto font and the boxes turn into letters.

For typing, Keyman has keyboards for Kayah Li, Cham, Ahom, Shan, Khamti, Pa'O and S'gaw Karen on Windows, macOS, Android and iPhone, and Myanmar-script keyboards in phones often include Shan and Karen layouts. For a single word, copying from this page is quicker. In Microsoft Word you can also type a code point and press Alt+X: A90A Alt+X gives ꤊ, AA06 Alt+X gives ꨆ.

Two pitfalls. These are abugidas and alphabets with combining marks, so a vowel sign or tone mark pasted on its own may show on a dotted circle; put it after a consonant. And do not use a lookalike from another script to fake a letter: Kawi, Javanese and Balinese share ancestry but their code points are different, and a search engine, a screen reader or a font will treat them as different scripts.