Bima, or Bimanese, is a Malayo-Polynesian language spoken in the
eastern half of Sumbawa Island in Indonesia by about 500,000 people.
It is closely related to the languages of Sumba Island.
Bima alphabet (Aksara Bima / Aksara Mbojo)
The Bima(nese) script is used to write Bima, and is related to the Buginese script. This script has been used since the 14th century, and was used to write books and royal records in the Bima Kingdom. During the 17th century, when the Bima people became Muslim, they started using Malay written with the Arabic script.
The research on Bimanese Literacy was initiated by Hj. Siti Maryam R
Salahuddin, a princess of the last Sultan of Bima. The research started
from the time that she founded the Bimanese script in a record by Zollinger
(1850) and a record by Raffless (1978) which were obtained from the
Perpustakaan Nasional RI (Indonesian National Library) in Jakarta
in 1987. In 1990-1991 a study was conducted to describe the content of a
copy of a palm-leaf manuscript from Leiden which bought by J. Noorduyn,
a Professor of Buginese language from Leiden University, based on those
script records. A team was formed to continue the research consisting
of Hj. Siti Maryam, Syukri Abubakar, and Munawar Sulaiman. The wrote about
their findings in a book entitled "Aksara Bima, peradaban lokal yang sempat
hilang" (Bimanese Script, a local civilization that had disappeared).
Notable features
- Type of writing system: Abugida - each consonant (aksara) has an inherent vowel. Other vowels can be indicated using diacritics which appear above, below, before or after the consonant letter
- Direction of writing: right to left in horizontal lines.
- Used to write: Bima(nese)
Main characters
Vowels
Nasalization
There are some nasal sounds in the Bima language. Some of them have
their own letter: mpa, nca, nta, nga, while others can become nasal
depending on the context of the sentence: mba -> ba; nda -> da; ngga -> ga.
The consonants Q, V, X, and Z do not exist in the Bimanese script and are
replaced by those with a similar sound.
- Q -> K
- V -> F
- X -> (Bimanese possibly has no words which use this consonant)
- Z -> J
Diacritics
- The repeat sign, which is like the Arabic numeral "two" (٢) indicates that a word is read twice.
- The virama can be appear above or below a letter.
Sample text
Transliteration
Dowu ma pertama mabade warana aksara mbojo ededu putri Maryam R
Salahuddin deyi salelana kertas ma tunti kayi aksara mbojo mamayi ta dowu Belanda.
Translation
The first person who knew about the existence of Bimanese script was
princess Maryam R Salahuddin from a record written in Bimanese script
by a Dutch researcher.
Information mainly supplied by Ridwan Maulana
Information about Bima
Information about Bima
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