Makasar script

The Makasar script, also known as Ukiri' Jangang-jangang (bird's script) or Old Makasar script, is a historical Indonesian Writing system that was used in South Sulawesi to write the Makassarese language between the 17th and 19th centuries until it was supplanted by the Lontara Bugis script.
The Makasar script is an abugida which consists of 18 basic characters. Like other Brahmic scripts, each letter represents a syllable with an inherent vowel /a/, which can be changed with diacritics. The direction of writing is left to right. This script is written without wordspacing ("scriptio continua") and with little to no punctuation. "Coda syllables", or syllables that end in a consonant, are not written in the Makasar script, so a Makasar text can contain a lot of ambiguity which can only be distinguished from context. 
History.
Scholars generally believe that the Makasar script was used before South Sulawesi received significant Islamic influence around the 16th century AD, based on the fact that Makasar script uses the abugida system based on the Brahmi script rather than the Arabic script which became commonplace in South Sulawesi later on. This script has its roots in the Brahmi script from southern India, possibly brought to Sulawesi through the Kawi script or another script derived from Kawi. The visual similarity of the South Sumatran characters such as the Rejang script and the Makasar script has led some experts to suggest a relationship between the two scripts. A similar theory is also elaborated by Christopher Miller who argues that the scripts of South Sumatra, South Sulawesi, and the Philippines descend from the Gujarati script, which originates in India.
There are at least four documented writing systems that have been used in South Sulawesi, which are, chronologically, Makasar script, Lontara script, Arabic script, and Latin script. In the development of manuscripts, these four writing systems are often used together depending on the context of the writing, so it is common to find a manuscript that uses more than one script, including the Makasar script which is often found mixed with the Malay-Arabic alphabet. The Makasar script was originally thought to be the ancestor of the Lontara script, but both are now considered separate branches of an ancient prototype that is assumed to be extinct. Some writers sometimes mention Daeng Pamatte', the 'syahbandar' of the Sultanate of Gowa in the early 16th century AD, as the creator of the Makasar script based on a quote in the Gowa Chronicle (Makassarese: "Lontara Patturioloanga ri Tu Gowaya") which reads "Daeng Pamatte' ampareki lontara' Mangkasaraka", translated as "Daeng Pamatte' which created the Makassarese Lontara" in the translation of GJ Wolhoff and Abdurrahim published in 1959. However, this opinion is rejected by most historians and linguists today, who argue that the term "ampareki" in this context is more accurately translated as "composing" in the sense of compiling a library or completing historical records and writing system instead of script creation from nil. The oldest surviving example of the Makasar script is the signature of the delegates from the Sultanete of Gowa in the Treaty of Bongaya from 1667, which is now stored in the National Archives of Indonesia. Meanwhile, one of the earliest manuscripts in the Makasar script of significant length that has survived, is the Gowa-Tallo chronicle from the mid 18th century AD which is kept at the Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen (KIT), Amsterdam (collection no. KIT 668/216).
Eventually, the Makasar script was gradually replaced with the Lontara Bugis script, which Makassarese writers sometimes referred to as "New Lontara". This change was likely influenced by the decline in the prestige of the Sultanete of Gowa, along with the increasing strength of the Buginese tribe. As the influence of Gowa decreased, the Makassar scribes no longer used Makasar script in official historical records or everyday documents, although it was still sometimes used in certain contexts as an attempt to distinguish Makassar's cultural identity from Buginese influence. The most recent manuscript with Makasar script so far known is the diary of a Gowa "tumailalang" (prime minister) from the 19th century whose script form has received significant influence from the Lontara Bugis script. By the end of the 19th century, the use of the Makasar script had been completely replaced by the Lontara Bugis script and nowadays there are no more native readers of the Makasar script.
Usage.
Like the Lontara script which was used in the South Sulawesi cultural sphere, the Makasar script is used in a number of related text traditions, most of which are written in manuscripts. The term lontara (sometimes spelled lontaraq or lontara to denote the glotal stop at the end) also refers to a literary genre that deals with history and genealogies, the most widely written and important writing topics by the Buginese and Makassar people. This genre can be divided into several sub-types: genealogy ("lontara' pangngoriseng"), daily notes ("lontara' bilang"), and historical or chronical records ("patturioloang"). Each kingdom of South Sulawesi generally has its own historical records which are compiled from the three types of genres mentioned earlier in certain compositional conventions. Compared to "historical" records from other parts of the archipelago, the historical record in the literary tradition of South Sulawesi is considered to be one of the most "realistic"; historical events are explained in a straightforward and plausible manner, and relatively few fantastic elements appear or are accompanied by markers such as the word "supposedly" so that the overall record feels factual and realistic. Even so, historical records such as the Makassar's "patturiolong" are inseparable from their political function as a means of ratifying power, descent, and territorial claims of certain rulers. One of these "patturiolongs" that was written in the Makasar script and have been researched by experts is the Chronicle of Gowa which describes the history of the kings of Gowa from the founding of the Kingdom of Gowa to the reign of Sultan Hasanuddin in the 17th century AD.
The use of diaries is one of the unique literary phenomena of South Sulawesi that did not seem to happen in other Indonesian written traditions. The diary writers are generally people of high rank, such as the sultans, the rulers ("arung"), or the prime ministers ("tumailalang"). This kind of diary generally has a table that has been divided into rows and dates, and on these rows the author puts a record of events that he deems important on that date. Often many lines are left blank, but if a day has lots of notes, then often the letters are twisted and turned to occupy all the remaining empty space on the page so that one date only use one continuous line.
Ambiguity.
Makasar script does not have a virama or other ways to write dead syllables even though the Makassarese language has many words with coda syllables. For example, the final nasal sound /-ŋ/ and glotal /ʔ/ which are common in Makassar language are not written in the Makasar script spelling at all, so words like "ama" (chicken lice), "ama" (like), and "amang"' (safe) will all be written as "ama" in the Makassar script. The word "baba" in the Makasar script can refer to six possible words: "baba, baba', ba'ba, ba'ba', bamba," and "bambang". Given that Makasar script writings are also written continually without any consistent sentence break marking, manuscripts often have a lot of ambiguous words which can often only be distinguished through context. Readers of the Makasar text need an adequate initial understanding of the language and contents of the text in question, in order to be able to read the text fluently. This ambiguity is analogous to the use of Arabic letters without vowel markers; readers whose native language uses Arabic characters intuitively understand which vowels are appropriate to use in the context of the sentence concerned, so that vowel markers are not needed in standard everyday texts. 
Even so, sometimes even context isn't sufficient to reveal how to read a sentence whose reference is unknown to the reader. As an illustration, Cummings and Jukes provide the following example to illustrate how the Makasar script can produce different meanings depending on how the reader cuts and fills in the ambiguous part: 
Without knowing the intent or event to which the author may be referring, it is impossible for a general reader to determine the "correct" reading of the above sentence by himself. Even the most proficient reader often needs to pause to interpret what they are reading.
Form.
Basic letters.
Basic letters ( "anrong lontara’" ) in Makasar script represents a syllable with inherent /a/. There are 18 basic letters, shown below:
Note that the Makassar script has never undergone a standardization process like the Buginese Lontara script later on, so there are many variations of writing that can be found in Makassar manuscripts. The form in the table above is adapted from the characters used in , numbered KIT 668-216.
Diacritic.
Diacritics ( "ana’ lontara’") are markings on the basic letters to change its vowel. There are 4 diacritics, shown below:
Punctuation.
Historical Makassarese texts are written without wordspacing ("scriptio continua") and do not use punctuation. The Makasar script is known to have only two original punctuation marks: passimbang and a section ending mark. "Passimbang" functions like a period or comma in the Latin script by dividing the text into chunks that are similar (but not the same) to stanzas or sentences, while section ending marks are used to split the text into chapter-like units. 
In certain manuscripts, the ending mark of a section is replaced by a punctuation that resembles a palm tree (🌴), and for the end of larger sections it is common to use the stylization of the word "tammat" which uses Arabic letters ).
Repeated consonants.
Continuous syllables with the same initial consonant are often written in abbreviated form using double diacritics or a repeater letter angka which can then be reattached with a diacritic. Its use can be seen as follows: 
Example texts.
The following is an excerpt from the Chronicle of Gowa which tells the course of a battle between the Gowa and the Kingdom of Tallo which culminated in their alliance during the reign of Karaeng Gowa Tumapa'risi 'Kallonna and Karaeng Tallo Tunipasuru'.
Comparison to Lontara script.
In its development, the use of the Makasar script was gradually replaced by the Lontara Bugis script, which is sometimes referred to as "New Lontara" by Makassarese writers. These two closely related scripts have almost identical writing rules, although in appearance they look quite different. A comparison of the two characters can be seen as follows:
Unicode.
Makasar script has been added to the Unicode Standard in June 2018 on Version 11.0.
The Unicode block for the Makassar script is U+11EE0–U+11EFF and contains 25 characters:
Font.
A font for Makasar script based on the unicode block were first created under the name "Jangang-jangang" in early 2020. This font support the graphite SIL technology and double letters, both with "angka" ("example:" mami) and by double diacritic ("example:" mimi and mumu).