Rejang

The Rejang script, sometimes spelt Redjang and locally known as Surat Ulu ('upstream script'), is an abugida of the Brahmic family, and is related to other scripts of the region, like Batak  1BC0–1BFF , Buginese  1A00–1A1F , and others.

What is an abugida? We mention this type of alphabet quite often here. Basically, it's a consonant-driven alphabet, where vowels don't stand independently, but rather come together with consonants.

Rejang is a member of the closely related group of Surat Ulu scripts that include the script variants of Bengkulu, Lembak, Lintang, Lebong, and Serawai. Other scripts that are closely related, and sometimes included in the Surat Ulu group, are Kerinci and Lampung.

The script was in use prior to the introduction of Islam to the Rejang area; the earliest document dates from the mid-18th century CE. The Rejang script is sometimes also known as the KaGaNga script following the first three letters of the alphabet. The term KaGaNga was never used by the script community, but it was coined by the British anthropologist Mervyn A. Jaspan (1926–1975) in his book “Folk literature of South Sumatra. Redjang Ka-Ga-Nga texts.” Canberra, The Australian National University 1964.

The script was used to write texts in Malay and Rejang, which is now spoken by about 200,000 people living in Indonesia on the island of Sumatra in the southwest highlands. There are five major dialects of Rejang: Lebong, Musi, Kebanagung, Pesisir (all in Bengkulu Province), and Rawas (in South Sumatra Province). Most of its users live in fairly remote rural areas, of whom slightly less than half are literate.

The traditional Rejang corpus consists chiefly of ritual texts, medical incantations, and poetry.