- ISO 15924
Kawi- Family
- Mainland Southeast Asian
- Type
- abugida
- Direction
- LTR (left-to-right)
- Baseline
- unspecified
- Word separation
- none
- Ligatures
- unspecified
- Status
- Historical
- Unicode
- true
- Diacritics
- false
- Contextual forms
- false
The Kawi script descended from the Grantha script around the 8th century BC and was used across the islands of Borneo, Java, Bali, and Sumatra.
The script originated in Java, and as a result is also sometimes called Old Javanese.
Kawi was an abugida; consonant characters are read with an inherent vowel. Diacritics are added to the consonant either to suppress the vowel entirely or to change it to a different vowel.
The Kawi alphabet developed around the 16th century AD into the current Javanese script. This transition was more stylistic than structural; the visual composition of the script changed but the way it worked stayed the same.