91. Limbu / Kirati alphabet

Origin

The Limbu or Kirati alphabet was probably modelled on the Lepcha alphabet, which is thought to have derived from the Tibetan alphabet. According to many historians, King Sirijonga invented the "Kirat-Sirijonga Script" in the late 9th century. It disappeared for many years and was then reintroduced by Te-ongsi Sirijonga (believed to be reincarnation of King Sirijonga), in the 17th century. In 1925, Iman Singh Chemjong, a Limbu scholar, named the script after Sirijonga who had laid down his life for the preservation and promotion of script in 1743.
Source: http://www.chumlung.org.np

Notable features

• Type of writing system: syllabic alphabet - each letter has an inherent vowel /a/. Other vowels are indicated using diacritics. When words begin with a vowel, a special vowel carrier is used.
• Direction of writing: left to right in horizontal lines.
• Used to write: Limbu (a.k.a. Yakthungba Pan/Yakthungpan) a Tibeto-Burman language spoken by about 280,626 people in eastern Nepal, Bhutan and northern India. The word limbu means an archer.

Vowel diacritics

Consonants

Final consonants and punctuation marks

Numerals

Sample text

Source: http://www.xenotypetech.com/samplepdfs/LB_Sample.html

Links

Information about the Limbu language
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbu_language
Kirat Yakthung Chumlung - an organisation dedicated to the promotion and preservation of the Limbu language and culture: http://www.chumlung.org.np
Kirat Rai - information about the Kirat peoples and languages
http://meropaila.wordpress.com/kirat-rai/
Limbua Fonts
http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&id=NamdhinggoSIL
http://www.wazu.jp/gallery/Fonts_Limbu.html
http://www.xenotypetech.com/osxLimbu.html