Indonesia to Digitize Indigenous Scripts

via Language Magazine, 18 December 2020: The Indonesian Internet Domain Registry, with the support of Unesco, is working on a project to digitise several indigenous scripts, including Sunda, Jawa, Rejang, Batak, Pegon, Lontara, and Kawi.

UNESCO and the Indonesian Internet Domain Registry (PANDI) have announced plans to work on digitizing the Indigenous scripts of Indonesia through an initiative called “Connecting the Nation through Ancient Character Digitalisation.”

Indonesia is home to more than 700 languages, and while the official language is Indonesian, which has nearly 200 million speakers, many speak it as a second language.

Indonesian is written in the Latin alphabet, making it a convenient language for digital communication. However, other major languages of the region, such as Javanese, have historically used other Indigenous scripts that were specifically designed for those languages.

Aside from Indonesian, most of the country’s languages do not have a significant online presence—UNESCO and PANDI have set out to make the Internet more accessible to speakers of these languages.

Source: Indonesia to Digitize Indigenous Scripts – Language Magazine