| Limbu | |
| Sample: | limbu.png |
| Type: | Abugida |
| Languages: | Limbu |
| Time: | c. 1740–present |
| Unicode: | U+1900–U+194F |
| Iso15924: | Limb |
| Region: | Nepal and Northeastern India |
| Fam5: | Gupta |
| Fam6: | Tibetan |
| Fam7: | Lepcha |
The Limbu script (also Sirijanga script)[1] is used to write the Limbu language. It is a Brahmic type abugida.[2]
According to traditional histories, the Limbu script was first invented in the late 9th century by Limbu King Sirijunga Hang and then fell out of use, only to be reintroduced in the 18th century by Limbu scholar Te-ongsi Sirijunga Xin Thebe as during that time the teaching of the Limbu script was outlawed in Limbuwan and Sikkim.
The Limbu language is one of the few Sino-Tibetan languages of the Central Himalayas to possess their own scripts.[3] [4] tells us that the Limbu or Sirijunga script was devised during the period of Buddhist expansion in Sikkim in the early 18th century when Limbuwan still constituted part of Sikkimese territory. The Limbu script was probably composed at roughly the same time as the Lepcha script which was created by the third King of Sikkim, Chakdor Namgyal (ca. 1700–1717). The Limbu script is ascribed to the Limbu hero, Te-ongsi Sirijunga Xin Thebe.
The Limbu script is an abugida, which means that a basic letter represents both a consonant and an inherent, or default, vowel. In Limbu, the inherent vowel is pronounced as //ɔ//, as in Bengali–Assamese and Odia scripts. To start a syllable with a vowel, the appropriate vowel diacritic is added to the vowel-carrier. A vowel-carrier with no diacritic represents the sound pronounced as //ɔ//.
Initial consonant clusters are written with small marks following the main consonant:Final consonants after short vowels are written with another set of marks, except for some final consonants occurring only in loanwords. They follow the marks for consonant clusters, if any.
Long vowels without a following final consonant are written with a diacritic called kemphreng, for example,, pronounced as //kɔː//.
There are two methods for writing long vowels with syllable-final consonants:
The first method is widely used in Sikkim; the second method is advocated by certain writers in Nepal.
Glottalization is marked by a sign called mukphreng, for example,, pronounced as //kɔʔ//.
Three additional letters were used in early versions of the modern script:
/d͡ʑʱɔ/ /ɲɔ/ /ʂɔ/Two ligatures were used for Nepali consonant conjuncts:[5] jña (for Devanagari) tra (for Devanagari)Nineteenth-century texts used a small anusvara (
) to mark nasalization. This was used interchangeably with /ŋ/.The sign
was used for the exclamatory particle (/lo/).The main punctuation mark used in Limbu is the Devanagari double danda (
). It has its own exclamation mark () and question mark ().See main article: Limbu (Unicode block).
Limbu script was added to the Unicode Standard in April, 2003 with the release of version 4.0.
The Unicode block for Limbu is U+1900–U+194F: