Gangga Melayu

Gangga Melayu (Malay: Tulisan Gangga Melayu, Perak Malay: Hurup Ganga Malayu) is a cipher script and an abugida that were used to write the Malay and Perak Malay languages in Perak sometime until the 20th century. The writing was once used to write chiri, the old coronation formula of Malay kings of Perak. The writing system is unique for having both Abjad (Jawi) and Abugida (Brahmic) features.

The origin of the Gangga Melayu script is still unknown. However, there is a view that the letters in this script are a modified form of the Arabic script used to write the Malay language. R. A. Kern wrote:

The greater part can be traced back to the usual characters, being reversions of these in a vertical or horizontal direction, and by the replacing of the dots by short strokes variously attached to the character that forms the basis of the several letters, which are differentiated in the ordinary writing by the number of dots employed in each case.

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Although the form of the characters may have been derived from Arabic script, the structure of the Gangga Melayu script appears to be based on the Brahmi model, with some features adapted from other writing systems such as Javanese. In fact, Blagden suggests that some of the basic elements of this writing may date back to very early times and possibly existed before the advent of Islam.

According to C. O. Blagden, this script was used in the Malay Peninsula at least until the early 20th century and is described as a “cipher script” or “secret writing”^[2] In A Dictionary of the Malay Language (1894), Gangga Malayu described as “the name of an alphabet used in Pêrak, but of modern origin and used only for purposes of secrecy.”^[3]