Serang Script

Serang or Sérang Script (سࣣيرَاڠ) is a modified Arabic script, derived from Jawi script, used to write Makassarese, Buginese, and other languages in South Sulawesi, alongside Latin and Lontara. It was used in a variety of applications, from religion, to diplomacy, to annals-keeping. Serang was originally created with the entry and spread of Islam into Sulawesi from the Malay Peninsula in the 17th century, adapting to the phonology of the indigenous languages of South Sulawesi. However, unlike Jawi, it did not become the primary means of writing in Sulawesi; and unlike Pegon (Java Island), it didn't even become the sole common script within Islamic religious schools. Lontara script managed to maintain its supreme role in the literacy of Sulawesi (and was eventually displaced by Latin imposed by the Dutch colonial administration)

Serang includes letters that are not present in Modern Standard Arabic (but do have equivalents in Jawi and Pegon). It also has additional diacritics for the display of vowel sounds, and it has conventions on the use of Hamza to write down glottal stops.

The origin of the name "Sérang" remains unclear, but several hypotheses exist. According to some, the term "Sérang" derives from the word "Seram", which refers to the Seram tribe (from Seram Island), because Islam and the Arabic script were supposedly brought by the Seram tribe to South Sulawesi. However, there is no historical evidence that the Seram people brought Islam to South Sulawesi. Furthermore, in Bugis and Makassar dictionaries, the word "Sérang" means slanted and crooked. People who have the archaic knowledge of how to write in the Sérang script say that it is commonly written in italics. This is seen in some manuscripts, where the slanted Sérang writing was used as a means of translating or annotating the Quran. However, in most Sérang script manuscripts, the writing is not slanted.

The Serang script does have a superiority over Lontara script however, and that's been the primary reason for its spread and usage and the limited expense of Lontara script in South Sulawesi. Lontara script has a shortcoming that it does not have a means of writing glottal stops or syllable codas (e.g. when a syllable ends in a -n or -ng sound). In Lontara, these sounds are to be derived from prior knowledge of the language itself and from context.