The vowels are a, i, u, o, e (pepet) = [ə]; é is used for taléng ([e:, ε:]).Final a is pronounced [ø:] or [ə:], and is so pronounced when a word forms part of a compound; in a few words final - aha has this pronunciation for both a (which are often contracted to -a). The Balinese script does not distinguish this pronunciation, but ä is used arbitrarily for it. After a consonant, iy and uw are written usually with y and w (dwa =duwa, sadiya =sadya); similarly initial w and y with a following vowel are written huw and hiy.
Since the voiced stop in the clusters mb, nd, ngg, nj is pronounced weakly, especially at the beginning of words in N-forms, it is often omitted in writing: gelah/nggelah, ngelah, jalan/njalan, nyalan, etc. They may thus be mistaken for the N-forms of words which begin with h, k, c, s, t, p, which substitute the nasal for the initial consonant and never have a following stop: karya/ngarya, cadang/nyadang.
Variant Spellings
According to Balinese grammarians, the prefixes ha-, ka-, ma-, nga-, pa-, sa- are correctly written thus; in careful speech and reading they are pronounced with a, but usually with e; similarly the a following a reduplicated initial consonant (e.g. ca-canggahan) should be written a, but is usually pronounced, and often written (especially in Roman letters) with e.
In ordinary speech the prefix he (properly he-) before monosyllabic bases is never used, but in writing is used ad libitum, usually with he- (e in Roman spelling), with ha- in the literary language, however. Similarly, the prefixes ha- and ma- + N-form, making transitive verbs, are written and pronounced with a; ha- is only literary, but ma- occurs often in ordinary speech, with verbs with initial p, in the N-form (e.g. mamancing ‘go fishing’), then pronounced with e. The prefix he- (‘one’) is always written and pronounced a.
The correct use of h, w, y between vowels is still not definite; h is usual after a before a, e, é (except gawé for gahé); w is frequent after o and u with a, e, é following; o and u in the second syllable may have h or w in writing, but both are silent, since wo, wu are always pronounced [o/O] and [u]. Similarly y is often written after é and i, and also before é and i in the next syllable.
Final -h ([x]) keeps this sound when a suffix is added and is sometimes written -hh-, but usually cannot be distinguished from the h written between a final vowel and a suffix; y is written between a final é or i and -ang or -an, and w between a final o or u and -ang, -an, -in.
The suffixes -a, -an, -ang, -é, -in originally had a pronounced h, which was assimilated to a final consonant, which was therefore written twice; this still happens in literary style; the same happened with the pronouns hipun and hiya and the Javanese post-position hing; hence nanging, nanghing, nangnging (‘but’). Instances of this doubling will be found in the dictionary. However, double consonants were often written singly, even when one ended and the other began a word; in the Luke text do tkén, for dot tekén (‘desire for’) is found.
Grammatical Notes
To avoid extensive repetition, grammatical descriptions have been over-simplified. The S-form of the verbal base is marked intrans, since it frequently is used thus, even if the verb is transitive; it must be remembered that the S-form of a transitive verb is also the usual imperative, though it is more likely to be passive. This should be remembered when a transitive N-form is given after nouns and adjectives, which are themselves the S-forms of these transitive verbs (passive or imperative). Imperatives are rarely given with -ang.
Though ma- + S-form verbs are intransitive and stative, they are sometimes marked as passive, since their English equivalents are often a passive form.
It would be equally appropriate to label as intrans many of the words marked adj, since it is not possible to distinguish a sentence with a predicative adjective without copula from one with an intransitive verb: sebuné buhu can be translated ‘the nest has been abandoned’ or ‘the nest is an abandoned one.’
In fact, the grammatical categories given are fairly arbitrary. Balinese grammar is sometimes uncertain; for example, ma- verbs may be called ‘nouns,’ when they are in fact relative clauses with unexpressed subject: mabéya ‘(he) collects taxes’ is shortened from hané mabéya ‘(he) who collects-taxes’; or as adjectives: hanak mutang ‘a man in debt’ where mutang =‘is-in-debt’ and the relative pronoun is again omitted.
Levels of Language
In most cases van Eck’s attribution of level has been followed; however, usage has changed in the 100+ years since his dictionary appeared, and is still changing. What he calls High words have often become normal words of no level, and Court words have become merely High or Refined, or even Low. Modern authorities do not agree with each other about levels. Compared with van Eck, the Kamus gives levels for very few words and marks as Low only a few words which can only be used in a Low situation. An unmarked word can be assumed to be usable on all levels. Words marked K (Kawi) are found only in literary or religious contexts and can be regarded as High or Court words.
Raffles
In Vo1. 2 of his History of Java Raffles gives long lists of comparative vocabularies, which he claims were written for him in the Balinese script by competent scholars and transliterated and translated for him. His scholars and printers were perhaps not as competent as Raffles imagined; v.d. Tuuk accepts these vocabularies as an authority, while Barber was suspicious of them all, but corrected their orthography and included them in his dictionary. When these lists are the only source, or when the meaning differs from other authorities, the words are marked with (Raf).
Abbreviations
| abbr | abbreviated, abbreviation |
| adj | adjective |
| Am | American |
| Arab | Arabic |
| Aram | Aramaic |
| adv | adverb |
| aux | auxillary |
| Badung | from the Badung regency |
| Bali | Balinese |
| C | court and literary |
| class | classifier |
| coll | collective |
| compr | comparative |
| conj | conjunction |
| contr | contracted; contraction |
| D | Dutch |
| dem | demonstrative |
| e.g. | example, for example |
| EBali | East Balinese |
| Eng | English esp especially etc. etcetera |
| fem | feminine |
| fig |