Balinese

Balinese is a Malayo-Polynesian language of the Austronesian family, the chief language of Bali and the head of the Bali–Sasak–Sumbawa subgroup. Sanskrit and Old Javanese, or Kawi, reached Bali in the first millennium, and the Balinese script first appears in ninth-century inscriptions.

When the Majapahit minister Gajah Mada conquered the island in 1343, Javanese letters and literature became the language of court and temple. After Majapahit collapsed around 1500, fleeing Javanese aristocrats carried more Kawi tradition to Bali, where Kawi serves as the ceremonial and religious register beside everyday Kapara Balinese.

In the 1500s the Gelgel king Dalem Baturenggong carried Balinese rule and speech into Lombok and western Sumbawa. Gelgel fragmented after 1651; a new royal seat was set up at Klungkung in 1686, and nine competing kingdoms kept their courts and literary language independent through the 1700s.