Batak

Batak is spoken on Sumatra, the westernmost of the major islands of Indonesia. There are about 2 million speakers, living mainly in the north-central part of the island, but also scattered along the eastern coast. The distinctive Batak alphabet consists of sixteen basic characters, each of which may be modified by the use of certain marks. It is rapidly disappearing in favor of the Roman alphabet, and relatively few people remain today who are able to read it. Batak belongs to the Malayo-Polynesian family of languages.