This script is full of curls, curves, bridges and much more suited to being written with ink on paper rather than inscribed on palm-leaf.

[11] Some writers sometimes mention Daeng Pamatte', the 'syahbandar' of the Sultanate of Gowa in the early 16th century AD, as the creator of the Makasar script based on a quote in the Gowa Chronicle (Makassarese: Lontara Patturioloanga ri Tu Gowaya) which reads Daeng Pamatte' ampareki lontara' Mangkasaraka, translated as "Daeng Pamatte' which created the Makassarese Lontara" in the translation of GJ Wolhoff and Abdurrahim published in 1959.

However, this opinion is rejected by most historians and linguists today, who argue that the term ampareki in this context is more accurately translated as "composing" in the sense of compiling a library or completing historical records and writing system instead of script creation from nil.

[12][13][14][15][16] The oldest surviving example of the Makasar script is the signature of the delegates from the Sultanete of Gowa in the Treaty of Bongaya from 1667, which is now stored in the National Archives of Indonesia.

Meanwhile, one of the earliest manuscripts in the Makasar script of significant length that has survived, is the Gowa-Tallo chronicle from the mid 18th century AD which is kept at the Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen (KIT), Amsterdam (collection no.

[20][21] Even so, historical records such as the Makassar's patturiolong are inseparable from their political function as a means of ratifying power, descent, and territorial claims of certain rulers.

[23] Daily registers are often made by high ranking member of societies, such as the sultans, the rulers (karaeng), or the prime ministers (tumailalang).

For a particularly eventful date, the continuing line would be written sideways to the page, following a zig-zag pattern until all space are filled.

Given that Makasar script is also traditionally written without word breaks, a typical text often have a lot of ambiguous portion which can often only be distinguished through context.

As an illustration, Cummings and Jukes provide the following example to illustrate how the Makasar script can produce different meanings depending on how the reader cuts and fills in the ambiguous part: Without knowing the intent or event to which the author may be referring, it can be impossible for a general reader to determine the "correct" reading of the above sentence.

[26] The form in the table above is adapted from the characters used in the diary of Pangeran Gowa, Tropenmuseum collection, numbered KIT 668-216.

There are 4 diacritics, shown below:[2] 𑻱𑻨𑻱𑻳𑻭𑻦𑻵 𑻱𑻨𑻱𑻳𑻭𑻯 𑻱𑻨𑻭𑻳𑻱𑻶𑻮𑻶 𑻱𑻨𑻭𑻳𑻤𑻶𑻠𑻶 Historical Makassarese texts are written without wordspacing (scriptio continua) and do not use punctuation.