About

Everyone knows that Jawi scripting is one of the world’s oldest scriptings. This script has its own history and specialties, thus, we’re enthusiastic to study more on this classical Malay scripting.

Jawi is a modified form of the Perso-Arabic alphabets, with a few extra letters for velar nasals and other things which are not included in the Arabic. Malay is an Austronesian language spoken in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Brunei Darussalam and Thailand. It is estimated that the total number of speakers of standard Malay is about 18 million. 

Not to be confused with the Javanese scripts, the word "Jawi" is an adjective for the Arabic noun Jawah. Both terms may have originated from the term "Javadwipa", the ancient name for Java. "Jawah" and "Jawi" may have been used by the Arabs as the catch-all terms in referring to the entire Maritime Southeast Asia and its people,  similar to the kind of understanding by the later Europeans when coining the terms Malay Archipelago and Malay race. 


Jawi alphabets





Source : http://www.omniglot.com/writing/malay.htm


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