Jawi script has played an important role in the development of the literary tradition among the Malay-Indonesian people. It is often considered as a mean of first access to their literary tradition for people in this region. Apart from this, a number of scholars, perhaps exaggeratingly are of the opinion that the history of the Malay literary tradition started with the introduction of the Jawi script. The long-standing influence of Jawi script came about parallel with the Islamization process where it became the written means of communication for the Malay-Indonesian people starting as early as the 14th century, replacing a number of other scripts that had developed before it. For this reason it is not surprising that writings in Jawi script form a depository of information from the past about customs, traditions, literature, culture, and religion.
It is often assumed that the Jawi script came up as an attempt to modify Arabic script. While this cannot be denied, note that it is also important to consider the influence of Persian script in the process of the creation of Jawi script, bearing in mind the number of similarities in form and character. Moreover, the Muslim intellectual tradition in Southeast Asia does indeed note a rather strong Persian influence, especially since its early times. Unfortunately, this Persian influence on Jawi script has as yet not been the focus of much research.
Indeed, during its next development, the influence of Jawi writings among the Malay-Indonesian communities experienced an extraordinary decline. Dutch and British colonialism has undoubtedly contributed to the decline in the usage of this script. There were two critical moments in the development and demise of Jawi script. Naturally, these developments did not occur in any extreme way but came about gradually. Also, not all regions in the area experienced this change to the same degree. In Malaysia, for instance, the influence of Jawi script is still felt in its literacy tradition up to the present. In Indonesia, even though limited to a few regions, the Jawi script is at present still used among certain groups in society for the transmission of ideas as well as for less ‘serious’ matters.
Jawi Script and the Literacy Tradition in the Malay-Indonesian World
A number of regions in the Malay-Nusantara world in general and in the Malay-Indonesian world in particular used to have a high level of literacy from old times onward which was possibly higher than literacy traditions in Europe during the same period. Before Jawi became in use a number of languages were written using a number of scripts such as Rencong, Lampung, Javanese, Buginese/Makassarese, and others. Jawi script is often considered in this context as the first door to open up the literacy traditions in a number of regional languages in Indonesia. However, it is important to note that compared to the number of regional languages in Indonesia the phenomenon of Jawi script is only applicable to a small number of languages.
The concept that the Jawi script formed the first access to their written tradition would seem not applicable for Malay itself. Writing traditions in Indonesia had existed a long time before the advent of Islam introduced Jawi script, Malay was already distributed in scripts available at the time, although this distribution was not as spectacular as after the introduction of Jawi script. From old times onward Malay was admired not only because of its orality and development into a lingua franca, but also because of its written tradition.
Research conducted by Uli Kozok on a Malay manuscript from the fourteenth century in the village of Tanjung Tanah in Kerince (South Sumatra) revealed that as early as the 14th century Malay was written using a pre-islamic post-Pallawa script that still shows many similarities with Malay characters from the time of Adityawarman. In the same collection of manuscripts, Kozok encountered another manuscript in Malay using Ulu or Rencong script.
Annabel Teh Gallop also pointed to a tree bark manuscript in the library of Oxford University that was written in Malay using Lampung script. This manuscript is said to have been bequeathed to the Library as early as 1630.
A Japanese propaganda in Jawi script found in the town of Kuching, Sarawak after the capturing of the town by the Australian forces.
Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa in Jawi text.
Lampung manuscript on folded tree bark. British Library.
A sign in old Malacca in Chinese characters (which would be Nan fa in Pinyin), transcription (Nam Fatt) and Jawi.
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