By Affa Adi
Edited by Harith Syafiee
Do you ever imagine what it would be like if the Jawi script was still being used widely in Malaysia? Imagine going around in KL or any part of Malaysia and seeing Jawi being displayed on every single billboard and signage. Sounds real fun to me.
A quick Google search will tell you that Jawi was the standard Malay script until the 20th century when it gradually fell out of use due to Western influence at the time. Jawi consists of Arabic letters and I think it’s pretty neat when we consider how it was improvised by creating six additional letters to support the Malay phonemes.
We have a pretty promising writing system for the Malay language, but eventually, we settled for the Latin one which we called Rumi.
So where did it go wrong?
To clarify, I’m not an advocate for having Jawi back into the system, nor am I a history geek. I don’t know what went wrong (or right, or left). All I know is how I am a little “envious” that non-Malay can easily learn Malay without having to learn the letters because yeah, it’s Latin. Everyone knows the Latin alphabet.
This thought stems from one particularly stressful night, when I was learning a language with its characters. I was struck with how “unfair” it is that I have to go through the stage of learning another kind of script just to be able to read and understand the language. While most foreigners can skip that part and go straight to learning the Malay language.
I am aware that there are some states in Malaysia where Jawi isn’t a rare sight to see, especially in Terengganu and Kelantan. Thanks to Jawi being taught in Pendidikan Islam, the writing hasn’t been completely wiped out from the younger generation’s knowledge.
Still, Jawi is not the main script that people need to learn to be able to read a certain place’s name in Malaysia or the name of a product they bought. You don’t go around and see people casually filling out a form using Jawi or having a friend who texts in Jawi. It is only being treated as an alternative and one that does not require you to learn to read Malay.
But of course, there’s no issue at all with it and I’m not particularly all that enthusiastic about having Jawi in our life. This is also not an article calling people to uphold Jawi but simply an outlet for me to express how I wish we have our own distinct script as well instead of adopting this Latin alphabet. That I wish foreign language learners would struggle the same as I do when they learn the Malay language (because I’m petty like that).
That, instead of struggling to memorize the words in Malay when reading, maybe we could see foreigners scrunching their faces up as they determine what sounds this letter س brings. Perhaps too, we would have an introductory to Malay language videos all over YouTube titled something along the lines of “Learn All Jawi Letters in an Hour: A Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners.”
Again, this is just me entertaining the idea of what it could have been like if Jawi had been retained as the Malay standard writing. Because I enjoy learning characters or scripts and seeing the intricacies and the beauty in writing them, of being able to learn and read a new thing, and I wish that could be the case for others who learn the Malay language too.
With that, I end this rant with a fun video to watch of non-Malays learning Jawi writing.
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