The modern Malay and Indonesian alphabet (Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore: , , ) consists of the 26 letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet.Before a spelling reform in 1972, Indonesia would disambiguate as é and as e, and Malaysia as e and as ĕ. The spelling reform removed the diacritics, leaving plain e to represent both and . It is the more common of the two alphabets used today to write the Malay language, the other being Jawi (a modified Arabic script). The Latin Malay alphabet is the official Malay script in Indonesia (as Indonesian), Malaysia (also called Malaysian) and Singapore, while it is co-official with Jawi in Brunei.
Historically, various scripts such as Pallava, Kawi and Rencong or Surat Ulu were used to write Old Malay, until they were replaced by Jawi during Islamic missionary missions in the Malay Archipelago.
The arrival of European colonial powers brought the Latin alphabet to the Malay Archipelago. As the Malay-speaking countries were divided between two colonial administrations (the Dutch and the British), two major different spelling orthographies were developed in the Dutch East Indies and British Malaya respectively, influenced by the orthographies of their respective colonial tongues. The Van Ophuijsen Spelling System used in the Dutch East Indies and later Indonesia was based on the Dutch alphabet. It was replaced by the simpler Republican Spelling System in 1947.
In 1972, as part of the effort of harmonizing spelling differences between the two countries, Indonesia and Malaysia each adopted a spelling reform plan, called the Perfected Spelling System () in Indonesia and the New Rumi Spelling () in Malaysia.
Although the representations of speech sounds are now largely identical in Indonesian and other neighbouring Malay varieties, a number of minor spelling differences remain.
Letter names and pronunciations Enhanced Indonesian Spelling System (, abbreviated as EYD), New Rumi Spelling (). + Indonesian/Malay Latin alphabet Number 1234567891011121314151617181920212223242526Upper caseABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZLower caseabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
The Malay alphabet has a phonemic orthography; words are spelled the way they are pronounced, with a notable defectiveness: /ə/ and /e/ are both written as E/e. The names of the letters, however, differ between Indonesia and rest of the Malay-speaking countries; while Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore follow the letter names of the English alphabet, Indonesia largely follows the letter names of the Dutch alphabet, making its implementation more faithful to the actual phonemic values of each letter. The letters otherwise represent the same sounds in all Malay-speaking countries.
The letters F, Q, V, X and Z are not used in spelling native Malay/Indonesian words, the letters F and Z is also exclusively used in proper names only, e.g. Rizki or Fakfak. F and Z occur in loanwords from Arabic (e. g. fatah 'conquest, opening', zaman 'era, period, time') and from European languages (e. g. faktor 'factor', zoologi 'zoology'). V is used in loanwords from European languages (e. g. visa 'visa', provinsi 'province'). The letter Q is very rare: it is used for Arabic ﻕ in some loanwords, particularly related to religion: Qur'an, Al-Qur'an (spelling these words with the apostrophe is recommended by the Indonesian Ministry of Religion, the variants Quran and Alquran are deprecated; Malaysia uses Quran, Al-Quran), qari/qariah 'male/female Quran reader', qanun 'law established by Muslim sovereigns or by Aceh autonomous provincial government' (also qanun (instrument)). But many loanwords from Arabic words with ﻕ use k instead: makam 'tomb', mutlak 'absolute, complete'. Some words are spelled with q in Malaysia but with k in Indonesia: qasidah/kasidah 'qasida'. European loanwords use the letter k instead of q: kualiti (Malaysian)/kualitas (Indonesian) 'quality', frekuensi 'frequency'. The letter X is also very rare: it is used at the beginning of loanwords, e. g. xilofon 'xylophone', but replaced by ks at the middle and at the end of loanwords: taksi 'taxi', lateks 'latex', teks 'text' (some consonant clusters are regularly simplified at the end of loanwords: -st>-s, -nt>-n, -kt>-k).
Letter Name (in IPA) Sound Standard Indonesian Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore IPA English equivalent Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore Standard Indonesian Aa a (/a/) e (/e/) a as in father ~ - a as in sofa Bb bé (/be/) bi (/bi/) b as in bed Cc cé (/t͡ʃe/) si (/si/) ch as in check Dd dé (/de/) di (/di/) d as in day Ee é (/e/) i (/i/) e as in tolerant e as in hey e as in get Ff éf (/ef/) f as in effort Gg gé (/ge/) ji (/d͡ʒi/) g as in gain Hh ha (/ha/) héc (/het͡ʃ/, /heʃ/) h as in harm Ii i (/i/) ay (/aj/) i as in machine, but shorter i as in igloo Jj jé (/d͡ʒe/) j as in jam Kk ka (/ka/) ké (/ke/) unaspirated k as in skate Ll él (/el/) l as in let Mm ém (/em/) m as in mall Nn én (/en/) n as in net Oo o (/o/) o as in owe o as in bought, but shorter Pp pé (/pe/) pi (/pi/) unaspirated p as in speak Qq ki (/ki/) kiu (/kiu/ or /kju/) ~ q as in Qatar Rr ér (/er/) ar (/ar/ or /a:/) Spanish rr as in puerro Ss és (/es/) s as in sun Tt té (/te/) ti (/ti/) unaspirated t as in still Uu u (/u/) yu (/ju/) u as in rule, but shorter oo as in foot Vv fé (/fe/) vi (/vi/) ~ v as in van Ww wé (/we/) dabel yu (/dabəlˈju/) w as in wet Xx éks (/eks/) x as in box x as in xenon Yy yé (/je/) way (/wai̯/) y as in yarn Zz zét (/zet/) zed (/zed/) z as in zebra * Many vowels are pronounced (and were formerly spelt) differently in Peninsular Malaysia and Sumatra (where Malay is native): tujuh is pronounced (and was spelt) tujoh, rambut as rambot, kain as kaen, pilih as pileh, etc., [e] and [o] are also allophones of /i/ and /u/ in closed final syllables in peninsular Malaysian and Sumatran. Many vowels were pronounced and formerly spelt differently that way also in East Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia.
In addition, there are digraphs that are not considered separate letters of the alphabet:
Digraph Sound IPA Notes Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore Indonesia ai uy as in buy (ui) au ou as in ouch (ou) ei ei as in survey oi oy as in boy eu - In loanwords from Sundanese and Acehnese gh ~ - similar to Dutch and German ch, but voiced kh ch as in loch ng ng as in sing ny Spanish ñ; similar to ny as in canyon with a nasal sound sy sh as in shoe
Previous spelling systems
Pre-1972 British Malaya and Borneo/Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore orthography
+Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore: 1927 Za'aba Spelling system Upper caseAĂBCDEĔFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ Lower caseaăbcdeĕfghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
Pre-1972 Dutch East Indies/Indonesia orthography + Indonesia: 1901 Van Ophuijsen Spelling System and 1947 Soewandi Spelling System Upper case ABCDEĒ (pre-1947)ÉFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTOe (1901)/U (1947)VWXYZ Lower caseabcdeē (pre-1947)éfghijklmnopqrstoe (1901)/u (1947)vwxyz
Comparison table Sound Letter(s) 1927 Za'aba(Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore) 1901 Van Ophuijsen, 1947 Soewandi(Indonesia) Post-1972 replacement (Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore, Indonesia) ch tj c dh, dz - d, z ă, ĕ e e e é (pre-1947), e e (monophthong) i ï (pre-1947), i i j dj j kh ch kh ny nj ny th - s sh sj sy u oe (pre-1947), u u y j y
See also Jawi alphabet Congress Spelling System Javanese orthography
References
External links Malay alphabet Omniglot Coba-coba(Cuba-cuba) Indonesian & Malay Pedoman Umum Ejaan Bahasa Indonesia (PUEBI) Pedoman Umum Ejaan Bahasa Melayu