Summary of proposed revisions to the malay romanization table

The following revisions to the Malay (in Jawi-Arabic script) romanization table are recommended

It is recommended that the title be changed from “Malay romanization table” to “Jawi / Pegon romanization table” because it is used not only for the Malay language, but also for some Indonesian, Javanese, and Sundanese languages, as well as several other Southeast Asia languages. When it is used for Javanese and Sundanese languages, the script has minor variations and is known as “Pegon.” The Javanese language contains variations of aksara swara (vowel symbols), while Pegon includes symbols for sounds that are not found in standard Arabic.

1. 
   Add ڎ and ڟ to the alphabet and add Note no. 8.
   

ڎ (ḍa) or (dha) & ڟ (ṭa) or (tha) are the Arabic glyph that is another form of letter that represents the dal-like phoneme / d / & tha-like phoneme /t/ . Those are used to write scripts in Arabic letters. These letters are not present in the standard 28 glyph Arabic alphabet.

According to Kromoprawirto (1876:1) “pegon” comes from Javanese word “pego” which means ora lumrah anggone ngucapake, unusual in pronouncing. This is because pegon scripts are Arabic but their pronunciation follows the Javanese script system.

Among Malaysians, Arabic letters are known as “Jawi” writing, while the Javanese or Sundanese call it Arabic letter “Pegon.” The Arabic alphabet has been used extensively in areas ranging from Terengganu Malay (Malaysia), Aceh, Riau, Sumatra, Java (Indonesia), and Brunei. The Malay language is indigenous to peninsular Malaysia, Singapore, Sumatera, and the group of islands south of Singapore known as the Riau-Lingga archipelago. In historic times peninsular Malaysia was known as the Malay Peninsula, which as a non-political entity that also included southern Thailand where Malay is still spoken as a first language by the Malay population. The people of the Malay archipelago in the old days may have been aware that they were of one linguistic group, even if their mother tongues were not identical with one another. For example, the ancient manuscript “Hikayat Hang Tuah” in Jawi script is found both in Malaysia and Indonesia.

In general, Malay texts use Jawi script, while Javanese texts are written in Pegon. Jawi is the Arabic recording of the Malay language, while Pegon is the Arabic recording of Javanese (Pigeaud 1967: 26). Pegon follows the Javanese writing system, hanacaraka. The Pegon and Javanese alphabets both have twenty letters (Nitisastro 1933: 4). Of the twenty Pegon characters, only 13 are unaltered Arabic characters: ا / ﻬ or s (h), ﻥ (n), ﺭ (r), ﻙ (k), ﺩ (d), ﺕ (t), ﺱ (s), ﻭ (w), ﻝ (l), ﺝ (j), ﻯ (y), ﻡ (m) and ﺏ (b). These Pegon characters were already in the pre-revision Malay romanization table.

The other seven letters come from another in the Arabic writing system, called “aksara Arab rekaan” (adapted Arabic letters) (Pudjiastuti 2000: 101-103). The seven adapted Arabic letters are ﭺ (c), ﭪ (p), ڎ (dh), ڽ (ny), ﻚ (g), ڟ (ṭ), and ڠ (ng). Five of the adapted Arabic letters (ﭺ (c), ﭪ (p), ڽ (ny), ﻚ (g), and ڠ (ng)) are also found in Jawi, while the other two ( ڎ (dh) and ڟ (ṭ)) represent the Javanese consonants “dha” and “tha”.

The letters ڎ and ڟ are both used for Javanese and Sundanese transliteration.

Sample:

• 
  Sendhal (sandal)
  
  • 
    Jawi: سندال (sandal)
    
  • 
    Pegon: سنڎال (sendhal)
    
• 
  Sedhih (sedih) = sad
  
  • 
    Jawi: سد يه (sedih)
    
  • 
    Pegon: سڎ يه (sedhih)
    
• 
  Kutha (kota) = city
  
  • 
    Jawi: كوتا (kota)
    
  • 
    Pegon: كوڟا (kutha)
    

Explanation:

ۏ (v) or (vau) is used in the Arabic alphabet to modify a standard letter that symbolizes the phoneme / v / in Malay, Javanese, and Sundanese. This letter is not present in the standard 28-glyph Arabic alphabet.

The following examples come from Dictionary of Malay language and orthography, published by Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka Malaysia in 2008:  The letter [v],  ۏ (wau)+combining dot above is used to represent the [v] phoneme or sound that appears in western language loanwords used in the Malay language such as:

University = Universiti = اونيۏرسيتي

Video = Video = ۏيديو