Pegon ( Javanese and Sundanese: , ; also known as , ) was a modified Arabic script used to write the Javanese, Sundanese, and Madurese languages, as an alternative to the

Latin script The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern I ...

or the Javanese script and the old

Sundanese script Standard Sundanese script (''Aksara Sunda Baku'', ) is a writing system which is used by the Sundanese people. It is built based on Old Sundanese script (''Aksara Sunda Kuno'') which was used by the ancient Sundanese between the 14th and 18th ...

. In particular, it was used for religious (Islamic) writing and poetry from the fifteenth century, particularly in writing commentaries of the

Qur'an The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , s ...

. Pegon includes symbols for sounds that are not present in

Modern Standard Arabic Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) or Modern Written Arabic (MWA), terms used mostly by linguists, is the variety of standardized, literary Arabic that developed in the Arab world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; occasionally, it also ref ...

. Pegon has been studied far less than its Jawi counterpart which is used for Malay, Acehnese and

Minangkabau Minangkabau may refer to: * Minangkabau culture, culture of the Minangkabau people * Minangkabau Culture Documentation and Information Center * Minangkabau Express, an airport rail link service serving Minangkabau International Airport (''see belo ...

Etymology

The word ''Pegon'' originated from the Javanese word , which means 'deviate', due to the practice of writing the Javanese language with Arabic script, which was considered unconventional by Javanese people.

History

One of the earliest dated examples of the usage of Pegon may be ''Masa'il al-ta'lim'', a work on Islamic law written in Arabic with interlinear translation and marginal commentary in Javanese. The manuscript is dated 1623 and written on , a paper made from the bark of the mulberry tree.

Letters

Pegon uses the original letters of the Arabic script plus an additional seven letters to represent native Javanese sounds not present in Arabic: ( ), ( ), ( ), ( ), ( ), ( ), and ( ). One additional letter is used in foreign loanwords: ( ). These new letters are formed by the addition of dots to base letter forms. Pegon is not standardized and variation can be seen in how these additional letters are represented, most commonly in the position of the dots (above or below) and the number of dots (one or three).

Diacritics

Diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...

marks () are used in Pegon to represent vowel sounds or in some cases a lack thereof. Their prevalence in Pegon text varies from marking every letter, to being present only to differentiate particular vowel sounds. Full marking of letters is common in Islamic religious texts as it is reminiscent of the use of '' tashkil'' for guiding pronunciation when reading the

. Pegon text with minimal marking is increasingly common as the base letters often indicate the underlying vowel which renders the diacritics unnecessary, in this case only ''

fathah The Arabic script has numerous diacritics, which include: consonant pointing known as (), and supplementary diacritics known as (). The latter include the vowel marks termed (; singular: , '). The Arabic script is a modified abjad, where s ...

'' and '' maddah'' are used to differentiate distinct vowel sounds. A version of the script which uses no diacritics at all, similar to Jawi, is known as ' () meaning 'bare/bald' in Javanese. * ''

Fathah The Arabic script has numerous diacritics, which include: consonant pointing known as (), and supplementary diacritics known as (). The latter include the vowel marks termed (; singular: , '). The Arabic script is a modified abjad, where s ...

'' (◌َ) is sometimes used to represent , particularly in religious texts. It is added to the preceding letter to differentiate () from , as is detailed below. It is used in a similar fashion to differentiate from . * ''

Kasrah The Arabic script has numerous diacritics, which include: consonant pointing known as (), and supplementary diacritics known as (). The latter include the vowel marks termed (; singular: , '). The Arabic script is a modified abjad, where sh ...

'' (◌ِ) is sometimes used to represent , particularly in religious texts. * '' Dammah'' (◌ُ) is sometimes used to represent , particularly in religious texts. * '' Maddah'' (◌ٓ) is used to represent (). * ''

Sukun The Arabic script has numerous diacritics, which include: consonant pointing known as (), and supplementary diacritics known as (). The latter include the vowel marks termed (; singular: , '). The Arabic script is a modified abjad, where sh ...

'' (◌ْ) is sometimes used to represent a closed consonant with no vowel following, particularly in religious texts. * '' Alif

hamzah Hamza ( ar, همزة ') () is a letter in the Arabic alphabet, representing the glottal stop . Hamza is not one of the 28 "full" letters and owes its existence to historical inconsistencies in the orthography, standard writing system. It is de ...

'' ( أ ) is used for vowel initial words, as is detailed below.

Comparison of Pegon and Jawi

The main difference between Jawi and Pegon is that the latter is almost always written with vowel diacritics. Javanese written without any vowel diacritics, similar to Jawi is called (), meaning 'bare/bald' in Javanese. The orthographic rules of Jawi and Pegon differ, with Jawi spelling being much more standardised than Pegon. Pegon tends to write all vowel sounds of native words explicitly, either with full letters or diacritics, whereas Jawi orthography sometimes omits ''alif'' in certain positions where an would be pronounced, similarly other vowel sounds may not be written explicitly. For those additional letters representing sounds not present in Arabic, some letters have the same appearance in both Jawi and Pegon, while others differ. Pegon also features two additional letters for sounds native to Javanese which are not present in Malay. Also the form of ''kaf'' used differs between the two varieties with Pegon using the Arabic form, while Jawi uses the Persian form.

Transliteration

The United States

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...

published a romanization standard of Jawi and Pegon in 2012.The Library of Congress. (2012)
''ALA-LC Romanization Tables: Jawi-Pegon''
Retrieved 9 April 2019.

Footnotes

References

*Gallop, A. T. (2015). A Jawi sourcebook for the study of Malay palaeography and orthography. ''Indonesia and the Malay World, 43''(125), 13–171. *Jacquerye, Denis Moyogo. (2019)
''Proposal to encode Javanese and Sundanese Arabic characters''
Unicode. * {{List of writing systems Arabic alphabets Indonesian scripts Javanese language Sundanese language