Indonesian orthography refers to the official spelling system used in the

Indonesian language Indonesian ( ) is the official language, official and national language of Indonesia. It is a standard language, standardized variety (linguistics), variety of Malay language, Malay, an Austronesian languages, Austronesian language that has be ...

. The current system uses the

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the o ...

and is called (EYD), commonly translated as ''Enhanced Spelling'', ''Perfected Spelling'' or ''Improved Spelling''.

History

The Perfected Spelling system is a system of orthography released in 1972 to replace the preexisting

Republican Spelling System The Republican Spelling System (in Indonesian: , when written in the current spelling system, or , when written in this spelling system) or Soewandi Spelling (in Indonesian: ) was the orthography used for Indonesian from 17 March 1947 until 1972 ...

(''RSS'', also called the Soewandi Spelling System, ''SSS''). A joint initiative of Indonesia and neighboring country

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

(which also introduced the similar Joint Rumi Spelling system), the aim of the change in 1972 was to introduce greater harmonization of the Indonesian and Malay-language orthographies. The new EYD system, adopted on the 27th anniversary of Indonesia's independence on 17 August 1972, was decreed by President

Suharto Suharto (; ; 8 June 1921 – 27 January 2008) was an Indonesian army officer and politician, who served as the second and the longest serving president of Indonesia. Widely regarded as a military dictator by international observers, Suharto ...

on the previous day. Government departments were instructed to begin using the EYD system on 1 January 1973. On 27 August 1975, the

Minister of Education and Culture The Ministry of Education and Culture is a Cabinet position in the governments of several nations. In some nations the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Culture are separate departments; in others, the Ministry of Education and Culture als ...

issued a decree which provided a detailed explanation of the changes in the new system and marked the official use of the EYD system. It was formerly known as the Indonesian Spelling System (, EBI), often referred to as the Indonesian Spelling System General Guidelines (, PUEBI), between 2015 and 2022.

Characteristics

Republican-to-EYD letter changes

Foreign loan letters

Letters that had previously been included in the Republican Spelling as foreign loan letters are officially used in the EYD Spelling.

Q and X

The letters Q and X are used in scientific subjects. Examples: * ''Sinar-X'' (X-ray) The letter Q is also used as needed for Islamic subjects. Examples: * ''Quran'' * ''Al-Furqan'' * ''Al-Baqarah'' This letter is also used in some placenames in Indonesia, derived from the local languages, e.g. and districts in

West Kutai Regency West Kutai Regency ( id, Kabupaten Kutai Barat) is a regency (''kabupaten'') in the Indonesian province of East Kalimantan. It previously covered a much greater area, with a population of 165,091 at the 2010 Census, but in December 2012 the five no ...

East Kalimantan East Kalimantan (Indonesian: ) is a province of Indonesia. Its territory comprises the eastern portion of Borneo. It had a population of about 3.03 million at the 2010 census (within the current boundary), 3.42 million at the 2015 census, and 3. ...

Affixes and prepositions

The writing of ''di-'' and ''ke-'' (affixes) can be distinguished from ''di'' and ''ke'' (prepositions), where ''di-'' and ''ke-'' are written together with the words that follow it, for example ''diambil'', ''kehendak'' (taken, desire), while ''di'' and ''ke'' are written separately with the words that follow it, for example ''di rumah'', ''ke pasar'' (at home, to the market). This is different from the former Republican Spelling, where both ''di-'' and ''di'' are written together with the words following it.

Reduplication

Reduplication In linguistics, reduplication is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word (or part of it) or even the whole word is repeated exactly or with a slight change. The classic observation on the semantics of reduplication is Edwa ...

, mostly used in plural form of words, has to be fully written with letters, so the use of the

superscript A subscript or superscript is a character (such as a number or letter) that is set slightly below or above the normal line of type, respectively. It is usually smaller than the rest of the text. Subscripts appear at or below the baseline, whil ...

ed number "2" as used in the Republican Spelling is no longer valid. The practice remains common in informal usage such as in text messaging.

Exceptions

Exceptions mostly come from proper nouns. Many personal names, particularly of younger people, do not follow the orthographic rules (see

Indonesian names Indonesian names and naming customs reflect the multicultural and multilingual nature of the over 17,000 islands in the Indonesian archipelago. The world's fourth most populous nation, Indonesia is home to more than 1300 ethnic groups, each with t ...

). The common spelling variations include doubled letters, silent ''h'' following consonants, use of Dutch digraphs (which stems from Van Ophuijsen spelling) and other eccentric letters. However, a few may also come from other parts of speech, such as Indonesian 'gastritis' is actually pronounced as or even , deriving from Dutch ''maag''; and pronounced as or also from Dutch ''bus''.

Changes

Various minor changes were announced after 1975: * On 9 September 1987, the Minister of Education and Culture issued a ministerial decree which updated the previous spelling system and which remained valid for 22 years. * On 31 July 2009, the Minister of National Education issued a decree outlining further changes. The update included optional

diacritics 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 ''diacritic ...

for ⟨e⟩ as ⟨é⟩ e.html"_;"title="Close-mid_front_unrounded_vowel.html"_;"title="nowiki/>Close-mid_front_unrounded_vowel">e">Close-mid_front_unrounded_vowel.html"_;"title="nowiki/>Close-mid_front_unrounded_vowel">eand_⟨e⟩_[Mid_central_vowel.html" ;"title="Close-mid_front_unrounded_vowel">e.html" ;"title="Close-mid_front_unrounded_vowel.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Close-mid front unrounded vowel">e">Close-mid_front_unrounded_vowel.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Close-mid front unrounded vowel">eand ⟨e⟩ [Mid central vowel">ə]. * On 26 November 2015, the Minister of Education and Culture issue a ministerial regulation about spelling system. For the first time, the term "Indonesian spelling system" was used. There were only minor changes compared to previous updates including the addition of a new

diphthong A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech o ...

of ⟨ei⟩ (previously there were only 3 diphthongs, ⟨ai⟩, ⟨au⟩ and ⟨oi⟩), optional

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monophthong A monophthong ( ; , ) is a pure vowel sound, one whose articulation at both beginning and end is relatively fixed, and which does not glide up or down towards a new position of articulation. The monophthongs can be contrasted with diphthongs, wh ...

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,_reaffirming_the_use_of_optional_diacritics_ 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_''diacritic_...