TheIndonesian-Malaysian orthography reform of 1972 was a joint effort between Indonesia and Malaysia to harmonize the spelling system used in their national languages, which are both forms of theMalay language. For the most part, the changes made in the reform are still used today. This system uses theLatin alphabet and in Malaysia is calledJoint Rumi Spelling (Malay:Ejaan Rumi Bersama,ERB), and in IndonesiaPerfect Spelling orEnhanced Spelling (Indonesian:Ejaan yang Disempurnakan,EYD). It replaced theZa'aba Spelling that was previously standard in Malaysia,Singapore andBrunei, and theRepublican Spelling System in Indonesia.^[1]

Historically,Indonesia andMalaysia—the two largestMalay-speaking countries, in that order—were divided between two colonial administrations, under theDutch andBritish empires respectively. Thus, the development of spelling systems for Rumi script were greatly influenced by theorthographies of their respective colonial tongues. Shortly after the end ofIndonesia-Malaysia confrontation in 1966, a common spelling system became among the first items on the agenda of adétente between the two countries.^[1]

The new spelling system, known as 'New Rumi Spelling' in Malaysia and 'Perfected Spelling System' in Indonesia, was officially announced in both countries on 16 August 1972.^[1] Although the representations of speech sounds are now largely identical in the Indonesian and Malaysian varieties, a number of minor spelling differences remain.

The first known attempt to use theLatin script or 'Rumi' for writing Malay words was byDuarte Barbosa in 1518 inMelaka, shortly afterits conquest by the Portuguese in 1511.^[2] A few years later, in 1522, the world's first Malay–European dictionary was compiled byAntonio Pigafetta, an Italian companion ofFerdinand Magellan.^[3][4] This was subsequently followed by many other European traders, adventurers, explorers and scholars who invented their own Rumi spelling systems. Among notable Rumi spelling systems that existed before the 20th century were the orthographies ofCornelis de Houtman (1595),^[5][6] Davidis Haex (1631),^[7]Thomas Bowrey (1701),^[8][9] J.Howison (1800),^[10]William Marsden (1812),^[11][12] Claudius Thomsen (1820),^[13]John Crawfurd (1848),^[14]Straits Settlements (1878),^[15]Frank Swettenham (1881),^[16] and William Edward Maxwell (1882).^[17] All these systems were mainly developed using the method oftransliteration fromJawi (Arabic-derived Malay script). The divergences of various spelling systems that existed in colonial Malaya necessitated the need for a commonly accepted spelling system. A major orthographic reform was initiated by British scholar and administratorRichard James Wilkinson in 1904, from which the Wilkinson spelling was introduced, which became the official system widely used in all British colonies and protectorates inMalaya,Singapore andBorneo.^[1][18][19] The Wilkinson spelling is very similar to the modern orthography used in both Indonesia and Malaysia, except that modernc andsy were insteadch andsh at that time.

In 1924, another reform was devised by a notable Malaygrammarian,Za'ba, which was later adopted in all schools from the 1930s onwards. After the short-lived Fajar Asia system used duringJapanese occupation (1941–1945), the Third Malay Congress introduced theCongress system in 1956. The innovative Congress System gained widespread currency through published works but remained impractical for the use of the masses. In the meantime, schools and government publications continued using theZa'aba system. Hence, the general public became increasingly confused with the existence of different spelling systems. As a result, it was common during this era to find several spelling systems concurrently used in printed media and individual writings.^[1]

In 1959, theFederation of Malaya and Indonesia signed a cultural agreement, which included the implementation of a common spelling system. The system agreed to in this agreement was known as the 'Malindo System'. However, because of its similarity with the Congress system, which was proven impractical, and the ensuing diplomatic tension between Indonesia and Malaya over theformation of Malaysia, the system was never implemented or even published. Following the end of Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation in 1966, a common spelling system became among the first items on the agenda of adetente between the two countries. Language experts from both countries began to work on formulating a new system that was practical and above all accepted by the two parties concerned. Six years later, on 16 August 1972, the common spelling system, which came to be known as 'New Rumi Spelling' in Malaysia and 'Perfected Spelling System' in Indonesia, was officially announced byPrime MinisterTun Abdul Razak in Malaysia andPresidentSuharto in Indonesia.^[1]

Soon after, another Malay-speaking country,Brunei, decided to adopt the new common system to replace the Malaysian Za'aba system previously used in the country. AlthoughSingapore does not use Malay as much as its neighbours, because of its four-language policy (consisting of English, Mandarin, Malay and Tamil), its Malay language developments had always been closely linked with those of Malaysia. There has never been anything official on Singapore's part on its stand on the new spelling, but implementation of this system has taken place as evidenced by publications in Malay produced in Singapore.^[1]

A grace period of five years was given in both countries for people to get used to the new system. In Malaysia this meant that students were not penalised for making mistakes in spelling words according to the old systems. However, a rigorous programme was undertaken by the government's Language and Literacy Agency (Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka) to see to the implementation of the new spelling system by giving special classes to the people, especially teachers and administrators, on how to spell their language according to the new spelling system. The grace period also allowed publishers to dispose of their old stocks and to publish revised editions and new titles in the new spelling. Names of roads, places, and institutions had to undergo a change in appearance, using the new spelling system.^[1]

The Za'aba system uses the letter⟨ĕ⟩ to stand for/ə/ while letter⟨e⟩ stands for the/e/ sound. The Malay language shows a higher frequency of/ə/ compared to/e/, thus the Za'aba style was not economical in terms of the time taken for writing, quite apart from the fact that the text was full of diacritics. Furthermore, with a few exceptions, the occurrence of/e/ is predictable, as/e/ usually occurs in a harmonious relationship with itself and/o/ in two contiguous syllables where the vowel of the other syllable is also/e/ or/o/. On the other hand, the schwa enters such a relationship with/i/ and/u/. The new system, guided by the Wilkinson system, has discarded them and uses⟨e⟩ for both the vowels concerned.^[1]

In the old systems, the apostrophe was placed before a vowel, if the vowel is syllable-initial, to indicate thevoiced pharyngeal fricative which appeared in loanwords from Arabic. However, Malay does not have thisphoneme in its inventory. Most Malays actualise this sound as aglottal stop. Since syllable- and word-initial vowels in Malay are always accompanied by the glottal stop, the apostrophe to indicate the Arabic pharyngeal fricative was discarded, so spelling certain Arabic loanwords with onegrapheme less, as:^[1]

The use of the hyphen became significantly less with the new spelling system. The old spelling systems were liberal in the use of the hyphen e.g. between the affixdi- or the postpositional emphatic wordlah or the clitic formnya and the root word, or between certain prepositions and the nouns that follow them. In the new spelling, the hyphen in the first set of contexts is removed and the components are written as a complete or whole word; in the second context, the removal of the hyphen results in two distinct words, one apreposition and the other anoun. In the new system, the hyphen remains in use between components of reduplicated words, likemenari-nari ('keeps on dancing') andrumah-rumah ('houses').^[1]

For thevoiceless palato-alveolar affricate/tʃ/, spelt in Malaysia as⟨ch⟩ and Indonesia as⟨tj⟩, a new grapheme was agreed on:⟨c⟩. Previous to the new spelling system,⟨c⟩ did not have the status of a grapheme either in Malaysia or in Indonesia. The common spelling system has given it graphemic status. It is not only simplicity that is indicated in the choice of⟨c⟩, but also the end of the confusion arising from⟨ch⟩ for people reading Malaysian and Indonesian texts. In Malaysia,⟨ch⟩ stood for thevoiceless palato-alveolar affricate/tʃ/ (represented by⟨c⟩ in the new spelling) while in Indonesia it was for thevelar fricative/x/ (represented by⟨kh⟩ in the new spelling).^[1]

A number of graphemes remain in use in Malaysian spelling, and in turn adopted by Indonesians. For example, Indonesians agreed to adopt the Malaysian⟨j⟩ for thevoiced alveolopalatal affricate spelt⟨j⟩ in English. Linked to the Indonesian acceptance of⟨j⟩ was their acceptance of the Malaysian⟨y⟩ for thesemivowel. When the Indonesians accepted⟨y⟩, they also accepted⟨ny⟩ in place of their⟨nj⟩, for the/ɲ/ sound. The⟨h⟩ as a component in certain graphemes is also retained in Malaysian spelling, and it indicates 'gutturalisation'. Such phonemes mostly occur in loan words from Arabic, and they are represented in the graphemes⟨kh⟩ for/x/,⟨gh⟩ for/ɣ/ etc. Here, it is worth mentioning that the Indonesian side had agreed to the grapheme⟨kh⟩ for /x/ to replace their⟨ch⟩.^[1]

In Malay,reduplication is very productive as a morphological process. There are three types of reduplication in Malay: the reduplication of the first syllable of the root, the reduplication of the stem of a complex word, and the reduplication of the whole word, be it a simple or complex word. In the old spelling systems both in Malaysia and Indonesia, the first type of reduplication was speltin toto, but the character⟨2⟩ was used to indicate the reduplication of the second and third types. In the reduplication of the whole word, the character⟨2⟩ was placed at the end of the word, for example,rumah2 was read asrumah-rumah ('houses'),makan2 asmakan-makan ('to while away the time eating').^[1]

The writing of the reduplication of the complex word with the character⟨2⟩ was not neat and consistent. The use of⟨2⟩ made it possible to write the same word in more than one way. One was to separate the components with a hyphen and place⟨2⟩ after the component that was duplicated (see ii below), and the other was to place⟨2⟩ at the end of the whole word (see iii below).^[1]

Both ii and iii above should be read asbermain-main. The first method facilitated reading, but it violated the rule of writing complex words with affixes, namely that an affix should be written together with the stem so that the word appears as a complete whole. As for the second method, while it observed the morphological rule, it caused difficulty in reading. Speakers, especially non-native ones, were prone to reading the second example above as a total reduplicationbermain-bermain which is ungrammatical. Although native speakers, with their native competence, may not readbermain2 as a total reduplication, because the total reduplication of forms falling into this pattern does not occur in the language, there are other patterns where native speakers themselves find difficulty in deciding whether the written word with the character⟨2⟩ represents total reduplication or only that of the stem. An example issekali2. As a total reduplication,sekali-sekali, it means 'once in a while', whereas as a word which undergoes reduplication only at the stem,sekali-kali, it means '(not) ... at all'.^[1]

The use of the character⟨2⟩ was economical in nature. It was a form of shorthand in writing the cumbersome reduplicated word. However, facilitation in reading and mastering the language was the overriding factor in discarding it altogether as a shorthand symbol for reduplication. This makes the physical writing slower but it has brought simplification to the learning system.^[1]

The old spelling systems in Malaysia and Indonesia did not recognise the existence of consonant clusters at the word-initial and word-final positions. Loanwords which have such clusters are mainly from Dutch and English. They were spelt, based on the established rule ofMalay phonology that the syllable structure consists of only a single consonant as itsonset and itscoda. Therefore, the cluster at the beginning of the word was neutralised by inserting avowel, usually aschwa, between its components.^[1]

There were certain words which showed a difference in the perceptions of the Indonesians and the Malaysians on the clusters concerned, viz. on the component that was more significant and should be retained. This concerned mainly clusters with⟨r⟩ as the penultimate component. As in the examples below, in Indonesia, the⟨r⟩ was more significant than⟨t⟩. On the other hand, the Malaysians, perhaps very much influenced by British pronunciation, wrote and pronounced those words with the⟨t⟩. In their quest for uniformity, the Malaysians and the Indonesians decided to neutralise their differences by putting back both⟨r⟩ and⟨t⟩ in those words.^[1]

With its flexibility rule, the new spelling system has admitted clusters in the initial and final positions of the word. This has facilitated the borrowing of technical terms from English for the various sciences. However, those words which have existed for a long time in the Malay language with one or two components decapitated have been allowed to remain, so as not to cause too much destandardisation. Among those which did not undergo a change in form by having their clusters reinstated are the Malaysian examples ofkomunis ('communist'),rekod ('record'),moden ('modern').^[1]

As Malay is essentially disyllabic in nature, monosyllabic words with final consonant clusters in English are assimilated by giving them a disyllabic appearance, namely by placing the grapheme⟨a⟩ at the end of the word. For example,kuspa from 'cusp',kalka from 'calc'.^[1]

The acceptance of the schwa in final closed syllables, as in the wordfilem ('film'), also linked to the acceptance of⟨e⟩ for schwa at the end of the word as inkoine which has been takenin toto. This has greatly facilitated the work of the various terminology committees of theDewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, already mentioned, in assimilating loanwords from other languages.^[1]

Acceptance of the final schwa does not mean acceptance of something foreign. The pronunciation adopted by theRadio Televisyen Malaysia (RTM) actualises the final⟨a⟩ as a/ə/, based on the Johor dialect of Southern Peninsular Malaysia. In the northern part of thePeninsula and inSabah andSarawak,⟨a⟩ is realised as/a/, as also in Indonesia. However, the acceptance of this final schwa does not mean that all cases of⟨a⟩ in the word final position are changed to⟨e⟩. Native words continue to be spelt with⟨a⟩, and this⟨a⟩ can have various styles of pronunciation. The final⟨e⟩ for schwa is meant only for loanwords.^[1]

• Republican Spelling System, for more information on a similar spelling system used in Indonesian in older times.

• Asmah Omar (1989),"The Malay Spelling Reform",Journal of the Simplified Spelling Society, archived fromthe original on 2011-08-26
• Hashim Musa (1997),Epigrafi Melayu: Sejarah Sistem Tulisan dalam Bahasa Melayu (Malay epigraphy: A history of writing systems in Malay language),Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka,ISBN 978-9-8362-5729-1
• Ismail Dahaman (2007),Ejaan Rumi Sepanjang Zaman (Complete history of Rumi spellings),Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka,ISBN 978-9-8362-9278-0
• Barbosa, Duarte (2010),The Book of Duarte Barbosa, An Account of the Countries bordering on the Indian Ocean and their Inhabitants (Volume II, edited by Mansel Longworth Dames), Hakluyt Society,ISBN 978-1-4094-1416-2
• Collins, James T (1998),Malay, World Language: a short history, Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka,ISBN 978-979-461-537-9

• Malay language
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• Writing systems introduced in 1972
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