Pegon script

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Javanese-Arabic script

title: "Pegon script" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["arabic-alphabets", "indonesian-scripts", "javanese-language", "sundanese-language"] description: "Javanese-Arabic script" topic_path: "geography/indonesia" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegon_script" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Javanese-Arabic script ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox writing system"]

FieldValue
namePegon script
altname{{Script
typeAbjad
sistersJawi script
Buri Wolio
Sorabe alphabet
languages{{plainlist
* Indonesian<ref name"Kitabi"Dahlan, H. Abdullah Zaini. Kitabati, Practical Methods for Learning to Read & Write Pegon (Kitabati, Metode Praktis Belajar Membaca & Menulis Pegon). Zaini Press. Accessed April 19, 2023. https://ia903106.us.archive.org/22/items/etaoin/Kitabati.pdf.
timeto the present
fam1Proto-Sinaitic
fam2Phoenician
fam3Aramaic
fam4Nabataean
fam5Arabic
sampleBabad Diponegoro in Pegon script – Perpusnas.jpg
directionRight-to-left
::

| name = Pegon script | altname = {{Script|Arab|اَكسارا ڤَيڮَون}} | type = Abjad | sisters = Jawi script Buri Wolio Sorabe alphabet | languages = {{plainlist|

In the past few decades, the Indonesian language has grown in its prominence and role as the national language of Indonesia. Thus, publishing institutions associated with religious schools have further developed new teaching material, in order to expand the use of Pegon script to Indonesian language as well. Indonesian language, being a variety of Malay, has also been written by the sister script of Pegon, Jawi.

Etymology

The word Pegon originated from the Javanese word jv, meaning "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 jv, 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: , jv , , , , , 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, two or three). In more recent teaching material, additional letters have been added in order to use the script for writing Indonesian language. ::data[format=table]
::

Representation of vowels

Vowel diacritics

Arabic script is an abjad, meaning that for the most part, only consonants are written. Arabic has three vowels, which may be short or long. There are three letters in Arabic () that can also represent long vowels, but in general, short vowel diacritics are only used in religious texts and texts meant for beginner learners. The phonology of Javanese, Sundanese, and Madurese is quite different. There are six vowels, and no marking of vowel length. So, the script has been adapted by using the vowel diacritics in conjunction with , and to fully represent the vowels of the languages of Java.

The prevalence of diacritic marking in Pegon varies from marking every letter, to being present only to differentiate particular vowel sounds. A version of the script which uses few diacritics, is called bare or bald (). To a fluent reader, the base letters are often sufficient to recognise word, rendering the diacritics unnecessary. So, for example, the word Indonesia may be written fully vocalised, ) or bare ({{Script|Arab|إنڎَونَيسييا}}). It is increasingly common in printed books to only consistently use the e-pepêt, with the other diacritics only used when disambiguation is needed.

Full marking of letters is common in most formal texts, including religious texts and historic diplomatic manuscripts.

::data[format=table title="Vowel diacritics"]
::

Syllables

A vowel at the beginning of a word is indicated by the letter alif , plus diacritic, and a follow-up letter or if required. If present, the follow-up letter is written with a sukun to indicate that it is part of the first syllable and not the start of a new one. A vowel following a consonant (such as the letter in the example below), a following vowel is indicated by diacritics but without the letter alif. ::data[format=table title="Vowel syllables"]

vowelwordinitialbarevocalised+ vowelbarevocalised
{{letterl=jvs=Arabch=اُوْnotes=◌ُ + او
::

Consonant clusters

In pegon, consonant clusters are written in two ways. In clusters that consist of a nasal consonant followed by a liquid consonant, such as [mr], [ml], or [ŋl], or of an obstruent consonant followed by a plosive consonant, such as [tr], [pl], or [by], the first consonant is modified by an epenthetic e-pepet .

When a consonant cluster consists of a nasal consonant followed by a plosive consonant, like [nj], [mb], or [nd], a prothetic alif is added to the beginning of the cluster.

::data[format=table title="Some consonant clusters"]

with epentheticwith prothetic
::

Vowel sequences

Vowel sequences follow certain general conventions. Variations besides these are also commonly seen in various books and manuscripts.

::data[format=table title="Vowel sequences (both bare and vocalised forms)"]

barevocalised
::

Reduplication

In Pegon script, reduplication is represented with a numeral ٢ or a hyphen. If the word has a prefix, the duplicated base word is simply repeated after a hyphen. Otherwise, a ٢ indicates that the word is reduplicated. If the word has a suffix, the ٢ is placed between the base word and the suffix.

::data[format=table title="Sample Javanese words, showing reduplication."] | vocalized || bare || transliteration || meaning | |---| | | | | | | ::

Sundanese Pégon

The Sundanese language has a slightly different system in writing Pegon compared to its Javanese equivalent. While Javanese Pegon has extra letters for writing consonants Sundanese does not have such as jv and jv , Sundanese also has the vowel /ɨ/ (eu), Sundanese also does not glottalise final k, unlike Javanese.

Consonants

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/Sundanese_Pegon_Ca,_Ga,_Ya.png" caption="Variants of Sundanese Pegon ca, ga, ya, written using two vertical dots"] ::

While Sundanese Pegon is usually written similarly to Javanese Pegon, in some manuscripts and writings, several characters differs, specifically su and su , where they are written with two vertical dots instead of three.

::data[format=table title="Kaganga Order"]
::

::data[format=table title="Hijaiyah Order"]
::

Vowels

For word-initial vowels, the letter alif is used with the approriate diacritic mark, ain is only used if the word is an Arabic loan.

::data[format=table title="Vowel syllables"]

vowelwordinitialbarevocalised+ vowelbarevocalised
{{letterl=sus=Arabch=اُوْnotes=◌ُ + او
::

Diphthongs or stand-alone vowels next to another vowel are written with or as placeholder consonants, depends on how its pronounced, this does not apply to duplicate vowels, they are written with a hamzah instead.

::data[format=table title="Sample Sundanese words, bare script"]

PegonTransliterationMeaningLiteralActual
cariyoscariosstory
iyeuieuthis
muwihmuihto return
seueurseueurmany
::

While the letters wau and ra in Arabic are isolated letters, in Sundanese texts, these letters are often written connecting to the next letter, usually when followed by the letter ha .

Madurese Pèghu

The Madurese language has a more complicated phonology than other Javanese languages. It includes the vowel /ɤ/ (â) and a wider range of glottal stops than Javanese or Sundanese. The Arabic script as adapted to Madurese, known as Pèghu, had some differences from other versions of Pegon, and is always written vocalized using diacritics.

Consonants

Madurese has more consonants than its neighboring languages, including voiceless unaspirated, voiceless aspirated, and voiced unaspirated, but with the exception of dh, aspirated consonants in Madurese Pèghu are represented by the same letters as their unaspirated counterparts.

::data[format=table]
::

Vowels

Vowels at the beginning of a word are indicated by the letter alif or ain with the appropriate diacritic, and a follow-up letter , , or , if required. Usually, this follow-up letter is written with a zero-vowel diacritic (sukūn), to indicate that it is part of the first syllable, and not part of a new one.

::data[format=table title="Word-initial vowels"]
::

::data[format=table title="Vowels following the consonant ك"]
::

Comparison of Pegon and Jawi

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 spelling sometimes omits alif in certain positions where an would be pronounced, and 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 has 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.

::data[format=table title="Letter differences between Pegon and Jawi"]

PegonJawi
--
::

Transliteration

The United States Library of Congress published a romanization standard of Jawi and Pegon in 2012.

Examples

Indonesian

::data[format=table]

Explanation of Qalqalah in Indonesian, Pegon script, non-vocalized
{{Script
قلقلة، اياله ممنتولكن بوۑي حرف، يايت سلالو برسوار الاڬي على قدرڽ‎، سأوله٢ تيدق بنر٢ ماتى، كتيكا ماتی اتو وقف (برهنتی) حرفت ادا ٥ حرف، إياله: ق - ط - ب - ج - د
قلقلة ايت ترباڬی ۲ باڬیان، ایاله: ۱- قلقلة صغرى (كچيل) ٢- قلقلة كبرى (بسار)}}
Keterangan:
Qalqalah, ialah memantulkan bunyi huruf, yaitu selalu bersuara lagi ala qadarnya, seolah-olah tidak benar-benar mati, ketika mati atau waqaf (berhenti). Hurufnya ada 5 huruf, ialah: Qaf - Tho - Ba - Jim - Dal
Qalqalah itu terbagi 2 bagian, ialah: (1) Qalqalah sugra (kecil), (2) Qalqalah kubro (besar)
Explanation:
::

Sundanese

::data[format=table]

John 3:16 in Sundanese, Pegon script, vocalized
{{Script
Karana sakitu miasihna Allah ka alam dunya, munggah dongkap ka maparin Putra nu nunggal; supaya unggal-unggal jalma nu percaya ka dinya hamo cilaka, sarta meunang liirup nu langgeng
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
::

::data[format=table]

Al-Baqarah 69 in Sundanese, Pegon script, non-vocalized
{{Script
Mangka unjukeun Bani Israil muga ngadu’a Gusti buat abdi sadaya ka Pangeran Gusti supaya maparin katerangan Pangeran ka abdi sadaya anu kumaha rupana éta sapi mangka nembalan Nabi Musa saenya-enyana Allah nembalan Allah saenya-enyana éta sapi éta kudu sapi anu konéng anu kacida konéng na anu ngagebur cara emas rupana éta sapi anu matak bungah matak resep éta sapi ka sakabéh anu ningali tina lantaran kacida alusna sarta kacida beresih rupana
Then the Children of Israel said: "Pray to Your Lord for us so that He may tell us on what color the cow was." Then Prophet Moses answered: "Indeed Allah said: Verily, the cow must be yellow, a true yellow that shines like gold, so that everyone who sees it will be filled with joy, for that color is grand and clean."
::

Footnotes

References

References

  1. Dahlan, H. Abdullah Zaini. Kitabati, Practical Methods for Learning to Read & Write Pegon (Kitabati, Metode Praktis Belajar Membaca & Menulis Pegon). Zaini Press. Accessed April 19, 2023. [https://ia903106.us.archive.org/22/items/etaoin/Kitabati.pdf https://ia903106.us.archive.org/22/items/etaoin/Kitabati.pdf].
  2. Estuningtiyas, Retna Dwi. (2021-05-02). "Rijal Dakwah: KH. Abdullah Syafi'ie (1910-1985)". The International Journal of Pegon: Islam Nusantara Civilization.
  3. [https://www.omniglot.com/writing/javanese.htm Javanese script (Akṣara Carakan) on Omniglot.] Retrieved 14 March 2019.
  4. [https://www.omniglot.com/writing/sundanese.php Sundanese script (Akṣara Sunda) on Omniglot.] Retrieved 14 March 2019.
  5. (21 November 2021). "Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education (ICOLLITE 2021)".
  6. (2015-01-02). "A Jawi Sourcebook for the Study of Malay Palaeography and Orthography". Indonesia and the Malay World.
  7. "Reminiscent of 'The Age of Partnership'. VOC diplomatic letters from Batavia {{!}} IIAS".
  8. van der Meij, D. (2017). ''Indonesian Manuscripts from the Islands of Java, Madura, Bali and Lombok'' (p. 6). Leiden, Netherlands: Brill.
  9. "Southeast Asian manuscripts digitised through the Ginsburg Legacy - Asian and African studies blog".
  10. Jamalin, F., & Rahman, A. A. (2021). Arabic-Java Writing System: How Javanese Language Adopts Arabic Script. Izdihar: Journal of Arabic Language Teaching, Linguistics, and Literature, 4(1), 43–58. [https://doi.org/10.22219/jiz.v4i1.11337 https://doi.org/10.22219/jiz.v4i1.11337] ([https://oarep.usim.edu.my/jspui/bitstream/123456789/12701/1/12-Arabic-Java%20Writing%20System-How%20Javanese%20Language%20Adopts%20Arabic%20Script.pdf PDF]) ([https://web.archive.org/web/20230419174237/https://oarep.usim.edu.my/jspui/bitstream/123456789/12701/1/12-Arabic-Java%20Writing%20System-How%20Javanese%20Language%20Adopts%20Arabic%20Script.pdf Archive])
  11. Alhammad, Reham. (2024-04-30). "The phonology morphology and syntax of Sundanese". Forum for Linguistic Studies.
  12. Akbar, Muhammad Fakhrul. (2023-10-30). "Pendampingan Belajar Tulis Aksara Pegon bagi Santri Baru di Pondok Pesantren Al-Barokah Kota Bandung". Lokabasa.
  13. Stevens, Alan. (2001). "Facts About the World's Languages". H. W. Wilson.
  14. The Library of Congress. (2012). [https://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/romanization/jawi-pegon.pdf ''ALA-LC Romanization Tables: Jawi-Pegon'']. Retrieved 9 April 2019.
  15. Contributors to Indonesian Wikipedia. "Abjad Pegon". Indonesian Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Accessed April 10, 2023. [https://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abjad_Pegon#Contoh_kalimat https://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abjad_Pegon#Contoh_kalimat].
  16. (1930). "The gospel in many tongues : specimens of 630 languages in which the British and Foreign Bible Society has published or circulated some portion of the Word of God". British and Foreign Bible Society.
  17. Yuliani, Yani. (21 July 2020). "AKSARA TAFSIR AL-QUR’AN DI PRIANGAN:HURUF PEGON DAN AKSARA LATIN DALAM KARYA K.H. AHMAD SANOESI". Al-Bayan: Jurnal Studi Ilmu Al- Qur'an dan Tafsir.

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arabic-alphabetsindonesian-scriptsjavanese-languagesundanese-language