Pegon script

Pegon script اَكسارا ڤَيڮَون‎
Babad Diponegoro written in Pegon (manuscript at National Library of Indonesia)
Script type	Abjad
Period	c. 1300 CE to the present
Direction	Right-to-left
Languages	Javanese Sundanese Madurese Indonesian[1][2]
Related scripts
Parent systems	Proto-Sinaitic Phoenician Aramaic Nabataean Arabic Pegon script
Sister systems	Jawi script Buri Wolio Sorabe alphabet
This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

Part of a series on
Writing systems used in Indonesia
Abugida (Brahmic)
Balinese Batak Javanese Kawi (Buda) Incung Lampung Lontara (Satera Jontal, Mbojo, Lota Ende) Makasar Sasak Sundanese (Old Sundanese) Ulu (Komering, Lembak, Ogan, Rejang, Pasemah, Serawai)
Abjad
Buri Wolio Jawi Pegon Serang
Alphabet
Latin (Van Ophuijsen, Suwandi, EYD)
Others
Alifuru Bonda Cia-Cia Bilang-bilang Dunging
Related
List of writing systems of Indonesia Languages of Indonesia
Asia portal Indonesia portal Language portal Writing portal

Pegon (Javanese and Sundanese: اَكسارا ڤَيڮَون‎, romanized: Aksara Pégon; also known as اَبجَد ڤَيڮَون‎, Abjad Pégon; Madurese: أبجاْد ڤَيگو, Abjâd Pèghu)^[3] is a modified Arabic script used to write the Javanese, Sundanese, and Madurese languages, as an alternative to the Latin script or the Javanese script^[4] and the Old Sundanese script.^[5] It was used in a variety of applications, from religion, to diplomacy, to poetry.^[6][7][8] But today particularly, it is used for religious (Islamic) writing and poetry, particularly in writing commentaries of the Qur'an. Pegon includes letters that are not present in Modern Standard Arabic. Pegon has been studied far less than its Jawi counterpart which is used for Malay, Acehnese and Minangkabau.^[9]

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.^[1] Indonesian language, being a variety of Malay, has also been written by the sister script of Pegon, Jawi.

The word Pegon originated from the Javanese word pégo, meaning "deviate", due to the practice of writing the Javanese language with Arabic script, which was considered unconventional by Javanese people.^[3]

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 dluwang, a paper made from the bark of the mulberry tree.^[10]

Pegon uses the original letters of the Arabic script plus an additional seven letters to represent native Javanese sounds not present in Arabic: ⟨چ‎⟩, dha ⟨ڎ‎⟩, ⟨ڟ‎⟩, ⟨ڠ‎⟩, ⟨ڤ‎⟩, ⟨ڮ‎⟩, and ⟨ۑ‎⟩. One additional letter is used in foreign loanwords ⟨ۏ‎⟩ /v/. 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).^[11][12] In more recent teaching material, additional letters have been added in order to use the script for writing Indonesian language.^[1]

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 (ا ,و ,ي‎) 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 conjuncton with و ,ي‎, and ا‎ to fully represent the vowels of the languages of Java.^[13]

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 (Javanese: ڮونڎول‎; ꦒꦸꦤ꧀ꦝꦸꦭ꧀, romanized: gundhul). 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, (اِنْڎَوْنَيْسِيْيَا‎, Indhonésia) or bare (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.

A vowel at the beginning of a word is indicated by the letter alif ⟨ا‎⟩, plus diacritic, and a follow-up letter ⟨و‎⟩ or ⟨ي‎⟩ 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.^[13] A vowel following a consonant (such as the letter ⟨ك‎⟩ in the example below), a following vowel is indicated by diacritics but without the letter alif.

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.^[13]

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

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.^[6]

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 dha ⟨ڎ‎⟩ and tha ⟨ڟ‎⟩, Sundanese also has the vowel /ɨ/ (eu),^[14] Sundanese also does not glottalise final k, unlike Javanese.

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

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

Diphthongs or stand-alone vowels next to another vowel are written with ⟨ي‎⟩ or ⟨و‎⟩ as placeholder consonants, depends on how its pronounced, this does not apply to duplicate vowels, they are written with a hamzah ⟨ء‎⟩ instead.^[15]

While the letters wau ⟨و‎⟩ and ra ⟨ر‎⟩ 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 ⟨ہ‎⟩.^[15]

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.

Madurese has more consonants than its neighboring languages, including voiceless unaspirated, voiceless aspirated, and voiced unaspirated,^[16] but with the exception of dh, aspirated consonants in Madurese Pèghu are represented by the same letters as their unaspirated counterparts.

Vowels at the beginning of a word are indicated by the letter alif ⟨ا⟩ or ain ⟨ع‎⟩ with the appropriate diacritic, and a follow-up letter ⟨و‎⟩, ⟨ي‎⟩, or ⟨ء‎⟩, 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.^[13]

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 /a/ 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.

The United States Library of Congress published a romanization standard of Jawi and Pegon in 2012.^[17]

• Jawi script

• On Pegon Script for Javanese language: 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 (PDF) (Archive)
• On Pegon Script for Sundanese language: Apriyanto, Agung, Ruhaliah Nunuy Nurjanah, and Ruhaliah. (2021) "Structure of the Sundanese Language in the Pegon Script". Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education (ICOLLITE 2021). https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.211119.006. PDF (Archive)
• Religious book featuring Arabic, with word-by-word Madurese language translation: Syeikh Khalil bin Abdul Latif al-Bankalani al-Maduri (Bangkalan, Madura). (1988) "Al-Matn al-Shareef". https://archive.org/details/SyaikhonaKholil/mode/2up
• 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 (PDF). Unicode.
• Rikza, F. Sh. (2022). Proposal to encode four Pegon characters (PDF). Unicode.
• Poerwadarminta, W.J.S (2025) [1939]. Bausastra Jawa [Javanese Dictionary] (in Javanese). Batavia: J.B. Wolters. ISBN 0834803496.