About Jawi Study Group

Jawi documents are Malay texts written in the Arab script and may include, when broadly defined, other Southeast Asian texts in the Arab script, including Javanese, Sundanese and Philippine languages. Generally speaking, the Malay language utilizes 30 letters (28 basic letters and Ta Marbutah and Hamza) common to the Arabic and 7 letters or so adapted from the Arabic.

A map showing the distribution of the languages that use or used Jawi appears in the Japanese page.

Jawi Study Group (JSG, or Study Group on Jawi Documents in Southeast Asia）was initiated by a group of Japanese researchers who share a common interest in Jawi documents in April 2001. Since then, JSG has organized study meetings and seminars, collected research materials, and published newsletters. This website was launched in April 2003 to mark the second year of JSG's activities.