Van Ophuijsen Spelling System

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Keboedajaan dan Masjarakat. Madjallah Boelanan berdasar Kebangsaan [= Kebudayaan dan Masyarakat. Majalah Bulanan berdasar Kebangsaan ("Culture and Society. Monthly Magazines by Nationality" in the modern spelling)] (1939) uses the Van Ophuijsen Spelling System which shows trema signs Kaboedajaan dan Masjarakat Magazine 1939.jpg
Keboedajaän dan Masjarakat. Madjallah Boelanan berdasar Kebangsaän [= Kebudayaan dan Masyarakat. Majalah Bulanan berdasar Kebangsaan ("Culture and Society. Monthly Magazines by Nationality" in the modern spelling)] (1939) uses the Van Ophuijsen Spelling System which shows tréma signs

The Van Ophuijsen Spelling System was the Romanized standard orthography for the Indonesian language from 1901 to 1947. [1] Before the Van Ophuijsen Spelling System was in force, the Malay language (and consequently Indonesian) in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) did not have a standardized spelling, or was written in the Jawi script. In 1947, the Van Ophuijsen Spelling System was replaced by the Republican Spelling System.

Contents

History

Prof. Charles Adriaan van Ophuijsen  [ nl; id ], who devised the orthography, was a Dutch linguist. He was a former inspector in a school at Bukittinggi, West Sumatra in the 1890s, before he became a professor of the Malay language at Leiden University in the Netherlands. Together with two native assistants, Engku Nawawi and Mohammed Taib Sultan Ibrahim, he published the new orthography on Kitab Logat Malajoe: Woordenlijst voor Spelling der Maleische Taal in 1901, and published a second book, Maleische Spraakkunst, in 1910. The latter was translated by T.W. Kamil into Tata Bahasa Melayu in 1983 and became the primary guide for the spelling and usage of the Malay language in Indonesia. [2]

Characteristics

The Van Ophuijsen system was modelled extensively on Dutch orthography, ostensibly to make pronunciation of Malay and Indonesian words more easily understandable to Dutch colonial authorities. Thus, the system used the Dutch variant of the Latin script, reflecting contemporaneous Dutch phonology. Some noticeable characteristics of this spelling system were: [3]

Limitations

While the Van Ophuijsen system greatly aided Dutch speakers in pronouncing the Indonesian language, its complete reliance on Dutch orthography, which is rich in digraphs and trigraphs, often resulted in unwieldy spellings of Indonesian words. For example:

The perceived shortcomings of the Van Ophuijsen system led to the development of a partially revised orthography called the Republican Spelling System in 1947, and eventually to the adoption of the Enhanced Indonesian Spelling System in 1972.

Names

Van Ophuijsen spellings continue to be frequently used in Indonesian names like Soerjadjaja (Suryajaya, also written in a mixed spelling as Soeryadjaya). Since spelling of Indonesian names are fluid, usage can also be inconsistent: for example, Sukarno wrote his own name with a u, but signed it as Soekarno. [4]

See also

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References

  1. Simpson, Andrew (2007). Language and National Identity in Asia. OUP Oxford. p. 321. ISBN   9780191533082.
  2. Vikør, Lars S. (1988). Perfecting spelling : spelling discussions and reforms in Indonesia and Malaysia, 1900-1972 : with an appendix on Old Malay spelling and phonology. Dordrecht, Holland: Foris Publications. ISBN   90-6765-237-7. OCLC   19648139.
  3. S. Takdir Alisjahbana (1976). Language Planning for Modernization: The Case of Indonesian and Malaysian. The Hague: Mouton & Co. pp. 61–62. ISBN   9783110819106.
  4. Sukarno; Adams, Cindy (1965). Sukarno: An Autobiography . The Bobbs-Merrill Company Inc. p. 27 .