Jawi vs Arabic Letters: What Carries Over, What Doesn't
Jawi writes Malay with Arabic letters plus six of its own: چ ڠ ڤ ݢ ۏ ڽ. What a Jawi reader already knows about Arabic, and the sounds Jawi never teaches.
· Written by Amaan
Is Jawi the same as the Arabic alphabet?
Jawi is a script for Malay built on the Arabic alphabet, with six added letters for Malay sounds: چ ca, ڠ nga, ڤ pa, ݢ ga, ۏ va and ڽ nya. Letter shapes, joining rules and right-to-left direction are the same. What differs is the language: Arabic sounds, short-vowel marks and grammar must be learned separately.
Jawi is a script, not a language. It writes Malay with Arabic letters plus six letters of its own.
Malay Wikipedia counts 37 Jawi letters: the 29 hijaiyah letters, ى and ة, and six added letters.
A Jawi reader already knows the letter shapes, how letters join, and the right-to-left direction, the part that takes other beginners weeks.
Jawi spells vowels with alif, wau and ya. Arabic writes short vowels as marks, or leaves them out entirely.
Several Arabic sounds do not exist in Malay, and confusing them changes meaning: قَلْب is heart, كَلْب is dog.
Roots and patterns are the part of Arabic Jawi never teaches, and they do most of the work in reading.
Jawi is a script; Arabic is a language
Jawi is the writing system Malay has used for centuries, and Arabic is a separate language. Jawi borrowed Arabic letters in the way Malay Rumi borrowed Latin letters. Reading Jawi fluently does not mean understanding Arabic, but it does mean a Jawi reader's eyes already know the Arabic alphabet.
Jawi has a long written record. The oldest surviving Jawi text is on the Terengganu Inscription Stone, dated 1303 CE. Modern spelling was standardised by Malaysia's Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka in its 1986 Jawi spelling guidelines, which built on the earlier system of the scholar Za'ba.
So the useful question for a Jawi reader is not whether Jawi is Arabic, but which parts of the skill carry over. The answer is clear: letters, joining and direction carry over. Arabic's throat and heavy sounds, its vowel marks and its root system have to be learned on their own terms.
The six letters Jawi adds to Arabic
Jawi adds six letters for Malay sounds that Arabic does not have: چ ca, ڠ nga, ڤ pa, ݢ ga, ۏ va and ڽ nya. Each is an existing Arabic letter with extra dots. None of the six appears in Arabic text, so a Jawi reader has to stop expecting them.
That matters on day one. Standard Arabic has no p, g, ch, ng or ny sound. In an Arabic text ف is always f, never p, and ك is always k, never g. A Jawi reader who sees a familiar shape and supplies the Malay sound will read the word wrongly.
Malay Wikipedia counts 37 Jawi letters in all: the 29 hijaiyah letters, which are the 28 letters of the Arabic alphabet plus hamza, then ى and ة, then the six added letters. On Fasaha, each of the 28 Arabic letters has its own page with its sound, its four written shapes and words that begin with it.
What a Jawi reader already has
A Jawi reader already has the three things beginners from outside the script spend the longest on: the shape of every letter, how letters change shape by position in a word, and reading from right to left. An English speaker needs weeks to reach that point. A Jawi reader starts there.
The six letters that never join to the letter after them, ا د ذ ر ز و, work identically in Jawi and Arabic, so a word breaks visually in the same places. The eye does not need retraining.
Most useful of all, Arabic loanwords in Jawi usually keep their Arabic spelling. Malay huruf is written حروف and fasal is written فصل, exactly as in Arabic. Every time a Jawi reader reads a word like that, they are reading Arabic spelling, an advantage a reader who only knows Rumi does not have.
Vowels: where Jawi and Arabic part ways
Jawi writes Malay vowels with the letters alif, wau and ya rather than with vowel marks: abu is written ابو. Arabic writes only its long vowels with letters. Short vowels are shown as marks above and below the letters, or are not written at all. For a Jawi reader this is the biggest visual difference.
Arabic textbooks and printed Qurʼans carry full vowel marks. Ordinary Arabic, in newspapers, on websites and in classical books, is written without them, and fluent readers supply the vowels from the root, the pattern and the word's job in the sentence. Jawi readers already practise some of this, since Jawi does not spell every vowel either, but unvowelled Arabic leaves much more to infer.
So do not skip the vowel marks at first. Start with fully vowelled text so that you hear each vowel in your head, then read with fewer marks as the word patterns become familiar.
The Arabic sounds Jawi never teaches
Jawi writes the letters ح ع خ غ ص ض ط ظ ق, but everyday Malay pronunciation rarely keeps them apart from lighter neighbours. In Arabic the difference changes the word. Dr. Muhammad Ridha Ali Huddin of Universiti Malaya gave three examples in a 2025 RTM article: حَمْد praise against هَمَدَ to die down, صَبْر patience against سَبْر probing, and قَلْب heart against كَلْب dog.
The same article explains that ع and ح come from the middle of the throat and غ and خ from the back, and that Malay has no equivalent for any of them. The heavy letters ص ض ط ظ are made with the tongue pulled back. For a Jawi reader, ear training matters more than eye training here, because the eye already knows the letters.
The list below gathers nine pairs that are most often confused. Say each pair aloud. If the two words sound the same when you say them, that is the sound to practise first.
Roots and patterns: the part Jawi does not cover
Arabic builds words from three-letter roots poured into patterns. The root ك·ت·ب carries the idea of writing: كَتَبَ he wrote, كِتَاب book, كَاتِب writer, مَكْتَب office. Jawi never teaches this system, because Malay is not built that way.
Malay speakers already hold some loose ends. Kitab, maktab, ilmu, kalbu, sabar and huruf are Malay words that came from Arabic. Once you notice that maktab and kitab share a root, one familiar Malay word becomes a door into an Arabic word family.
This is also the part that makes reading without vowel marks possible. In Fasaha every word opens into its root, its pattern and its family, so the system becomes familiar through reading rather than drills.
A first plan for moving from Jawi to Arabic
Start with sound, not shape. Practise the pairs below daily until your ear separates them. Then read short, fully vowelled texts, with audio where you can, so that sound and spelling meet.
Next, build vocabulary through roots: take Malay words that came from Arabic, find their roots, and learn two or three relatives of each. Finally, read graded texts that grow longer, and let the vowel marks thin out gradually.
Fasaha teaches Modern Standard Arabic and classical texts. It does not teach Jawi, tajwīd or spoken dialects. For a Jawi reader who wants to read Arabic, though, the letters already known are an unusually good place to start.
Nine sound pairs that change the meaning
Jawi writes every one of these letters, but Malay speech rarely keeps them apart. In Arabic, one letter changes the word. Say each pair aloud.
- ح is not ه: حَمْد / هَمَدَ — praise / to die down, go out
- ص is not س: صَبْر / سَبْر — patience / probing, testing
- ق is not ك: قَلْب / كَلْب — heart / dog
- ع is not a glottal stop: عَلِمَ / أَلِمَ — he knew / he felt pain
- ض is not د: ضَلَّ / دَلَّ — he went astray / he showed the way
- خ is not ح: خَلَقَ / حَلَقَ — he created / he shaved
- ظ is not ز: ظَلَّ / زَلَّ — he remained / he slipped
- ث is not س: ثَمَر / سَمَر — fruit / night-time conversation
- ذ is not ز: ذَلَّ / زَلَّ — he was humbled / he slipped
| Letter | Name | Malay sound | Example | Built from |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| چ | ca | ch as in cheese | cari, to look for (چاري) | ج with three dots |
| ڠ | nga | ng as in sing | bunga, flower (بوڠا) | ع with three dots |
| ڤ | pa | p | pagi, morning (ڤاݢي) | ف with three dots |
| ݢ | ga | g as in go | gula, sugar (ݢولا) | ک with one dot |
| ۏ | va | v | universiti (يونيۏرسيتي) | و with one dot |
| ڽ | nya | ny as in canyon | nyanyi, to sing (ڽاڽي) | ن with three dots |
How many letters does Jawi have?
Malay Wikipedia counts 37: the 29 hijaiyah letters, ى and ة, and six added Malay letters, چ ca, ڠ nga, ڤ pa, ݢ ga, ۏ va and ڽ nya.
Does the Arabic alphabet have 28 or 29 letters?
The Arabic alphabet has 28 letters. Counting hamza as a letter of its own gives 29, the count commonly used when Jawi is taught in Malaysia. Both counts describe the same letters.
Can a Jawi reader read Arabic straight away?
A Jawi reader can sound out the letters, but not necessarily with correct pronunciation and not necessarily with understanding. Unvowelled Arabic, throat and heavy sounds, and Arabic grammar all need learning.
Why do ڤ and ݢ not exist in Arabic?
Standard Arabic has no p or g sound, so its alphabet has no letters for them. Jawi added ڤ and ݢ, with چ ڠ ۏ ڽ, to write Malay sounds.
Does Fasaha teach Jawi?
No. Fasaha teaches Modern Standard Arabic and classical texts. Jawi readers can go straight to the letter, sound and word pages, since the letter shapes are already familiar.
Sources
- Wikipedia, Jawi script (six added letters, vowel letters, Arabic loanword spellings, 1986 guidelines)
- Wikipedia Bahasa Melayu, Tulisan Jawi (37 letters; Terengganu Inscription Stone, 1303)
- Muhammad Ridha Ali Huddin, Universiti Malaya, on Arabic sounds Malay speakers confuse, Berita RTM, 8 October 2025
About Fasaha
Fasaha is a reading-first Arabic app. Every word in a story, a podcast, a video or an article opens into its meaning, root, pattern and family, and can be saved for spaced review.
- Available on iPhone, iPad, Mac and Android.
- Interface languages: English, Arabic, Turkish, Russian, Uzbek, Spanish, French, German, Indonesian, Malay and Urdu.
- Free to start; Premium opens the complete library and the stores handle billing.