Halo!
Today, as I’ve mentioned a bit in my previous post about Indonesian Independence Day, I’ll be writing a bit about Indonesian old spelling. Nowadays, it is no longer used, with the current spelling called ‘Ejaan (Bahasa Indonesia) yang Disempurnakan’ (‘Perfected Spelling’) or EYD. However, some names, especially belonging to the previous generations, and old documents still use the old spelling. Some companies also use the old spelling as their name, most famous the cigarette giants Sampoerna (with their brand Dji Sam Soe) and Djarum (not sponsored, I don't even smoke).
The old spelling, the Van Ophuijsen Spelling System, was used from 1901 to 1947 in Indonesia. Afterwards, the Republican Spelling System was used from 1947 to 1972. In term of spelling, this system only changes how the vowel ‘u’ is spelled. Since 1972 until now, the EYD is used, though in 2022 some changes were implemented. As I was born after the EYD was implemented, I am most familiar with it. However, people like my grandmother tend to still use the old spelling as it was the system she learned in school.
Here are some noticeable differences between the Van Ophuijsen Spelling System and the EYD:
‘tj’ is now written as ‘c’, such as Citarum river which was spelled as ‘Tjitarum’
‘dj’ is now written as ‘j’, such as Jakarta whose name was spelled as ‘Djakarta’
‘j’ is now written as ‘y’, such as Yogyakarta whose name was spelled as ‘Jogjakarta’
‘oe’ is now written as ‘u’, such as our second president Suharto whose name can be spelled as ‘Soeharto’
‘nj’ is now written as ‘ny’, such as the word nyonya (meaning ma’am or lady of the house) which was spelled as ‘njonja’
‘sj’ is now written as ‘sy’, such as the word syarat (meaning term or condition) which was spelled as ‘sjarat’
‘ch’ is now written as ‘kh’, such as the word khasiat (meaning efficacy) which was spelled as ‘chasiat’
Some ‘i’ is now also written as ‘y’, such as Surabaya whose name was spelled as ‘Soerabaia’ (or, well, ‘Soerabaja’ is another version)
Check out how to read each EYD letters in my post about Indonesian alphabets. All old spellings are read the same way as their EYD counterpart. There are also some other changes, such as the usage of apostrophe (‘) and the diacritics, in which they mostly become obsolete so it’s kinda hard to show them.
Due to this changes, some people also becomes confused and used any spelling they found more comfortable with. For example, Indonesia’s first president’s name can either be written as ‘Soekarno’ or ‘Sukarno’, with he himself used ‘Sukarno’ when writing down his name but use ‘Soekarno’ as his sign. The province of Yogyakarta is also a victim of these changes, as some people still write (and read) it as ‘Jogjakarta’ or even ‘Djogdjakarta’ (with a ‘j’ sound rather than ‘y’ sound). The official website of the province even uses ‘jogja’ rather than ‘yogya’ in its URL. And until now, my grandmother, for example when she dictates a message for me to write, said ‘y’ when she means ‘j’ and said ‘igrek’ when she wants me to write ‘y’. I got extremely confused especially when she uses Dutch (which I speak not a speck of) with Indonesian old spelling.
To give you a more comprehensive example of how different the two old spellings are, here’s a sentence written in EYD:
‘Saya suka minum susu. Rasanya enak dan mengenyangkan.’
Which in the old spelling will be spelled as:
‘Saja soeka minoem soesoe. Rasanja enak dan mengenjangkan.’
That’s all for today’s post. If you want to challenge yourself, try re-spell Indonesian Proclamation Text in my other post into EYD. It might be fun^^
See you another time~
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