Acehnese orthography

Early History (1888–1946)

The earliest known romanisation of Acehnese is from 1888 by Hendrik August Nicolaas Catenius, a Major of the East Indies Infantry Army, in his trilingual phrase book Poeĕ Gata Basa Atjeh? (Spreekt gij Atjehsch?), 'Do You Speak Acehnese?', containing phrases in Dutch, Malay, and Acehnese.^[29]

In 1891, the Netherlands government appointed Snouck Hurgronje to Aceh, where he was able to collect many texts regarding Acehnese language and literature in his seven month stay. Because no popular romanisation of Acehnese has yet to exist at the time, Snouck repurposed the French alphabet to fit Acehnese, as he deems the phonemic inventory of both languages to be similar. He published his work Studiën over Atjèhsche Klank-en Schriftleer, 'The Study of Acehnese Language and Script' in 1892, where he would describe his orthography, after further refining it, he released De Atjèhers, 'The Acehnese' in 1906. Since then, most Acehnese writings in the Roman script has adopted his spelling conventions.^[30]

Snouck's spelling was further strengthened by Acehnese teachers and educators, including primary school teachers Mohammad Djam and Njak Tjoet, who used the spelling system through their book Batjoed Sapeue, 'A Bit of Everything' to teach Acehnese children how to read, and Muhammad Saleh, who wrote Poentja, 'Core' as a supplementary manual for Batjoed Sapeue. Several other literary books was produced, which primarily uses Snouck's spelling system, such as De Vries and Aboebakar's Lhèe Saboh Nang, 'The Three Siblings'.^[31]

Post WWII (1946–1966)

For several decades, most Acehnese romanisations follow Snouck's orthography, one of the standard reference for the new orthography is Djajadiningrat's Atjèhsch-Nederlandsch Woordenboek, 'Acehnese-Dutch Dictionary', which uses a modified version of Snouck's.^[32] Publications of the Acehnese language in the latin script was limited, only after the end of World War II and the independence of Indonesia did it began to further develop, marked by the publications of Abdullah Arif's Seumangat Atjeh, 'Spirit of Aceh' and Sjèh Min Djeureula's Peunchianat Bangsa, 'Betrayer of the Nation' in 1946.^[33]

After World War II, the changes in Acehnese orthography has been largely in tandem with the national language of the newly independent Indonesia, the Indonesian language.^[34] As the Indonesian language goes through reforms, several individual Acehnese writers were quick to incorporate the spelling changes into their Acehnese writings. One key feature that stayed is the usage of diaresis e ⟨ë⟩ to write closing diphthongs, which was originally adopted to distinguish between the diphthong oë /ɔə̯/ and monophthong oe /u/, this convention stayed until the late 70s.^[35]

Standardisation of the Acehnese language (1966–1980)

Inspired by the granting of special autonomy to Aceh, efforts began to bring Acehnese back into school curriculum, which amplified the production of Acehnese school and course books.^[16] This motivated Acehnese educators from universities in Banda Aceh to attempt a standardisation of the language's spelling system, which culminated to the holding of Seminar Bahasa Aceh, 'The Acehnese Language Seminar' in 1966. A standard was determined through Jauhari Ishak's Tatabahasa Aceh, 'Acehnese Grammar' in 1968.^[36]

In 1980, another seminar, Seminar Pembinaan dan Pengembangan Bahasa Aceh, 'Acehnese Language Development and Fostering Seminar', was convened by Ibrahim Hasan, which was attended by 73 expert linguists and educators, it was hosted on August 25th to 26th, 1980, in Syiah Kuala University, Banda Aceh. Several points was given to the mission of the seminar:^[37]

1. To standardise the Acehnese spelling convention to be used as a guide, both spoken and written.
2. To implement the teaching of the Acehnese languages in schools, and to develop Acehnese further through education and mass media.
3. To standardise and codify Acehnese terminologies as a mean to contribute the development of the national language.

The spelling system that was agreed upon is the EBAYD, which is still in use to this day. The spelling system is based on Snouck's orthography with several adjustments to match the reforms of the Indonesian language, specifically the Enhanced Spelling System reform in 1972.^[38]

Translation of the Quran (1992)

In 1992, another seminar was convened by Ibrahim Husein, director of the Centre for Islamic Cultural Research and Studies (P3KI), to publish a translation of the Quran in the style of an Acehnese poem by Mahjiddin Jusuf. The spelling used in the translation is known as the 1992 P3KI Spelling.^[39]

The P3KI spelling employs simplification of the Acehnese diacritics agreed upon in the 1980 seminar due to the difficulty to employ the diacritic symbols with the current available technology, they suggest that diacritics should be relegated to scientific writings and language teaching. Additional changes can also be seen through the spelling of Arabic sy, which is spelt consistently as ch. Another feature is the usage of a superscript comma to incidate vowel nasality, the symbol isn't used when a consonant is present before the vowel.^[40]