I can only describe the adoption of Latin script for Malay in Peninsula Malaysia.

The writing of Malay can be divided into 4 main eras.

The oldest is what we believe to be ‘homegrown’ writing systems, collectively known as Rencong.

Around the 5th century, during the era of the Hindu-Buddhist Kingdoms, there was a shift towards Brahmic scripts from India. This era is also when Malay adopted several Sanskrit words such as ‘negara’ (country) and ‘raksasa’ (monster).

Around the 12th century, there was a further shift to writing in Jawi. This is a form of writing based on the Arabic alphabet but modified to reflect spoken Malay. For example, there is a letter in Arabic that represents the ‘v’ sound, but there is no such naturally occurring sound in Malay, thus that letter was used to represent the ‘p’ sound. New letters were also created to represent sounds that did not occur in Arabic.

Finally we come to the use of Latin script, or Rumi, to write Malay. While the earliest examples date to the arrival of the Europeans in the region in the 1500s, Rumi would take over 400 years to gain dominance, so it was a very slow process. Indeed, Jawi is still in use today.

RUMI IN THE 1500s

When the first Europeans arrived in Southeast Asia, they found that Malay was spoken as a lingua franca from the Strait of Malacca in the west to the Spice Islands in the east and as far north as the Philippines. Adelaar identifies 3 main varieties of Malay:

Vernacular Malay, or the many varieties of Malay ‘dialects’ used for communication within communities.

‘Classical’ Malay, a formal, literary Malay used in literature and diplomatic correspondence. This was the accepted form of Malay for communication between rulers and for concluding treaties.

‘Pasar Malay’, or ‘market Malay’, a ‘low’ form of Malay that could be understood by the many different communities in the Malay World, no matter what their native language. As this form of Malay was used for inter-community communication, it was used especially for trade.

The Europeans quickly found that those last two forms of Malay were essential to their dealings in the region, since trade treaties had to be concluded in Classical Malay and trade itself had to be conducted in Pasar Malay. Since Malay was so widely spoken, with a single language, one could negotiate the purchase of spices in the Spice Islands and then negotiate their sale in Malacca some 3,000km away. The Europeans thus tried to learn Malay, and as they took notes, they naturally represented Malay in the Latin script which they were accustomed to, rather than in Jawi which would have meant learning a whole new script.

The oldest word list we know of was drawn up in 1522 by Antonio Pigafetta, a member of Ferdinand Magellan’s expedition. 426 Malay words are are rendered in Latin script, with letters intended to be pronounced in Pigafetta's native Italian.

We have another example of Rumi in Dutchman Frederick De Houtman's Spraek en de Woord-Boek in de Maleysche en de Madagaskar Talen (Dialogues of Malay and Madagascar Languages) from 1605. De Houtman had been imprisoned by the Sultan of Aceh for 2 years, giving him lots of time to observe how Malay was actually spoken. His book contains 12 dialogues revolving around subjects such as negotiating the price of pepper, taking on provisions and gossiping about trade. His book gives us an excellent idea of how Malay was spoken in the late 16th century. Here is an excerpt on a still relevant subject - the collection of a debt:

IANG NAMBER∣katta samma, ken minta outang.

Ioesoef, Adam, Isa'ak.

I: EEsselamkya yi.

A: De kamoe begytoe sobat.

I: Tun taau carna appa betá datan my, tieda tauw?

A: Song o tieda.

I: Begy manna tieda kénal ken ácko?

A: Tieda siappa enckou?

I: Adda loupa iang tun arieen viniaga ken beta?

A: Itoe songo.

I: Mannacalla beta brulle derham?

A: Beta tieda adda sakaran derham, hamba souda bry derham, samoe'á pada beta áken orang, mau tuan nanty lagy delapan háry.

The spelling differs considerably from modern Rumi, but if read aloud with Dutch pronunciation, the conversation is comprehensible to Malay speakers. The conversation continues with the debtor trying his best to weasel his way out of payment while the creditor tries to pin him down - the dialogues in the book are fairly realistic and advanced! The book was translated into English in 1624 by Augustine Spalding, with the above passage rendered as such:

THE SIXTH DIALOGUE: how debt may be required.

Ioseph, Adam, Isaak.

I: God save you Sir.

A: And you likewise friend.

I: You know without doubt, wherefore I am come, doe you not?

A: No surely.

I: Doe you not know who I am?

A: I know not, who therefore are you?

I: Have you forgotten, that you lately bought certaine wares of me?

A: It is true in good sooth.

I: But when shall I receive my money?

A: Surely, I have no money now, for I have laid out all which I had among men, of necessitie therefore you must stay yet eight daies longer.

RUMI IN MALAYA IN THE 1800s

We now start to get into the specifics of Rumi in British Malaya. The British established a trading post on the island of Penang in 1771. In 1819, they set up a trading post in Singapore. Over the course of the 1800s, the British would colonise the entirety of the Malay peninsula.

During this time, Rumi script was used for the first time on the Malay peninsula as a form of interpersonal communication i.e. people were actually delivering messages in Rumi. Up to that point, Rumi was simply a way for Europeans to learn spoken Malay. Nobody was actually writing letters or signboards in Rumi.

That changed when the London Missionary Society (LMS) set up a branch in Penang.

The LMS was an evangelical society, and it thus aimed to communicate Christianity to as large a segment of the native population as possible. The fastest way to do this at that time was through the distribution of written material, particularly pamphlets and translations of the Bible.

In this, the LMS had the distinct advantage of being well-funded, and could thus afford to purchase a printing press. The obvious script to print in was Jawi, since any Malay with any degree of literacy would read Jawi, and indeed, the LMS ordered a set of Jawi type sets.

However, the LMS could not get over the association of Jawi with Islam. It was based on a script that came from the brithplace of Islam. It was used to write the Quran. And children who were able to learn to read were taught Jawi by local religious leaders in local religious institutions for the express purpose of being able to read the Quran and other religious texts.

The LMS thus decided to print in both Jawi and Rumi, side by side, in the hope that Rumi would eventually spread among the native population and Jawi would be abandoned.

This was a rather abject failure. Islam was a very difficult religion to displace, and the association between Rumi and Christianity meant their target audience was quite ambivalent towards Rumi. There was no point in learning a script when one had no interest in what it was used to write.

There was one small community that did embrace Rumi, though, and that was the Chinese Peranakan community. These were the descendants of Chinese who had arrived in the region, sometimes generations before, and had married local women. Chinese Peranakans spoke their own dialect of Malay which was sprinkled liberally with Hokkien, maintained an interest in what was happening in China, and were known as wealthy traders.

As the British spread their influence over the Malay peninsula, the Chinese Peranakans saw them as good for business and enthusiastically supported them. This was done not just through doing business with them, but by adopting aspects of their culture. They sent their sons to English schools, for example, and incorporated Western architectural elements in their houses. The Chinese Peranakans viewed the association of Rumi with the British as a positive thing that made it worthy of adoption.

Related to this was everything the British and other Europeans stood for in the 1800s - modernity, science, technology, advancement. The best universities in the world were in Europe. The greatest centres of culture were in Europe. Surely the script of the Europeans was also highly advanced. At this time, efforts were being made to Romanise Chinese languages, culminating in the cutting-edge Wade-Giles system that seemed able to open Chinese culture to the English-speaking world. The Chinese Peranakans hoped that Rumi would play a similar role in spreading Malay culture.

In 1894 the Chinese Peranakans published their first newspapers in Rumi - Surat Khabar Peranakan (Straits Chinese Herald) and Bintang Timor (Star of the East). They would continue using Rumi in subsequent publications.

(Continued in reply)