The company name was written on the wall using Latin, Chinese, and Jawi characters

Various alphabets used on wall — Company name written in multiple languages

A figure was walking down the aisle of Batu Pahat. The building was old and shuttered, but there were company names written on the walls. They were written not only in Latin characters, but also in Chinese characters and Arabic characters.

Usually, Malaysian is written in Latin characters. Therefore, it was not surprising that the company name was written in Latin characters. Also, about 60% of the population of Batu Pahat are overseas Chinese, so it is understandable that Chinese characters are used in Batu Pahat. However, I could not understand why Arabic characters were used.

It seems that the Arabic characters written on the wall are not Arabic characters exactly, but Jawi characters, which were invented based on Arabic characters and were the main writing system until the Latin characters were adopted as the official writing system in 1904. Considering that most Malaysians are Muslims, the script used in the Quran was probably more familiar to them.

The fact that the letters are written in multiple scripts might make you think of a company doing business internationally, but that is not the case. It is just that there are so many different writing systems in the local area. Incidentally, there were many Japanese people living in Batu Pahat before World War II, but I could not find any signs in Japanese.

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