Huruf

Huruf is the Indonesian and Malay term for letters or characters that make up a writing system. In a general sense, a huruf is the smallest unit of a writing system that carries a sound value (a grapheme) or functions as a symbol in a script.

The word huruf derives from Arabic hurūf, meaning letters. In Indonesian and Malay, huruf denotes the letters of the alphabet used to write the language, most commonly the Latin alphabet. The term is used across education, typography, and linguistics to describe individual characters such as A, B, or the diacritics that can accompany them.

Usage in modern Indonesian and Malay generally focuses on the Latin script. Huruf kapital refers to uppercase letters, while huruf kecil refers to lowercase letters. Each huruf can represent one sound, though combinations of letters (digraphs or diacritics) may correspond to a single phoneme or sound value in a given word.

Scripts and history: While Indonesian and Malay today use the Latin script, the concept of huruf can apply to letters in other scripts when relevant. Historically, various scripts were used in the Indonesian archipelago, including Jawi (an Arabic-based script) and other local writing systems, before the widespread adoption of the Latin alphabet.

Computing and encoding: In digital text, huruf are graphemes encoded in character sets such as Unicode. A single huruf may be represented by one code point or by multiple code points when diacritics or combining marks are involved. This ensures consistent representation and rendering across platforms.