Symbols
74Click a symbol to copy it and open its page.
Alphabet
One row per letter in Betawi order; the three marked e's sit beside plain E, so É, È and Ĕ line up in their own columns. Everyday writing often leaves the marks off; dictionaries and careful texts keep them to show which e is meant.
Punctuation
The hyphen joins doubled words (ondel-ondel, ape-ape); the apostrophe appears in Arabic loanwords such as Jum'at; quotation marks follow Indonesian use.
Where it's spoken
Jakarta and the towns around it, Indonesia. Prices are written in rupiah as Rp, which has no Unicode sign of its own.
Betawi in emoji
Jakarta, the mosque at the centre of kampung life, lenong theatre and ondel-ondel parades, the tanjidor brass band, silat, kerak telor, soto Betawi, roti buaya wedding bread and spicy bir pletok.
On the map
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The Betawi language and its alphabet
Betawi (bahasa Betawi, also called Betawi Malay or Jakarta Malay) is the language of the Betawi, the people who grew up as a community in old Batavia, the colonial city that became Jakarta. It is written in the Latin alphabet in the order A B C D E É È Ĕ F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z. The consonants work as in Indonesian: c is the ch of 'church', j as in 'jam', and two-letter combinations such as ng (ngomong, to talk), ny (nyak, mother) and sy each write one sound. F, Q, V, X and Z turn up mainly in loanwords and names.
The only extra letters are on e. Betawi, like Indonesian, uses one letter e for several different vowels, and Betawi needs the distinction more, because one of its best-known sound changes produces an e where Indonesian has a. Dictionaries, schoolbooks and writers who want to show pronunciation therefore add marks to e; in chat, on signs and in most everyday writing people write a plain e and let the reader work it out.
What é, è and ĕ do in Betawi
ĕ with a breve is the short neutral vowel, the a of English 'about', called pepet in Malay and Indonesian grammar; the breve was long the usual way Malay dictionaries marked it. é with an acute is a closed e, close to French 'été', and è with a grave is an open e, as in English 'bed'. Plain e is left for texts that do not mark the difference.
The open e is the sound behind the most famous feature of central (city) Betawi: where Indonesian ends a word in -a, Betawi says an e. Apa becomes ape, kenapa becomes kenape, di mana becomes di mane, siapa becomes siape. Everyday spelling simply writes these with e, which is why one letter has to stand for three vowels, and why careful texts reach for é, è and ĕ when it matters which one is meant.
Betawi words, and the punctuation that goes with them
Betawi is Malay at its core, mixed over centuries in a port city with words from Javanese, Sundanese, Balinese, Hokkien Chinese, Arabic, Portuguese and Dutch. The pronouns show it: gue (I) and lu (you) come from Hokkien, ente (you) from Arabic anta, while aye is the polite Betawi 'I'. Verbs take the Betawi suffix -in where Indonesian uses -kan or -i: bikinin (make for someone), beliin (buy for someone), ngapain (what are you doing). Much of the slang heard across Indonesia as 'Jakarta talk' (gue, lu, kagak for no) is Betawi.
Punctuation follows Indonesian. The hyphen - joins doubled words, which Malay-family languages use for plurals and repetition: ondel-ondel, ape-ape, anak-anak. The apostrophe ' or ’ appears in Arabic loanwords such as Jum'at (Friday) and the greeting Assalamu'alaikum, and quotation marks are written “like this”. Prices are in Indonesian rupiah, written Rp immediately before the amount (Rp20.000) with a dot for thousands; the rupiah has no symbol of its own in Unicode.
How to type Betawi letters é, è and ĕ
On Windows, hold Alt and type on the number pad: é Alt0233, è Alt0232, capitals É Alt0201 and È Alt0200. ĕ has no Alt code of that kind; in Word type 0115 then AltX for ĕ, or 0114 then AltX for Ĕ. With the US-International layout, type ' then e for é and then e for è.
On a Mac, press OptionE then e for é and Option then e for è, adding Shift on the second key for the capital; for ĕ switch to the ABC Extended input source and press OptionB then e. On Android and iPhone, hold down e and slide to é or è; ĕ is missing from most phone keyboards, so copy it from this page. In HTML, use é, è and ĕ for ĕ (Ĕ for Ĕ).
Where the Betawi language is spoken
Betawi is spoken in Jakarta and the towns that have grown around it, Bekasi, Depok, Tangerang and Bogor, by an estimated 6 million people (CLDR's figure; counts vary, because in the capital Betawi shades into the informal Indonesian everyone speaks). City Betawi, with its ape and kenape, is the best known; on the outskirts Betawi Ora has more Javanese and Sundanese in it, and takes its name from Javanese ora, 'not'.
The language lives in Betawi culture: the comic theatre lenong, the Chinese-Betawi gambang kromong orchestra, the tanjidor brass band , the giant ondel-ondel puppets that dance through the streets, and the palang pintu at weddings, where the groom's side must win a duel of rhyming pantun and a bout of silat before it may enter. Its closest relatives are Indonesian and Malay; Javanese and Sundanese, spoken all around Jakarta, are its neighbours and have their own collections.
How to use them
5 situationsClick to copyBetawi Alphabet & Letters combos
13Worth knowing
- Betawi takes its name from Batavia, the name the Dutch gave Jakarta in 1619 and that it kept until 1942.
- Gue and lu, the 'I' and 'you' heard in Indonesian films and slang everywhere, came into Betawi from Hokkien Chinese.
- At a Betawi wedding the groom brings a pair of crocodile-shaped loaves, roti buaya, because crocodiles are believed to keep one mate for life.
- Bir pletok is a Betawi 'beer' with no alcohol at all: a hot drink of ginger, lemongrass and spices, coloured red with secang wood.
Questions people ask
7What is the Betawi language?
The language of the Betawi, Jakarta's native people: a Malay variety shaped in old Batavia by Javanese, Sundanese, Balinese, Hokkien, Arabic, Portuguese and Dutch. It is spoken by an estimated 6 million people in and around Jakarta.
Is Betawi the same as Indonesian?
No, though they are close relatives and both are Malay at the core. Betawi has its own sounds (ape for apa), words (kagak, nyak, babe), pronouns (aye, gue, lu, ente) and the verb suffix -in; much informal Jakarta Indonesian is borrowed from it.
What do é, è and ĕ mean in Betawi?
They are three different vowels that plain e cannot tell apart: ĕ is the short neutral vowel (as in 'about'), é a closed e (as in French 'été') and è an open e (as in 'bed'). Everyday writing usually leaves the marks off.
How do you type ĕ?
Windows Word: type 0115 then AltX (0114 for Ĕ). Mac: ABC Extended input source, OptionB, then e. Phones rarely offer it, so copy it from this page. HTML: ĕ (Ĕ is Ĕ).
What is 'thank you' in Betawi?
Most people say makasih, often makasih ye; the full form is terime kasih, with the Betawi e where Indonesian has terima.
How do you say 'I' and 'you' in Betawi?
Aye is the polite 'I' and gue (or gua) the casual one; for 'you', lu (or elu) is casual and ente, from Arabic, is also common.
Is there a Jakarta or Betawi flag emoji?
No. Emoji flags exist for countries and a few regions only, so people use the Indonesian flag for Jakarta and Betawi, often with beside it.
