One may make a general assumption that Jawi was developed around the 16th century, during the spread of Islam throughout the Malay Peninsula. When was Jawi first invented? Linguistic specialists have yet to provide a definite answer. For this reason, people turned to languages that are far more socially responsive, such as Thai. With the Jawi script being so technologically underdeveloped, it lacks the capacity to respond to social demands.
This handicap has prevented application in general computer software and print media. The existing Jawi font was developed decades ago, and has not been adapted to the Unicode system (which is the system that allows fonts to be used in all computer operating systems). The people of Patani are not familiar with QWERTY, as they are far more familiar with the Arabic version. The latter is arranged according to the QWERTY keyboard layout displaying the Latin script.
The Awan Book Group has designed a new Jawi keyboard, which is very different from the Malaysian Jawi keyboard layout developed in 2012. So as far as typing in Malay is concerned, the Arabic keyboard is incomplete, leading to inaccurate typing. The main disadvantage, however, is that the Arabic keyboard layout does not offer the additional five characters used in Jawi. Solahuddean tells Prachatai that the more common practice today is to use the Arabic keyboard to type the Jawi script.
