Etymology
The word "Jawi" (جاوي) is an adjective for the Arabic noun Jawah (جاوة). Both terms may originated from the term "Javadwipa", the ancient name for Java. "Jawah" and "Jawi" may have been used by the Arabs as the catch-all terms in referring to the entire Maritime Southeast Asia and its peoples, similar to the kind of understanding by the later Europeans when coining the terms Malay Archipelago and Malay race.
Read more about this topic: Jawi Alphabet
Famous quotes containing the word etymology:
“Semantically, taste is rich and confusing, its etymology as odd and interesting as that of “style.” But while style—deriving from the stylus or pointed rod which Roman scribes used to make marks on wax tablets—suggests activity, taste is more passive.... Etymologically, the word we use derives from the Old French, meaning touch or feel, a sense that is preserved in the current Italian word for a keyboard, tastiera.”
—Stephen Bayley, British historian, art critic. “Taste: The Story of an Idea,” Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things, Random House (1991)
“The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.”
—Giambattista Vico (1688–1744)