Unspoken Dialogue’ by Jaafar Latiff

This work is part of the Unspoken Dialogue series by Jaafar Latiff, who incorporated the Jawi script into his abstract paintings. With regards to the Jawi script discourse, Jaafar’s Unspoken Dialogue series has re-highlighted the attention to what has become Singapore’s and the wider Malay World’s lost script. From the late 1960s, the Jawi scipt was increasingly seen to be a hindrance to communication. Factions within the regional Malay literati felt that Jawi was exclusive and opined that the Romanised-script Malay would better serve the local society and regional Malay World since Malay was and still is the national language. While the Jawi script is no longer used in contemporary Singapore, the painting is a reminder to the times when the Jawi discourse dominated the post-war Malay literati scene, as well as re-igniting the research and discourse into the Jawi script as part of our intangible heritage, not to mention its significance amongst Malay speaking communities in the wider Nusantara.