Zainal Abidin Ahmad

Zainal Abidin bin Ahmad (16 September 1895 – 23 October 1973), known by his pen name Za'ba (also spelled Za'aba), was a Malaysian writer and linguist who modernised the Malay language. His Pelita Bahasa grammar series recast Malay syntax, and his Za'aba spelling system was the official orthography of Malay in Malaya and its successor states until 1972. ^{1 2}

He was born at Kampung Bukit Kerdas, Batu Kikir, Jempol, in Negeri Sembilan, the eldest of three children of a Minangkabau mother and a Bugis father from the Riau Islands, the only literate man in the village. He taught himself to read and write at five, practising on banana leaves; his mother died in 1907. He entered a Malay school at Batu Kikir at twelve, already two grades ahead, and was moved to Linggi in 1909 because his father hoped he would study Arabic and fiqh and become an ulama; his own interests turned elsewhere. At St Paul's Institution, Seremban, he became the first Malay to take and pass the Senior Cambridge examination, in 1915. ^{1 2}

He taught at the English College in Johor Bahru (1916), Malay College Kuala Kangsar (1918), the Education Department in Kuala Lumpur (1923) and the Sultan Idris Training College at Tanjung Malim (1924), then worked for the Information Department in Singapore (1939–1942), at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London (1942–1951) and at the University of Malaya in Singapore (1954–1959). After the Japanese surrender he was made the first secretary-general of UMNO, but left the post quickly, preferring writing and language work. ^{1 2}

His Pelita Bahasa series (from 1936/1940) set out the modern structure of Malay, and his spelling system governed Malay orthography until the New Rumi Spelling replaced it in 1972. His other works include Ilmu Mengarang Melayu, the Daftar Ejaan Melayu spelling list (1938), essays of social criticism against the ills of Malay society and British colonial rule, translations of Shakespeare published in Singapore, and scholarly articles on Malay festivals, legends and place-names in the Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. He was honoured with the title Pendeta (1956), the PMN with the style Tan Sri (1962), and an honorary doctorate from the National University of Malaysia (1973); residential colleges at three Malaysian universities bear his name. ^{1 2}

No source consulted names a school of law for him, and no article text discusses his religious affiliation. The Malay article's infobox gives his religion as Islam in general, as does Wikidata; the English article carries no religion datum beyond category filings. His record therefore carries his faith as unknown — generic Islam is attested by one family, and no school reading exists anywhere. ^{2 3 1}

He died at Petaling Jaya on 23 October 1973, aged 78, after kidney-stone surgery, and was buried at the Jalan Ampang Muslim Cemetery in Kuala Lumpur. ^{2 1}

• The defined source entities cited above, recorded in data/source/.
• No Arabic or Urdu Wikipedia article exists for him; the Arabic and Urdu versions of this page are written from the English and Malay articles and the Wikidata item cited above. The English disambiguation page of his name lists two other men (a Malaysian politician, 1939–2010, and an Indonesian politician, 1911–1983) who are not this record's subject.
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