Development of a Web-based Jahai – Malay Language Repository

The Digital Jahai - Malay Language Repository is a platform that was created to store and translate Jahai terms into two different languages which are English and Bahasa Melayu. The system was developed to assist the needs to translate a Jahai term using a text input. Previously, the only way to translate Jahai terms to English is by using a corpus in a paper published by Burenhalt. Until recently, no system was developed to translate the Jahai language to Bahasa Melayu. Since ethnic Jahai resides in Malaysia, it is more beneficial if we can develop our own language repository system that will translate the Jahai terms to Bahasa Melayu, and preserve the language using a sustainable format which is digitization. The proposed system is capable of identifying the Jahai terms using International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) symbols by entering the special characters using a virtual keyboard. Several additional functions such as insert new Jahai terms and listening to Jahai term pronunciation are also provided. In the future, a mobile translation application will be developed to increase the usability of the existing system.