Colonial Era To 1965
During the Dutch colonial era until the Japanese invasion in 1942, the Dutch administration recorded Chinese names in birth certificates and other legal documents using an adopted spelling convention that was based primarily on Hokkien (Min), the language of the majority of Chinese immigrants in the Dutch East Indies. The administrators used the closest Dutch pronunciation and spelling of Hokkien words to record the names. A similar thing happens in Malaya, where the British administrators record the names using English spelling. Compare Lim (English) vs. Liem (Dutch), Wee or Ooi (English) vs. Oei or Oey (Dutch), Goh (English) vs. Go (Dutch), Chan (English) vs. Tjan (Dutch), Lee (English) vs. Lie (Dutch), Leung or Leong (English) vs Liong (Dutch).
Hence, Lin (林, Mandarin) is spelled Liem in Indonesia. Chen (陳) is Tan, Huang (黃) is Oei or Oey, Wu (吳) is Go, Guo (郭) is Kwee, Yang (楊) is Njoo. And so on. Further, as Hokkien romanization standard did not exist then, some romanized names varied slightly. For example, 郭 (Guo) could sometimes be Kwik, Que, Kwek instead of Kwee, and Huang is often Oei instead of Oey.
The spelling convention survived well into Indonesian independence (1945) and sovereignty acknowledgment by the Dutch government (1949). It is even still used today by the Chinese-Indonesian diaspora in Europe and America, by those Chinese-Indonesians courageous or famous enough during Suharto's regime to keep their Chinese names (e.g., Kwik Kian Gie, Liem Swie King), or by those too poor to bribe Indonesia's civil court bureaucracy.
The Indonesian government changed the Latin spelling twice, first in 1947 (Ejaan Suwandi), and again in 1972 (Ejaan Yang Disempurnakan, literally "Perfected Spelling"). According to the Suwandi system of spelling, "oe" became "u", so Loe is often spelt Lu. Since 1972, Dutch-style "j" became "y", meaning Njoo is now spelt Nyoo.
Read more about this topic: Liem
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