How do Arab Speakers Cognitively Process Malay in the Arabic Script?

Reading is one area within cognitive psychology that is rigorously studied through experiments. Cognitive psychologists describe reading as “a highly complex process” because this receptive skill depends on different sub-processes that are inter- connected with one another. While studies on reading the Arabic script in the Arabic language have been (though not thoroughly) conducted before, a study on reading the Arabic script in non-Arabic languages by native and first language speakers of Arabic has never been conducted. This paper presents results of an experiment that investigated the reading of Malay in the Arabic script by Arabic native and first language speakers.