Adrianus van Selms, a Dutch scholar and Semitic researcher, published a transliteration in Latin Script of Abu Bakr Effendi's work in 1979. Since the original work presented spoken Afrikaans without using vowels, van Selms's biggest task was to decipher which Afrikaans words were being referred to. Effendi had also innovated new Arabic characters for several Afrikaans letters not found in the Arabic alphabet, the letter 'P' for example. What is interesting is that these innovated letters had to be unique, yet still recognisable by the population who were already schooled in traditional Arabic. Since this was a local modification to the language, used only amongst the Cape Muslim Community, it may have proved illegible for those familiar with traditional Arabic.