Issues in Language Studies (Vol 11 No 2, 2022) 98 PEPELING: WHAT MAKES THE EPIGRAPHS AT THE GRAVESITES OF JAVANESE MUSLIM SAINTS LINGUISTICALLY UNIQUE FROM THE PERSPECTIVES OF DEATHSCAPES? SF. Luthfie Arguby PURNOMO* 1 Abdulloh HADZIQ 2 Abd. HALIM 3 Rustam IBRAHIM 4 SF. Lukfianka Sanjaya PURNAMA 5 Lilik UNTARI 6 UIN Raden Mas Said, Surakarta, Indonesia 1 luthfiearguby@staff.uinsaid.ac.id* 2 hadziq.abdulloh@gmail.com 3 abdoelhalim99@gmail.com 4 rustamibrahimalfatih@gmail.com 5 lukfiankasanjaya@staff.uinsaid.ac.id 6 lilik.untari@staff.uinsaid.ac.id Manuscript received 14 July 2022 Manuscript accepted 21 November 2022 *Corresponding author https://doi.org/10.33736/ils.4786.2022 ABSTRACT The gravesites of Javanese Muslim saints have signage called pepeling, epigraphs containing wise words from the deceased saints. This article attempts to elucidate the uniqueness of pepeling from deathscapes, linguistic landscapes specifically concerning lingual and non-lingual elements of mortality. We employed the theories of deathscapes by Maddrell and Sidaway (2010), the language of the cemetery by Deering (2010), wise quotes by DeFrank et al. (2019), and ethnic markers by Bell and Paegle (2021) to reveal the linguistic uniqueness of pepeling found from the gravesites of 21 Javanese Muslim saints. We found that pepeling was linguistically unique for three reasons. First, pepeling tends to contain a combination of Javanese or Indonesian ethnic markers with references to Islamic teaching. The presence of pegon, a Javanese expression written in an Arabic text, signifies this combination. Second, the places where pepeling are