Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/636

608 JAVA .porated a very lirge number of purely Javanese words. 1 In spite of these two languages and the intrusive Malay, Javanese has a full right to its name as the dominant speech of the island. It is not one language, but two. The nobles speak to the commonalty in the language of the commonalty, the commonalty to the nobles in the language of the nobles ; and according to clearly understood regula tions of etiquette every Javanese plays the part of noble man or commoner to his interlocutor. The aristocratic form is known as Krama or court speech, the popular as Ngoko, or the "thou-"ing speech (Fr., lutoyant, Germ., duzend}; and between the two forms there is a sort of compromise, the Madja or middle speech, employed by those who stand to each other ou an equal and friendly footing, or by those who feel little constraint of etiquette. For every idea that can be expressed in the language Krama has one expression, Xgoko another, the two words being sometimes completely different, sometimes only differing in the termination, the beginning, or the middle. Thus every Javanese makes use of two languages, and, what is more difficult, of two languages delicately differentiated from each other. Java nese as now spoken is far from being the same as the language of the old inscriptions and manuscripts. The latter (which is usually called Kawi, 2 though some scholars insist on the name Old Javanese) was probably based on the Javanese of Madjakerto, while the Krama of the present day finds its type in that of Surakarta. It is easy to explain the existence of the Krama and the Ngoko. The Hindu conquerors of Java, in gradually adopting the speech of their Malay subjects modified it to suit their own taste and sense of superiority ; and the subjects mean while continued to speak as they were wont. In its vocabulary Javanese Krama has a, large number of words of Sanskrit origin ; and in modern times there has been a considerable adoption of foreign words from and through the Dutch. Krama usually takes one form, Ngoko another ; thus the word particulier appears in the former a * pedjahkelir, in the other as patikelir. 3 Like all the alphabets of the Indian archipelago except the Malay, the Javanese is derived from the Devanagari. When Javanese is written in Arabic characters it is called pegon. Though a considerable body of Kawi literature is still extant, nothing like a history of it is possible. The date and authorship of most of the works are totally unknown. The first place may be assigned to the Brata Tudu (that is Sansk., Bharatu Yudha, the conflict of the Bharatas), an epic poem dealing with the struggle between the Pand&w&s and the Korawas for the throne of Ngastina celebrated in parwas 5-10 of the Mahabharata. To the concep tion, however, of the modern Javanese it is a purely native poem ; ^V^fc; - % J -H5^^^%-^^V ^^^H i^s^^^gSgr^ : ^^^?*^r^^ ^SSfffif j jSffW^ 6 ^ ^*^ c-^;~ V5<^^ f " ^ r ^ %f;^i ; ^r^ FIG. 1. General View of Bara-Budur. its kings and heroes find their place in the native history* -and serve as ancestors to their noble families. (Cohen Stuart pub lished the modern Javanese version with a Dutch translation and notes, Bruta-Jocda, &c., Samarang, 1877. The Kawi text was litho graphed at the Hague by S. Lankhout.) Of greater antiquity pro bably is the Ardjunu WiwuhA (or marringe festival of Ardjuna), which Professor Kern thinks may be assigned to the first half of the llth century of the Christian era. The very name indicates its Mahabharata origin. (Friederich published the Kawi text from a Bali MS., and more recently we have from him Wiwaha Djarwa en Brata Jocdo Kawi, lithographed facsimiles of two palm leaf MSS. , Batavia, 1878. Djarwa is the name of the poetic diction of modern Javanese.) The oldest poem of which any trace is preserved is probably the mythological -Kunda (i.e., tradition) ; the contents are to some extent known from the modern Javanese version. In the literature of modern Javanese there exists a great variety of so-called babads or chronicles. It is sufficient to mention the " history " of Baron Sakender, which appears to give an account often hardly recognizable of the settlement of Europeans in Java (Cohen Stuart has published text and translation ; Professor Veth gives on analysis of the contents), and the Babad Tanah Djaici (Hague, 1874, 1377), giving the history of the island to 1647 of the Javanese era. Even more numerous are the puppet-plays 1 See A. C. Vreede, Handleiding tot de beoefeniny dcr Madocresche taal, Leyden, 1874. - In full form tembung or busa Kawi, i.e., the "language of poems." which usually take their subjects from the Hindu legends or from those relating to the kingdoms of Madjapahit and Padjadjaram (see, e.g., H. C. Humme, Abidsa, een Javaanschc toncelstuJc, Hague, Several Javanese specimens are also known of the beast fable, which plays so important a part in Sanskrit literature (W. Palmer van den Broek, Javaanschc Vcrtcllingcn, bcmttcndc dc lotgcmllcn van ccn Jcantjil, ccn rccloTc, &c., Hague, 1878). To the Hindu- Javanese literature there has naturally succeeded a Mahometan- Javanese literature consisting largely of translations or imitations of Arabic originals ; it comprises religious romances, moral ex hortations, and mystical treatises in great variety. The reader may consult Kodet, titudcs sur lalitteraturejaranaise; Van der Berg s account of the MSS. of the Batavian Society, Hague, 1877 ; and a series of papers by C. Poensen in Mcdcd. van wcge het Ned. Zenddiiujijenootschap, 1880. Antiquities. The ruins left by the early Hindu con querors of Java are among the most remarkable objects of interest throughout the island. Temples (or tjandis, to 3 Humboldt s study, Ueber die Kawi Sprache, is one of the celebrated works of modern philology ; but in the absence of the necessary material it was to some extent a tour de force. Professor Kern s Ko.ici Studien form the most important of the more recent contributions to the investigation of the language. For modern Javanese the standard grammar is Groot and Gericke s Javaasche Spraakkunst, edited by Koorda (Amst., 1843).