The History of Java, v. 1-2

by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles

Of the profusion of words it may be observed, that the Javan, in this respect, may be put in competition with many of the more cultivated languages of Europe and Asia, and that a dictionary would perhaps be far from complete, if it comprehended less than twenty thousand.

Of the extent of synonymes, and the minute shades of distinction which are found in this language, some notion may be formed from the extracts from the Dása Náma which are annexed[126]. In order to facilitate the acquirement of the language, it is usual to collect all the words in the different dialects, with their synonymes, and to connect them together by stringing them in classes following each other, according to the natural chain of our ideas. Thus, after commencing with the word man, and giving an explanation of every word in the vernacular, polite and Káwi languages, applicable from his birth to his death, as infant, boy, youth, and the like, it proceeds to woman, child; from thence to the deities, afterwards to the various avocations of mankind, &c. This collection of synonymes is called Dása Náma, literally the "ten names," a term probably given to it on account of few important words in the language having less than ten synonymes. Children are no sooner taught to know the letters of the alphabet (which they first describe on the sand), and to connect them in syllables and words, than they are instructed in the Dása Náma, without a partial knowledge of which, no youth is considered competent to enter upon any public office, or can advance to a knowledge of the written compositions of the country. These collections are varied in their contents and order of arrangement, according to the acquirements and notions of the compiler. As books of reference they may be considered to supply the place of dictionaries, and if less convenient for this purpose than works alphabetically arranged, they have certainty an advantage over them, in the comparative facility with which their contents are impressed on the memory.

But there is no feature in the language more deserving of notice than the difference of dialect, or the distinction between the common language, and what may be termed the polite language or language of honour. The latter contains many words of Sanscrit origin, and a portion of Maláyu; and in those instances in which it appears to have been borrowed from the vernacular language, which may perhaps be loosely estimated at a fourth of the whole, a slight alteration is commonly made in the orthography and pronunciation, to mark the distinction. To render this distinction intelligible to those who are not locally informed, it may be necessary to explain, that from whatever cause the distinction may have originated, so clearly is the line drawn on Java, between the higher and the lower classes of society, that on no account is any one, of whatever rank, allowed to address his superior in the common or vernacular language of the country. This language is exclusively applied when addressing an inferior, or among the lower orders or uneducated, where distinction of rank may not be acknowledged. Persons of high and equal rank, when discoursing among themselves, sometimes use the polite language, but in general they adopt a medium, by introducing words belonging to both branches of the language; and this is generally adopted by them in epistolary correspondence.

It is probable, that in the earlier stages of society, the terms of respect used towards a superior were comparatively few: that this second dialect, which now forms so extensive a branch of the general language, has been gradually formed with the growth of arbitrary power; and that, at one period, the extent of these terms did not exceed what is to be at this day found in the less cultivated dialects, and among the more independent races of Madúra and Súnda. Such, however, is their present extent in the Javan, that nearly one half of the words in the vernacular language, have their corresponding term in the Bása Kráma or polite language, without a knowledge of which no one dare address a superior; and although the general construction of the language, and its grammatical principles are not altered, so effectually is the language of inferiority contrasted with that of superiority, that it is possible to suppose a case in which a person might be well acquainted with one dialect, without being able to understand one sentence of the other.

It is not, however, to be inferred, that the one is studied and attained exclusively of the other, for while the one is the language of address, the other must be that of reply, and the knowledge of both is indispensable to those who have to communicate with persons of a different rank with themselves. Children are accustomed from their infancy to employ the polite language in addressing their parents and relations, and this added to the mode of instruction by the Dása Náma above described, early impresses upon their memory the corresponding terms to be used according to the occasion. The Bása Kráma, as has been before noticed, consists of a more extensive class of foreign words, and where different words from the common language have not been introduced, a variation in the orthography and termination is adopted; and the more effectually to render it distinct, not only are the affirmatives and negatives, as well as the pronouns and prepositions varied, but the auxiliary verbs and particles are different.

I have already mentioned, that besides the ordinary and the polite languages of the country, the inhabitants of these Islands possess a poetic or classic language, called Káwi. In this are written all the historical and poetical compositions of note, as well as most of the ancient inscriptions on stone and copper, which are found in different parts of the Island. In a short vocabulary already referred to[127], the relation of the Káwi to the Sánscrit and Páli is shewn; and in order to enable the Sánscrit scholar to extend the comparison, I have annexed a further vocabulary of Káwi words, with the meaning which the Javans at present attach to them[128].

At what period this language was introduced into Java, whence it came, and whether it was ever the sacred or vernacular language of any foreign people, remains to be decided. Of the words of which it is composed, as far as we may judge from the annexed vocabulary, and the compositions which have come down to us, nine out of ten are of Sánscrit origin, and less corrupted than the present Páli of Siam and Ava appears to be: if, therefore, it was ever the same language with the Páli, it must have been before the Páli was corrupted, and therefore probably at a very remote period.

In Báli the Káwi is still the language of religion and law; in Java it is only that of poetry and ancient fable. In the former, the knowledge of it is almost exclusively confined to the Bramána (Bramins); in the latter, a slight knowledge of it is deemed essential for every man of condition. In Báli, the ancient, mythological, and historical poems, are however preserved in more correct Káwi than on Java: and it is to the copies obtained from thence, that reference will be principally made in the observations which follow on Javan literature.

In noticing "the accessary tongues from whence the Maláyan acquired such a degree of improvement, as removed it from the general level of the other cognate dialects, and gave it a decided predominance in that part of the east," Mr. Marsden observes, "that the earliest, as well as most important of these, appears to have been, either directly or mediately, that great parent of Indian languages, the Sanscrit, whose influence is found to have pervaded the whole of the eastern (and perhaps also of the western) world, modifying and regenerating even where it did not create. That the intercourse, whatever its circumstances may have been, which produced this advantageous effect, must have taken place at an early period, is to be inferred, not only from the deep obscurity in which it is involved, but also from the nature of the terms borrowed, being such as the progress of civilization must soon have rendered necessary, expressing the feelings of the mind, the most obvious moral ideas, the simplest objects of the understanding, and those ordinary modes of thought which result from the social habits of mankind; whilst, at the same time, it is not to be understood, as some have presumed to be the case, that the affinity between these languages is radical, or that the latter is indebted to any Hindu dialect for its names for the common objects of sense[129]."

The same observations apply still more extensively to the Javan; and in the Káwi or classic language, we may presume to have discovered the channel by which the Javan received its principal store of Sanscrit words, for it is the practice, even at present, among the better educated of the Javans, for the party to display his reading, by the introduction, particularly into epistolary correspondence and literary compositions, of Káwi words, by which means the colloquial, but more particularly the written language of the country, is daily receiving fresh accessions of Sanscrit terms. From the vocabularies now presented to the public, and the account which will be given of their literary compositions, it will appear, that few languages, even on the continent of India, have been more indebted to the Sanscrit than the Javan. One original language seems, in a very remote period, to have pervaded the whole Archipelago, and to have spread (perhaps with the population) towards Madagascar on one side, and to the islands in the South Sea on the other; but in the proportion that we find any of these tribes more highly advanced in the arts of civilized life than others, in nearly the same proportion do we find the language enriched by a corresponding accession of Sanscrit terms, directing us at once to the source whence civilization flowed towards these regions. At what period, however, the light first broke in upon them, or at what period the intercourse first took place between the enlightened inhabitants of Western Asia and the islanders of this extensive Archipelago, is a question which, perhaps, may be more properly discussed, when treating of the antiquities and history of the country, and at best is involved in so much obscurity and fable, that much must be left to conjecture.