Javanese language

Introduction

Javanese is an Austronesian language belonging to the Sundic sub-branch of Hesperonesian (also called Western Malayo-Polynesians) sub-branch of the Malayo-Polynesian subfamily of the Austronesian super family. Malay is a fairly close relative; it can be considered as a cousin of Javanese. Other close relatives include Sundanese, Madurese and Balinese. It is still closely related but to a lesser extent to various Sumatran languages and various Borneo languages, including Malagasy. Javanese is mainly spoken in the Indonesian island of Java. In Java, Javanese is spoken on the north coast of West Java, Central and East Java. In Sunda (West Java), Madura, Bali and Lombok, Javanese is also used as a literary language.

Javanese is one of the Austronesian languages, which has been attested quite early. Javanese in various stages of its development is one of the classical languages of Southeast Asia and can also be regarded as one of the classical languages of the world as well, with a vast literature spanning more than 12 centuries. Scholars divide the development of Javanese language in four different stages:

Although many manuscripts containing the older literature have been found throughout the island of Java, it is however particularly to the Balinese people, that much of the older literature has been preserved. Javanese is the Austronesian language with the richest written literature covering all fields.

Javanese has been written with the Javanese script, a descendant of the Brahmi script of India, Arabo-Javanese script, Arabic script that is modified for Javanese and Latin script.

Although not an official language anywhere, Javanese is by far the Austronesian language with the largest number of native speakers. It is estimated that it is spoken or understood by at least 80 millions people. At least 45 % of the whole population of Indonesia is of Javanese descent or live in an area where Javanese is the dominant language. Four out of five presidents of Indonesia since 1945 are of Javanese descent. It is therefore not surprising that Javanese has a deep impact on the development of Bahasa Indonesia or Indonesian, the national language of Indonesia, which is a modern dialect of Malay.

Totally there are three main dialects of Modern Javanese: Western Javanese, Central Javanese and Eastern Javanese. There is a dialect continuum from Banten in the extreme west of Java to Banyuwangi, in the foremost eastern corner of the island. The Central Javanese variant, based on the speech of Surakarta (and also to a degree of Yogyakarta), is considered as the most ‘refined’ Javanese dialect. Accordingly standard Javanese is based on this dialect. These two cities are the seats of the four Javanese principalities, heirs to the dynasty of Mataram II, which once reigned over almost the whole of Java and beyond. Eastern Javanese dialect is ranged from eastern banks of Kali Brantas in Kertosono until Banyuwangi. However, the dialect is always referred to Surabayan speech. Recently, since 2003 an East Java local television (JTV) has broadcast some of its programmes in East Javanese dialect (based-on Surabayan and Malangan speeches). The programmes are Pojok kampung (News in East Javanese dialect), Kuis RT/RW, Pojok Perkoro(criminal programme in the dialect) and many more.

While in West Java particularly in the north coast , the dialects are distincts for Sundanese influences and still maintain many archaic words. The dialects are Jawa Serang, North coast, Indramayu or Dermayon and Cirebonan or Basa Cerbon.

While in West Java particularly in the north coast , the dialects are distincts for Sundanese influences and still maintain many archaic words. The dialects are Jawa Serang, North coast, Indramayu or Dermayon and Cirebonan or Basa Cerbon.

The dialects are more or less mutually intelligible. However the most aberrant dialect is the dialect of Balambangan or Banyuwangi in the most-eastern part of Java. It is generally known as Basa Osing. Osing is the word for negation and is a cognate of the Balinese ‘tusing’, Balinese being the neighbouring language directly to the east. In the past this area and beyond used to be in possession of Balinese kings and warlords.

As in many languages of Eastern Asia, for example as in Korean, Japanese, Thai, as well the neighbouring Austronesian languages, there are several styles in Javanese speech, which indicate politeness.

Phonology

These are the phonemes of Modern Standard Javanese.
Vowels:

The pronunciation of the vowels is rather complicated. But the main characteristic of the standard dialect of Surakarta is that, /a/ in open-word final syllables and penultimate syllables is pronounced as [(ò)] as in English ‘hot’ or in French ‘os’. For the structure of Javanese syllable please refer below. Words consisting of more than three syllables are broken up in groups of words containing two syllables for the pronunciation.

Consonants:

• The phonemes between parentheses are allophones; the retroflex phonemes are represented as C+h; the palatal nasal is written with a tilde, other symbols are SAMPA.
  

Javanese, together with Madurese, are both the only Austronesian languages, which possess retroflex phonemes. Madurese even possesses aspirated phonemes including at least one aspirated retroflex phoneme. Some scholars assume this might be an influence of the Sanskrit, but other scholars believe this can also be an independent development within the Austronesian super family. Interesting to note is the fact that a sibilant before a retroflex stop in Sanskrit loanwords is pronounced as a retroflex sibilant whereas in modern Indian languages it is pronounced as a palatal sibilant. By the way, Achinese and Balinese also possess a retroflex voiceless stop, but this is merely an allophone of /t/. As in other Austronesian languages, native Javanese roots consist of two syllables. A Javanese syllable can be of the following type: nCsvVC. n=nasal, C=consonant, sv= semivowel (/y/, /r/, /l/ and /w/), V=vowel and C=consonant. But a bi-syllabic root is in Modern Javanese of the following type: nCsvVnCsvVC.

Javanese script

Morphology

Javanese is, like other Austronesian languages, an agglutinative language. Base words can be modified using extensive apply of affixes.

Syntax

Modern Javanese usually has SVO word order. But Old Javanese particularly had VSO or sometimes VOS word orders. Even in Modern Javanese archaic sentences using VSO structure can still be made.
Examples:
Modern Javanese: ‘Dheweke (S) těka (V) neng (pp.) kĕdhaton (O)’.
Old Javanese: ‘Těka (V) ta (part.) sira (S) ri (pp.) ng (def. art.) kadhatwan (O)’.
Both sentences mean: ‘He (S) comes (V) in (pp.) the (def. art.) palace (O)’. In the Old Javanese sentence, the verb is placed at the beginning and is separated by the particle ta from the rest of the sentence. Also in Modern Javanese the definite article is lost in prepositions, it is expressed in another way.

Verbs are not inflected for person or number, tense is not indicated either, but this is expressed by auxiliary words as in Malay such as yesterday or by other tense indicators such as already. On the other hand, there is a complex system of verb affixes to express the different status of the subject and object. As other Austronesian languages, Javanese is an agglutinative language.
But in general the structure of Javanese sentences (both Old and Modern) can be described using the so-called topic-comment model without having to refer to classical grammatical or syntactical categories such as the aforementioned subject, object, predicates etc. Topic is the head of the sentence, comment is the modifier. So our Javanese above-mentioned sentence could then be described as follows:
Dheweke = topic tĕka = comment neng kĕdhaton = setting.

Vocabulary

Javanese has a rich vocabulary, not only do native Austronesian words make up the vocabulary but also many foreign borrowings as well. Sanskrit has had a deep and lasting impact on the vocabulary of the Javanese language. In the Old Javanese – English Dictionary, written by professor P.J. Zoetmulder s.j. (1982), no less than 12.500 out of a total entry of 25.500 consist of borrowings from Sanskrit. It is obvious that this large number doesn’t say anything about their usage. It is merely an indication that the Ancient Javanese knew and employed these Sanskrit words in their literary works. In any given Old Javanese literary work, approximately 25% of the vocabulary is derived from Sanskrit.

Many Sanskrit words are still in use nowadays. Modern Javanese speakers refer to much of the Old Javanese and Sanskrit words as kawi words, which roughly can be translated as ‘literary’. Other borrowings include loanwords from Arabic, Dutch and Malay. But their numbers are considerably much lower than the Sanskrit borrowings. The number of the Arabic loanwords is much lower than in Malay. These Arabic loanwords are usually concerned with Islamic religion, but some words have entered the basic vocabulary such as pikir, ‘to think’ (Arabic, fikr), badan, ‘body’, mripat, ‘eye’ (thought to be from Arabic ma’rifah ‘knowledge’ or as a derived meaning ‘vision’, hence ‘eyes’). But usually these Arabic words also have their native Austronesian and or Sanskrit equivalents. In this case mripat = mata (Austronesian), soca, netra (Sanskrit), badan = awak (Austronesian), slira, sarira, angga (Sanskrit), pikir = galih, idhĕp (Austronesian), manah, cipta, cita (Sanskrit).

Dutch loanwords usually have the same form and meaning as in Indonesian but there are few exceptions. For examples: pit, ‘bicycle’ (Dutch fiets) for Indonesian ‘sepeda’, pit montor ‘motor bicycle’ (Dutch motorfiets) for Indonesian ‘sepeda motor’ and sepur ‘train’ (Dutch spoor, i.e. (rail)track) for Indonesian ‘kereta api’. The latter is interesting, as ‘sepur’ also exists in Indonesian. Its meaning has preserved the Dutch meaning more faithfully, i.e. railway tracks.

Due to the status of Malay as lingua franca of the Indonesian archipelago in former times and later as the official and national language of Indonesia, there has been an influx of Malay and Indonesian vocabulary recently. Many of these are concerned with the bureaucracy or politics.

Politeness

As in many languages of Eastern Asia, for example as in Korean, Japanese, Thai, as well the neighbouring Austronesian languages, there are several styles, sometimes calles levels, in Javanese speech, depending on the social context. These styles are characterised by their own vocabulary, grammatical rules and even has distinct prosody.

In Javanese these styles are called:
1. Ngoko, this is the informal speech, between friends and close relatives. It is also used by persons with a higher status to persons with a lower status, for example older people to younger people or bosses to subordinates.
2. Madya, this is the intermediary form between ngoko and krama . For example people on the street, where one does not want to be too informal or does not want to be too polite either, use it.
3. Krama, this is the polite or the formal style. Used between persons of the same status without wanting to be informal. This is also the official style used for a public speech, announcement etc.

However, there are also ‘meta-style’ words, these are the honorifics and humilifics. When one talks about oneself, one has to be humble. But when one speaks of someone else with a higher status or whom one wants to be respectful to, honorific terms are used. Status is defined by age, social position etc. The humilific words are called krama andhap words while the honorific words are called krama inggil words. For examples, children often use the ngoko style when talking to the parents. But they have to use krama inggil words both inggil and andhap. Below some examples are provided to explain these different styles.

Ngoko: Aku arěp mangan (I want to eat)
Madya: Kula ajěng nědha.
Krama: (Neutral) Kula badhe nědha. (Humble) Dalěm badhe nědha.
Mixed: (Honorific) Bapak kěrsa dhahar ? (Do you want to eat? Addressed to someone with a high(er) status. Literally meaning: Does father want to eat?) (reply towards persons with lower status) Iya, aku kěrsa dhahar. (Yes, I want to eat). (reply towards persons with lower status, but without having the need to express one’s superiority) Iya, aku arěp mangan. (reply towards persons with same status) Inggih, kula badhe nědha.

The employ of these different styles is very complicated and imposes good knowledge of the Javanese culture. These different styles are one of the things, which make it difficult for foreigners to learn Javanese. On the other hand, these different styles of speech are actually not mastered well by the majority of Javanese. Most people, especially the less educated ones only master the first style and a rudimentary form of the second style. Persons who have correct mastery of these different styles are held in high esteem.