interludes. Suffice it to say that the language used by the performer (dhalang) is not Old Javanese, with the exception of the suluk (stanzas used to create mood), although there do exist turns of phrase specific to the wayang, and the dhalang must also master the use of the special language of the court (Basa Kedhaton).
Further, Javanese possesses a modern literature, which arose in the 20th century, expressed in the forms of the novel (roman), free verse (geguritan) and short story (cerita cekak). This literature runs parallel to modern Indonesian literature, and is similar to that in its personal expression and realism. The earliest examples were written in Krama, but all recent Javanese literature is in Ngoko. At present little is being printed in Javanese, the main vehicles being periodicals.
Finally, one should not omit to mention that Javanese has its own writing-system, which derives ultimately from the Pallava script of early South India. This was adapted for writing Javanese. Palm leaves (lontar) were used as material, the letters being engraved with a sharp knife; this method is still used in Bali for creating manuscripts. (Balinese script is closely related to Javanese.) Later, European paper came to be used, and this is the main material found in the thousands of Javanese manuscripts kept in libraries in Indonesia and overseas. The Javanese script is still known in Java, being taught in schools, but is little used in practice. There is a printed form of the letters which was used in the colonial period for Javanese-language publications, but gradually its place was usurped by the Roman script. Javanese script embodies part of the Javanese cultural heritage, and it carries overtones of the power of the written word that Roman script does not. The written word, and all traditional forms of literature, were regarded as serious subjects, and hence appropriate for conveying messages of a didactic or edifying nature, alongside quite mundane uses. A knowledge of the script is recommended for those who need to read original historical or literary sources dating from the pre-modern period, not to mention the two-volume dictionary of Gericke and Roorda of 1901.
The study of Javanese by Europeans did not begin until the 19 th century Prior to this, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) conducted its contacts with native rulers through Malay. Credit for the first scholarly interest in Java must go to Thomas Stamford Raffles, who was Lieutenant-Governor of Java during the British Interregnum (1811-16). The results of his investigations are to be found in his two-volume History of Java (1817, second edn 1830), and these include the first exploration of Javanese language and literature, to which more than 100 pages are devoted.
Following the end of the Java War and the beginning of the colonial period proper in 1830, there was a growing awareness on the part of the authorities of the usefulness of a knowledge of Javanese language and customs, leading to the inclusion in 1842 of Javanese alongside Malay in the training of aspirant civil servants at Delft in The Netherlands. This tradition has been continued by a line of professors of Javanese at the University of Leiden down to the present day. In this sense it can be seen that the study of Javanese was a product of the colonial relationship, and it is understandable that it was a Dutch monopoly at that time. Considerable advances were made, due to the efforts of Dutch scholars who devoted themselves to the study of Javanese, often deeply impressed by the sophistication of the traditions which they found preserved among the literate classes in the Principalities, i.e. the court-cities of Central Java. It would not be until after the departure of the Dutch in 1949 that Javanese would receive much attention from the international community, fortunately coupled with a gradually growing awareness of the inestimable value of the collections assiduously assembled by earlier generations in Leiden.
2. Existing Dictionaries of Javanese
It may not be unfair to say that the lexicography of Javanese has had a somewhat chequered career. It represents a long series of attempts to explore the Javanese language and make it accessible, primarily to non-Javanese students, with varying degrees of success. A short account of earlier publications may serve to illustrate this point.
The first dictionary of Javanese, the Algemeen Nederduitsch en Javaansch Woordenboek (General Dutch and Javanese Dictionary), was published by P.P. Roorda van Eysinga (using Roman characters) in 1835. Although this work was clear and practical, it is normally ignored, and was apparently not used by others.
The second in line was the Javaansch-Nederduitsch Woordenboek (Javanese-Dutch Dictionary) compiled by J.EC. Gericke and published by T. Roorda in Amsterdam in 1847.
Next came the Dictionnaire Javanais-Francais (Javanese-French Dictionary) of EAbbe P. Favre, published in Paris in 1870—also completely forgotten by later scholars.
As the next step, the Javaansch-Nederduitsch Handwoordenboek (Concise Javanese-Dutch Dictionary) of 1875 was a new version of Gericke and Roorda's dictionary, prepared by A.C. Vreede. This incorporated an unpublished dictionary compiled by C.E Winter and J.A. Wilkens, not to mention additional materials published by P. Jansz in Semarang in 1869 and 1871.
An "expanded and improved" version of this was published by A.C. Vreede in Amsterdam in 1886, and finally in 1901 the Javaansch-Nederlandsch Handwoordenboek (Concise Javanese-Dutch Dictionary), now in two volumes and of course still in Javanese script.
So it can be seen how many tributaries have swollen this stream, and how much effort was devoted by scholars, in both The Netherlands and Java, to collecting data and processing it, in order to produce what has been regarded as the great dictionary of Javanese, generally known as Gericke-Roorda or GR (1901).
Meanwhile, P. Jansz had produced a dictionary, the Practisch Javaansch-Nederlandsch Woordenboek (Practical Javanese-Dutch Dictionary) in romanisation in 1876, with a second edition in 1913 and a third in 1932. For some reason, this dictionary was viewed with disdain by Leiden scholars, despite its very real merits of clarity and practicality.
Before long a need was again felt to expand and to produce a new edition of Gericke-Roorda, and the task was given to the Leiden philologist Th. Pigeaud, who began work in 1926 in Surakarta and later in Yogyakarta. After years of work, an end was apparently not in sight, so instead Pigeaud published what he called the "index" to the big dictionary, in the form of a concise or "hand" dictionary, which appeared in 1938 as the Javaans-Nederlands Handwoordenboek (Concise Javanese-Dutch Dictionary), used by generations of students at Leiden University down to the present day, and reprinted in Leiden in 1970, 1982 and 1989 by the Royal Institute of Linguistics and Anthropology.
One assumes that Pigeaud's work was halted, or delayed, by the arrival of the Japanese in Java in 1942. After World War II he was repatriated to Holland and never returned to Indonesia or sought to continue his work on the dictionary. It used to be said that the materials had been destroyed, but in fact they were preserved and kept for some time in Jakarta, before being returned to Yogyakarta, where they are now, complete, in the office of the Balai Penelitian Bahasa in Kotabaru. In response to several questions as to whether it might not be a good idea to publish them as they stand, given Pigeaud's reputation as a Javanist, on two occasions the materials were inspected: they consist of large cards kept in stout wooden boxes covering a whole wall. But the cards contain nothing but handwritten selections from sources (indicated by symbols only traceable through some long-lost key), arranged one below the other, but without any attempt at translation. In short, these materials are unusable, and the efforts of Pigeaud's team of clerks, and himself, over the years were largely wasted.
The concise "Pigeaud" of 1938 has a number of drawbacks, the main one relating to the arrangement of entries. These are given under derived forms, so that a verb, for example, will be found under both active and passive forms. Furthermore, the definitions are deliberately highly concise, and this does not promote clarity; the non-native speaker of Dutch often has such difficulty with Pigeaud's precious use of Dutch as to be little the wiser—there are even many words there that are not to be found in Van Dale's modern Dutch-English dictionary.
At this point we must not omit to mention the lexicographical work of WJ.S. Poerwadarminta, of which the Baoesastra Djawa of 1939 is best known. This is a Javanese-Javanese dictionary, in which the all-pervading influence of Pigeaud in that period can be detected: the very title-page states: "ingkang kangge antjer-antjer serat baoesastra Djawi-Wlandi karanganipoen Dr. Th. Pigeaud ing Ngajogjakarta" ("what served as guide was the Javanese-Dutch dictionary compiled by Dr Th. Pigeaud in Yogyakarta"), showing that it is in fact largely based on Pigeaud. This