A short discussion about world language made me realized that Javanese language has move a step further than it fellows other language. Instead of bugging on gender, syntactic, conjugated verbs, and gramatical tenses, Javanese moves onto higher order level that concerns on semantics.
Analogous to programming language, isn't it? The better the language it will concern more on semantic than syntactic.
Sometimes I think what is the purpose of this gender, conjugated verb, and tenses? However tenses do not give precise time value, it is merely give an indication of already done, still in progress or will be done and many other mindboggling combinations. More over in fact for a precise meaning, a sentence must be equipped with time indication eventhough it has use tenses already, so what is the purpose of the tenses? Not every stuff has complete lattice of male and female, so why use gender noun?
Here are some example which are I often heard:
janur gunung. Janur is tunip of coconut leaves, it colour usually yellow, and used as decoration in many javanese ritual occasions. Gunung is mountain. So what is meant? The meaning is very far from those words. Since in the mountain usually there's no coconut tree that usually grow on beach, but there is a tree which is similar to, Aren. Aren has similar leaves to coconut, and it also has janur. This "aren" will form the meaning, "kadingaren" which mean more less occasionally+surprising, actually I cannot find the exact meaning in english. Usage example: Lha kok njanur gunung to Le, malem minggu sinau? "What the hell happened, you are studying in week end?
Other similar formed term is nglemah bengkah, sorry for forgetting many other. These terms are like puzzle, you must solve it and than find a corresponding possible meaning.
More beautiful words composition which are formed sophisticated pronounciacion sound easily found in "cakepan gending" (lyrics) or wayang (shadow puppets) characters conversation. Unfortunately they are not easy to be understood, particularly for Mtv generation and henceforth. Cruel competition to pursue life basic need, force young people to choose easier enjoyable entertainment and marginalizing ethnic culture which are harder to understand. Having learnt modern music for several months as long as you have money you can go to studio make a recording, and call your music as alternative genre. But having several years experience in classical ethnic music, you might got a judgement, "not enough good to be considered as bad". I think fancy language got the impact as well.
I think it is not their fault, but the failure of former generation to prepare a suitable condition. According to Maslow theorem, I think there are vast degradation of Indonesian people, from serving God, serving people into serving theirself. From serving their heart, head to serving their mouth, stomach and other physical amusement.
Actually it is not only Javanese, Minang and most Indonesian tribe language also have the same, but I'm not familiar with them. In Minang sophisticated language is usually used on special occasion such as marriage ritual and other ritual customs. Minang use their sophisticated language in a form of pantun which has particular rithm and word ending. And what about Indonesian? Actually Indonesian language try to enhance itself by any terms found in the daily life, they can be from mother tongue language terms or foreign terms. Yeah Indonesian in my opinion isn't a well formed language.
Analogous to programming language, isn't it? The better the language it will concern more on semantic than syntactic.
Sometimes I think what is the purpose of this gender, conjugated verb, and tenses? However tenses do not give precise time value, it is merely give an indication of already done, still in progress or will be done and many other mindboggling combinations. More over in fact for a precise meaning, a sentence must be equipped with time indication eventhough it has use tenses already, so what is the purpose of the tenses? Not every stuff has complete lattice of male and female, so why use gender noun?
Here are some example which are I often heard:
janur gunung. Janur is tunip of coconut leaves, it colour usually yellow, and used as decoration in many javanese ritual occasions. Gunung is mountain. So what is meant? The meaning is very far from those words. Since in the mountain usually there's no coconut tree that usually grow on beach, but there is a tree which is similar to, Aren. Aren has similar leaves to coconut, and it also has janur. This "aren" will form the meaning, "kadingaren" which mean more less occasionally+surprising, actually I cannot find the exact meaning in english. Usage example: Lha kok njanur gunung to Le, malem minggu sinau? "What the hell happened, you are studying in week end?
Other similar formed term is nglemah bengkah, sorry for forgetting many other. These terms are like puzzle, you must solve it and than find a corresponding possible meaning.
More beautiful words composition which are formed sophisticated pronounciacion sound easily found in "cakepan gending" (lyrics) or wayang (shadow puppets) characters conversation. Unfortunately they are not easy to be understood, particularly for Mtv generation and henceforth. Cruel competition to pursue life basic need, force young people to choose easier enjoyable entertainment and marginalizing ethnic culture which are harder to understand. Having learnt modern music for several months as long as you have money you can go to studio make a recording, and call your music as alternative genre. But having several years experience in classical ethnic music, you might got a judgement, "not enough good to be considered as bad". I think fancy language got the impact as well.
I think it is not their fault, but the failure of former generation to prepare a suitable condition. According to Maslow theorem, I think there are vast degradation of Indonesian people, from serving God, serving people into serving theirself. From serving their heart, head to serving their mouth, stomach and other physical amusement.
Actually it is not only Javanese, Minang and most Indonesian tribe language also have the same, but I'm not familiar with them. In Minang sophisticated language is usually used on special occasion such as marriage ritual and other ritual customs. Minang use their sophisticated language in a form of pantun which has particular rithm and word ending. And what about Indonesian? Actually Indonesian language try to enhance itself by any terms found in the daily life, they can be from mother tongue language terms or foreign terms. Yeah Indonesian in my opinion isn't a well formed language.
1 komentar:
Hello, and thank you for those interesting comments on Javanese. Have you ever come across Esperanto? This is a planned international language with very little grammatical complexity. Take a look at www.esperanto.net
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