(A Glimpse into the Life of the Javanese), dating from 1897 and replete with terminology and sketches, is no longer generally known, but as a record it does have considerable interest.
Completely new words do not seem to occur very often in Javanese, probably because the innovation accompanying modernisation and the development of language to meet the needs of technology, politics and government have been concentrated on Indonesian as national language. The speaker of Javanese switches to Indonesian vocabulary in order to express such things. It may be more correct to say that the Indonesian term is borrowed and becomes Javanese, even though the phonological rules of Javanese do not (yet?) apply. In any case, where the term is normal Indonesian and is to be found in the Indonesian dictionaries, we have not done double work and listed them as Javanese as well. The reader is referred to the Indonesian dictionaries, in the hope that no misunderstandings will occur, as it can safely be assumed that the majority of students of Javanese will also have studied Indonesian, and will be aware of the difference between the two languages.
A third, less tangible, aspect of the "moving target" is what may be called "individual variation". This occurs at the opposite end of the spectrum from formal, standard or fixed written forms, that is, the kind of speech in which people give expression to their emotions in a spontaneous and lively way. Their attitude to the language seems to be one of a good friend, someone we can make jokes with, without fear of causing offence. The variation occurring here involves changing the shape of a common word, in such a way as to convey some heightened feeling. The basic lexical meaning remains the same, but the word gains an added nuance by virtue of the variation.
There are three kinds of variation to be distinguished here. The first is the intensive, where a change in sound conveys an intensification of the meaning. This is restricted to spoken Javanese, and to Ngoko. The second is harder to define; it appears to heighten the familiar or jocular quality of the word, and the selection of variants here is very much a matter of individual choice within the idiosyncratic style of each person. An extension of this is the situation where speakers create playful variants on existing words as a kind of game—they feel free to change the sound in order to imply another meaning, often humorous or suggestive. Words of this third type are unlikely to find general currency or become incorporated into the lexicon of Javanese, although the factor of creativity must never be underestimated in linguistic innovation. The whole area of ephemeral slang and secret in-group codes is not touched upon here, due to a lack of data.
Finally, in order to be complete one should include the description of those items which speakers feel to be crude and would not use in polite society Javanese has its fair share of these, and a number have been included here, as they represent an essential, intimate, part of the lexicon, although speakers may disagree about the degree of acceptability of such words.
4. This Dictionary
Having lived in Yogyakarta in 1972-3 (as assistant to Professor P.J. Zoetmulder, working on his Old Javanese dictionary), and again for shortish periods in 1983 and 1985 in Muntilan and Sleman (under the Indonesian Studies Program of Leiden University), I had felt a certain measure of frustration trying to work with the existing dictionaries, because of their various shortcomings, alluded to above. At the same time, experience in the field showed what a difficult subject of study the Javanese language is. Again and again words were not to be found: sometimes apparently very common, simple ones, and sometimes terms pertaining to the realities of everyday life in the countryside. There is no doubt that there is a long way to go before our coverage is even moderately complete. Well aware, then, of the dangers, I had toyed with the idea of a concise dictionary of Modern Javanese that might replace Pigeaud and Home, for the benefit of foreign students of the language.
After departure from the University of Leiden early in 1991 and a hurried application for funding to the Australian Research Council, the die was cast when, unbelievably, the project was funded. This made it possible to recruit a native-speaker, Drs Singgih Wibisono, as full-time Research Associate, freed from his position at the University of Indonesia in Jakarta for a three-year period to work at Monash University on compiling a Javanese-English dictionary.
The aim of the project was very modest—it had to be, given that the team consisted of only two, and the funding would last only three years. The aim was to compare the existing dictionaries, and on this basis to combine data and compile a new one. At the same time, bearing in mind the limited scope, certain rare or very specialised items would be dropped, and replaced with a small number of new items, drawn from the authors' own experience of the language. The intention was consciously to do justice to the cultural content of words, in particular drawing on Singgih Wibisono's insider knowledge of wayang and dance. There was, however, no attempt to analyse fresh materials in a systematic way, and the computer was used only for word-processing. To be specific, the sources were the dictionaries of Pigeaud, Poerwadarminta and Home, supplemented with Gericke-Roorda and Jansz. We acknowledge our debt to these predecessors, without whom it would have been impossible to come as far as this.
Scope
This dictionary does not intend or pretend to be complete. In order to be reasonably complete, much more research, both in written sources and in the field, would be needed, but then the result would be huge. So we beg the reader's indulgence if a particular word or shade of meaning is not listed.
On the other hand, some words are likely to be found that are unfamiliar to some native speakers, perhaps because they are taken from a certain dialect or are now obsolete. We may even have erred on the generous side, out of an interest in the historical, bearing in mind the developments that have occurred over time. For comparison with earlier phases of the Javanese language, readers are invited to consult P.J. Zoetmulder's OldJavanese-English Dictionary of 1982, which covers both Old and Middle Javanese and is based on a wide range of sources, with examples from them arranged chronologically for convenience.
This dictionary aims firstly to be moderately complete for contemporary Javanese in order to include vocabulary needed for communication and for using published materials. The choice of items for inclusion does contain a subjective element, but has been guided by a native speaker's feeling for what is useful. The dictionary lists a large number of items marked as reg; these are words which are felt to be non-standard, in the sense of being either restricted to a particular area (dialectal) or to a certain social group (sociolectal) The dictionary aims secondly to take account of a time dimension, in that it contains items which are possibly no longer current in spoken Javanese. No mark has been given to these, in view of the difficulty of identifying them, as mentioned above. However, words which are unlikely to be found in the spoken language but are important for literary sources are marked with the sign lit.
It goes without saying that each language level is represented. The marks kr (Krama) and h.i. (Krama Inggil) are only provided when these forms differ from Ngoko. In other words, if there is no indication the word is common to all levels. Where both Ngoko and Krama forms exist, the full description is given under the Ngoko, and only a concise one under the Krama, so that the reader should also refer to the Ngoko.
There has been no attempt to provide etymologies for loanwords, despite the special interest of this subject, due to a lack of research, and it has not been possible to include example sentences, due to a lack of space. One hopes that the definitions will be clear enough to speak for themselves.
The present dictionary will be found to rely heavily on both Pigeaud and Home, but will contain a little more than either of these, although there are also words from both that have been deliberately omitted as being unnecessary for the non-specialist user.
The greatest challenge has been to provide meanings in clear English that come as close as possible to covering the areas of meaning of the Javanese words. In this respect it is hoped that this dictionary constitutes an advance on both Pigeaud and Home. It was felt particularly important to be accurate with items that have a special cultural content, e.g. beliefs, the arts, or religion. With other items
