JAVANESE LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE. Two languages, possessing many words in common, but differing in essentials, are spoken in Java, the Javanese and the Sunda. From the earliest times Javanese has been a written language. and its alphabet has extended to the Sunda language. Inscriptions on stone and metal are in existence, which date back to the 12th century. The early characters differ from those now in use, but not more than black letter from modern type. They are in every par ticular dissimilar from those of the Hindu or Archipelagaic alphabets. They appear to be entirely- hivented by the inhabitants themselves. In the Javanese gram mar the consonants alone are considered substantive letters, the vowels being merely intended to modify, or, as the people themselves say, "clothe" them. There are 19 con sonants, but the vowel a, as an initial, is considered a substantive letter. The same vowel is included in every consonant, and follows every one also, unless a contrivance is employed to cut it off. Apart from a there are 5 other vowels. Every sound in the language has its representative character, and each letter has its own peculiar power, and no other.
The foreign elements in the Javanese languages are: Sanskrit, Arabic, Tillugu, or Telinga, which have become incorporated with it, not by foreign conquest or intermix ture of race, but through religion and commerce. Of these, Sanskrit is the predominant. We have no clue to the influx oP the Hindu sacred language into the Javanese tongue, but it must have been incidental to the conversion of the Javanese to Hinduism. and probably of very great antiquity. There are three dialects of the Javanese language: the vulgar, the polite, and the ancient or recondite. It is far more polished than the Sunda, which, although now written in the Javanese with the omission of the palatial d, and a t, had formerly a character peculiar to itself. The Javanese boast a very consid
erable literature in both the modern and the ancient tongues. In both it it metrical, the ancient showing many indications of Sanskrit poetry; and the modern abounding iu stanzas of various kinds, and in a peculiar rhyme, which are entirely original. Romances and romantic histories are very popular; and abstracts of the Sanskrit poem which describes the-wars of the Pandus and the legends of llama are to be met with. These are to the Javanese mind what Homer's poems were to the Greeks. Original ,gavanese poetry possesses little originality or force, but it is superior to that of any other people of the Archipelago. Oriental scholars are interested in the prevalence of Indian legends. The Ramayana is identical with the Ramajana of the Hindus, and in their Gastra manara we recognize the fundamental principles of Manus's book of laws. Several books have been translated into Javanese, amongst others The Thousand and one Nights. There is a Javanese newspaper. One peculiarity of the language should be noticed, it affords special forms and flexions for addressing particular persons. having regard to their rank. In speaking to servants, the mode of addressing them is called basa noko, or simply zu1k6, or commanding; and in speaking to superiors, the servants in turn use base lemma, or krama, humble speech. Then, for those who occupy no especial position, there is the basa madya, or middle speech; and lastly the basa kraton or court language is used to kings or their envoys.