[HN Gopher] An enigmatic Javanese manuscript in the British Library
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An enigmatic Javanese manuscript in the British Library
Author : benbreen
Score : 43 points
Date : 2021-04-14 05:58 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (blogs.bl.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (blogs.bl.uk)
| tenaciousDaniel wrote:
| My brain read the title as "Javascript manuscript" and I was
| extremely confused for a few moments.
| monsieurbanana wrote:
| Your comment made me look at the title again, and it's not
| "Japanese" like I first thought...
| Koshkin wrote:
| A beautiful script. More examples:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javanese_script#Sample_texts.
| desireco42 wrote:
| Is there anything British didn't stole? I am asking for me Greek
| friend ;)
| bellyfullofbac wrote:
| One of my ideas was to have a t-shirt that says "Javascript",
| written in Javanese script...
|
| But the script looks very complicated so this idea never got
| anywhere.
| Clewza313 wrote:
| Try plugging "Aksara Jawa" (Javanese for "Java Script") or
| "Jawasekrip" (phonetic approximation of the English) into here:
|
| https://lingojam.com/JavaneseScript
|
| You'll likely need to install a Javanese font though.
| bradrn wrote:
| I don't know too much about Javanese, but I'm pretty sure
| that generator is rubbish. e.g. for input 'ja', it gives '',
| when it should be just ''. It appears to be doing a simple
| letter-for-letter substitution, which is incorrect: for
| instance, it ends up replacing every vowel in the Latin
| transcription with a separate vowel letter, while vowels
| after a consonant should be represented using a diacritic in
| Javanese (and other Indic scripts).
| bradrn wrote:
| This sounded an interesting challenge, so I decided to have a
| go at it. Here's my best attempt: / or as an image:
| https://i.imgur.com/kRq6o88.png.
|
| An explanation, because it's interesting: Javanese script is an
| _abugida_ , like all other Brahmi-derived scripts. This means
| that each letter has an _inherent vowel_ ; thus, a letter by
| itself represents a whole syllable, starting with that
| consonant and ending with the inherent vowel. In Javanese, the
| inherent vowel is /a/, so the first two letters represent the
| two syllables /ja va/. (The dots on the second letter indicate
| that /v/ isn't a native sound; the closest you can get natively
| is /ja wa/.) The next syllable /skri/ is , which has a few
| components, so let's break it down. Firstly, vowel change is
| achieved by adding a diacritic; e.g. /ja wi/ would be , with
| the diacritic * for /-i/. You get consonant clusters using the
| _conjunct form_ of a consonant -- the second consonant in a
| cluster is changed to its conjunct form and placed below (or
| sometimes next to) the first consonant. e.g. /ka/ is , while
| /sa/ can be converted to /ska/ by placing the conjunct form
| of below . (In Unicode, the conjuncts are not encoded
| separately, being a combination of the first consonant in the
| cluster with a pangkon, but that's a discussion for another
| time.) Finally, the syllable gains a medial /-r-/ from the
| 'cakra' diacritic * wrapped around the syllable. So: starting
| from /sa/ , add the conjunct /ska/ , then add the cakra giving
| /skra/ , and then finally add the vowel diacritic giving /skri/
| . The final letter represents /pt@/, and is formed by similar
| principles: /pa/ - /pta/ - /pt@/ . (Or possibly should it be
| /pt@/ ? But sounds the same to English-speakers, and looks
| nicer in context.) Finally, I added around it to look nice --
| in authentic Javanese manuscripts, these punctuation marks are
| used surrounding titles.
|
| EDIT: I forgot to mention _why_ I split up the last English
| syllable /skrIpt/ into two syllables /skrip.t@/ -- it's
| because Javanese syllables can't end in /-pt/, so I have to
| insert a vowel afterwards to make the English word fit into
| Javanese orthography. (And then the orthography adds an extra
| layer of complication, because the two syllables /skrip.t@/ end
| up being written as orthographic /skri pt@/, with the /p/ being
| moved to the beginning of the next syllable block, because
| Javanese script can only write initial consonant clusters... I
| think; this is one of the bits I'm a bit unsure about here.)
| selimthegrim wrote:
| HN comment of the decade, right here folks.
| bradrn wrote:
| Why, thank you! I'm just glad you found it interesting.
| thunderbong wrote:
| That was amazing! And the word looks so beautiful! Thank you.
|
| I read your entire comment and one weird thought came to me
| at the end of it - everything is complex when it comes to
| Javascript!
| valarauko wrote:
| I'm assuming this is using 'modern' Javanese orthography -
| how different would it be with the orthography for Sanskrit
| texts?
| mkrazzledazzle wrote:
| Interesting, how did it just end up in the british library? Why
| is there an aspect of romanticization to the fact that it is in a
| british library? Why isn't it in a library in indonesia? Let me
| guess..if it were not for the british having looted it with the
| express purpose of "preservation", the world would not have come
| to know about this.
| alimw wrote:
| I imagine it was bought with money.
| NoImmatureAdHom wrote:
| I looked it up (well, kinda). It's from the Crawfurd
| collection. Some were looted by the British, but most were
| bought or acquired by normal means. https://www.academia.edu/
| 43066387/The_Origins_of_the_John_Cr...
|
| Also, turns out Crawfurd was a political "radical" of the
| time, calling for universal suffrage, secret ballots, and
| public education.
| foobarian wrote:
| Sadly you are probably right about that. And so here we are...
| INTPenis wrote:
| You're right of course and I would have made the same point,
| but to play british advocate for a second; the javanese might
| not have had a good place to store it when it was stolen.
|
| It should definitely be returned now but the british might have
| saved thousands of artefacts by stealing them from other less
| stable regions.
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