Sumber: Gahara Melayu
COMMENTS ON SALASILAH KUTAI.
Verh. Kon. Inst. dll. XIX, 1956, 193 hours. 18 Gold Dutch. This Tuesday, "chain" (knowledge of kings) of Kutai, the sultanate near the East coast of Kalimantan (Borneo), is a chronicle without date, written in Malay according to the type of region. Since some historical information is already available from elsewhere, we do not have to worry too much about the lack of dates, and since we have quite a lot of good Malay language of various literary genres available, we can only be thankful to Dr. W. Poor Kern for his late way in explaining Jawanism and especially Banjarism (Coastal Malay Bandjar Masin, South Kalimantan). His philological comments paved the way for translators and social anthropologists. A student of "hal-hal Kalimantan", who is expert in Dayak and Malay past and present, finds here documentation about early youth and ascending to the throne, contact with Chinese and converting to Islam, cultural influence from Java and treatment of the dead, etc.
For Malay literature students, Dr. Kern points to the parts in the pain-entertainer style, which are preserved in writing precisely when its rhapsodical form deteriorates into a boring and highly famous Malay prose. That students of Javanese culture can help in explaining these parts is shown by my wife in her paper "On a white rock under a nagasari tree", which will be published soon.
In the 1980s, the first part of Salasilah was available in text, translation and notes by Resident Magistrate Tromp at BKI, and none but the famous Snouck Hurgronje underlined its importance. In 1935, Mees in his thesis for Leiden's doctoral degree gave the complete text, but Kern had the advantage of staying in the Salt Market for a few years, visiting Koetai on the occasion of the palace festival, and getting better manuscript material. So now finally the grain has been purified, philologically, and a safe ground has been achieved to begin the work. This is more than can be said from any other Indonesian history text, but Dr. Kern, a late war victim, despite paving the way, had to leave the translation work to someone else.
STUDY STATE MALAY LANGUAGE. By C. C. BROWN. hlm. xi 259. Luzac and Co., 1956.
Although most of the books consist of written works that have been published in Malay, the author deserves a thank you from every advanced Malay language learner for collecting and printing it in a more permanent form. All but one dialogue written by a Malay, one of them, I am sure, is a man of high ranking who enjoys and speaks in the dialect. A country of his own. All dialogues originated from the northern state and all except one from the east coast of Malaya, only the Japanese invasion that has confiscated MS material for a chapter on dialect of another state, Pahang state.
It is hoped that the University of Malaya can inspire some Pahang Malays to rectify this loss and can find Malays from Malacca and Johor to give us an example of dialect that is less common in southern Malaya, which may cause Mr Brown to change his belief that the dialect he has written is the only "true Malay". He is, of course, right to defend even the dialect against the new synthetic Indonesian language, which, however, no one speaks and which due to its foreign non-Malay syntax cannot be understood by most people. And his use of the term "standard Malay" by him, which already existed in Malacca in the 15th century, shows that he acknowledged the existence of Malay spoken by the learned, despite his enthusiasm for the dialect that one sometimes wondered whether he would have fought for the speech of a Yorkshire or Berkshire farmer as opposed to English standard.
The first fifty pages of this book provide valuable material for the lexicographers and the notes of Mr. Brown could only be written by a scholar with classical training. If this book is ever replaced, it will be done by several Ph.D candidates. , who takes his stand on historical events tries to distinguish between elements of Aceh, Minangkabau, and Bugis in dialects along the banks of the Perak river. But it might be too late.
R. O. WINSTED.
GUIDE FOR ENGLISH-MALAY TRANSLATION. By C. C. BROWN. hlm. 1-89. Longman, Green and Co., 1956.
In a terrific introduction to this remarkable flyer, Mr Brown emphasizes that the Malays, both in the Peninsula and Indonesia, are not trained in the translation art and to hide these literary shortcomings, he boasts in his condition, calling his efforts as “modern” Malay. The Malay language style is somewhat affected by the literal translation of Arabic language, but due to the absence of daily press, radio, and foreign schools, the wound is only shallow. The "modern" Malay language nowadays makes the syntax of the language paralyzed forever. This is a literary tragedy but not the fault of the Malays. A smart child must learn English or Dutch, and the language teachers, both European and Asian, are incompetent to train Malays to think from a foreign language to their own language. So like the Malays, to cover their deficiencies, they boast of it, elevating the direct method as the only sufficient way to teach a language. Direct method is a shortcut to acquiring a foreign language by the server. and housemaids, but of course not complementing translators. And now, the result of this easy approach has been enjoyed by millions.
The Malay language translator trap was chosen by Mr. Brown with an unmistakable accuracy, and it deftly breaks down European abstract expressions into concrete matches that form the idiomatic Malay language. If only there were ten professors in London and Singapore as competent as him, the destruction of a language could be prevented in Malaya. However, where can such lecturers be found? And the power of example from Indonesia is getting stronger every day.
R. O. WINSTED.
THE DOOM OF INDONESIA . By J. G. FROM CASPARIS. Vol. I, pp. 204, published by the Office of the Republic of Indonesia. A. C. Nix and Co., Bandung, 1950; Vol. II, pp. 395 published by Dinas Purbakala R.I., Masa Baru, Bandung, 1956.
Professor De Casparis' first volume is a thesis for a Ph.D. degree. -at the University of Indonesia (Djakarta). Written in Dutch (with Indonesian cover page), book... Chapter I (hlm. 1-95) discuss six documents in Ancient Malay, Ancient Java, Sanskrit, and Sanskrit/OJ. Chapter II (hlm. 96-130), "Contributions to the Chronology of the Sailendra Kings in Java," includes five other Skt. inscriptions into the discussion as primary sources and five Sailendra inscriptions and five non-Sailendra inscription as secondary sources. Chapter III (134-192) discusses the Foundations mentioned in Sailendra's inscriptions. Summary in English (hlm. 198-204) summarize books that have no index. This has been addressed critically-in Dutch-by Professor Bosch of Leiden in...
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10/2/2025: 12.14 p.m
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