THE
COMMUNITY
LANGUAGE
When
two strange Balinese meet, as for instance on the they call
each other as djero, a safe, polite way of addressing someone
whose title is unknown. Since there are no outward signs of caste,
the appropriate titles cannot be used and a words for " you
" (cai, nyai, nani) are extremely familiar, derogatory. Strangers
talk in the middle language, a compro between the daily speech
and the polite tongue. Should, how ever, one be of low caste and
the other a nobleman, it would be wrong for them to continue talking
in this manner, and one of the two, probably the high-caste man,
will ask the other: " Antuh lingge? Where is your place (caste)
? " which is answered by the other man's stating his caste.
Then the usual system is adopted; the low man speaks the high
tongue and the aristocrat answers in the common language.
When I started
to study Balinese I found it disturbing to hear the people around
the house talking in the daily language and then suddenly shifting
to high to address Gusti, our landlord prince, who answered them
in the common language. The high and low tongues are not two dialects
or even variations of the same languages, but two distinct, unrelated
languages with separate roots, different words, and extremely
dissimilar character. It was always incongruous to hear an educated
nobleman talking the harsh, guttural low tongue, while an ordinary
peasant had to address him in the refined high Balinese.
The low language
is the everyday tongue spoken by equals at home, at work, and
at the market. It is undoubtedly the native language of the island
and belongs to the Malayo-Polynesian dialects, the aboriginal
languages of the archipelago. The high language is similar to
Javanese and is of Sanskrit-Javanese origin. It is flowery, and
rich in shades of meaning; I have been told that to speak it well,
one should know about ten different words to express the same
idea. Few Balinese can speak the high language well, and the ordinary
peasant generally ignores it, except perhaps for standard expression
to address a superior. The peasant learned to listen only when
he became a vassal of the Hindu Javanese feudal lords, who had
to learn the language of the island, but they demanded to be addressed
in their own, high tongue by the unworthy natives. The natural
politeness of the Balinese perhaps gave birth to the middle language,
used when in doubt of a man's caste.
It is an important
rule that one may not use high terms when speaking about oneself;
it would be poor taste to call one's head by the elegant term
prabu, instead of the common word sirah, or to refer to one's
feet as Cokor instead of batis. It would be a dreadful insult
to speak of someone's head as tandas, meaning the head of animals.
The type of language used in conversation is prescribed by one
of the strict rules of caste etiquette, and the use of the wrong
from is a serious offence. A prince has to be addressed as "highness"
(Ratu'or Agun ) but he and the people of his caste talk to everybody
in the low language, except perhaps to their parents, elder brothers,
and members of the priestly caste, the Brahmana Polite people
(not all high-born people are considered polite) are supposed
to address old people in the high language.
There is still
a fourth language, the Kawi, used on ritual occasions, in poetry
and classic literature. It is archaic javanese in which nine out
of ten words are Sanskrit; but the knowledge of Kawi rests almost
entirely with the priests and scholarly Balinese.
The language
problem of Bali has been further complicated by the addition of
Malay, now officially the language of the Dutch East Indies. It
is taught in the schools and is spreading rapidly among the Balinese
youth because it is considerably simpler than the difficult Balinese
and is free of the caste regulations. Thus a modern Balinese scholar
would require five languages for social and cultural intercourse:
the high, middle; low Balinese, plus Kawi and Malay. Such a linguist
is not rare, today in Bali.
More on Bali community 1,
2, 3, 4,
5, 6,
7, 8
