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Old 23rd October 2017, 10:12 PM   #5
A. G. Maisey
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Join Date: May 2006
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My relative has returned the two images below to me, and you can see what has been written on them.

The image with the Javanese letters:-

JA IKI PA NU LAK HENG/ENG

is unintelligible, his comment is:-

"kelihatannya huruf terputus, sehingga tdk. terbaca"

Free:- "it looks as if the letters have been cut to the point where this cannot be read"
Literal:- "looks it letter cut until not read" (past tense)

The image with the Javanese letters:-

Line 1:- NYA HA JA YA

NYA:- is an abbreviation for "nyonya" = a Chinese or European married woman
HA:- can be understood as an exclamation = "how about?" or "yeah, for sure!" or "so!"
JA & YA are dependent upon when and where the inscription was made

the entire line depends upon how it was intended to be read

Line 2:- LENG KA RA HA/A RU M

if we read this line as :-" lengkara arum" it can be understood as "impossible to be fragrant" but this might also be intended to be understood in a figurative sense

As with just about every Javanese inscription of this type that I have seen, the only person who truly knows what this is meant to say is the person who had it put there.

Sometimes an inscription like this might be the name of the keris, or it might be a personal motto, or known saying, perhaps a short prayer, but usually it is something that is not intended to be understood by whoever might read it.

With this sort of thing it is always possible to take what might be able to be understood and fill in the gaps by guessing, but if we do that we place our feelings and interpretations onto something that was not intended to be understood by others in the first place. Then, even if we do manage to extract something intelligible from it, what we finish up with could well be intended to be understood in a figurative sense.
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