[A. G. Maisey]

Interesting post Mickey. I guess I just don't have the necessary skills to use Google Translator (GT) effectively, because I seldom get any sense out of it.

I actually had cause to use it last week, I had it translate a passage written in BI into English, the reason I did this was because a good friend who lives in Bali --- he's been there about 11 years --- had used Google translator (GT) for the entire text of a Lombok story translated from I don't know what into BI.

Even though my friend has lived in Bali a long time, his BI is pretty rudimentary, I think because he is constantly required to use English for his work, so he uses GT for longer pieces of writing. Anyway, I read the BI text and it was perfectly clear, then I pulled a couple of paragraphs that we had been discussing from the text and ran them through GT. The result I got was a mess, but knowing what it was about because I'd read the original I could understand the GT job.

So yeah, GT makes a mess of syntax, and screws a few other things up, but for a mechanical service, its probably not too bad.


In respect of mendak, my thoughts on the possible function of a mendak as a "shock absorber" applies to all mendak, not just the angkup randu motif. All mendak are lightly made and do collapse under pressure, not like a metuk which solid metal.


The name "Buta Nawa Sari" is Balinese. Buta = evil spirit, but in fact, not all buta are invariably evil; buta inhabit graveyards and forest areas.

The word "Nawa" is commonly understood as "nine", but its other common meaning is as an indefinite length indicator --- you say something is "nawa" and in context that indicates that the something is long, but how long depends upon context.

The word "Sari" is again subject to context, but in all contexts it indicates the "essence" of something. In the use as an attribute of Nawa Sari, that essence is the pandan flower. The problem with the name "Buta Nawa Sari" is two fold, firstly he may not originally have been a buta, secondly the word "nawa" does have at least one other meaning and that other meaning could well solve part of the riddle. Right now the "nawa" problem is being worked on.

One thing appears to be certain, and that is that Nawa Sari is indigenous Balinese.

Kapok is a common product in Jawa, it is used to fill mattresses and pillows.

EDIT Mickey, what you said about GT on English to BI translation seems as if it is correct, I just ran several tests on it, nothing deliberately constructed to confuse, just simple, straight forward statements and what GT produced was better than 90% OK.