Javanese Keris?

[A. G. Maisey]

Jean, in reading, or listening to Javanese, there is a problem that I doubt exists in most --- maybe all --- other languages.

Words change form in both sound and spelling and still mean the same thing.

Linguists refer to Javanese as a "non-standard language", I'm not quite sure exactly what the academics mean by this, but my experience tells me that the only way to understand Javanese is to let go of preconceptions regarding sounds and spelling and try to grasp the overall context. In conversation you need to be reading body language as carefully as you are listening to words.

The word "complong" means simply a hole, or a gap, or an opening, its use is not only in respect of keris.

This word "complong" could be rendered by any other combination of the vowels and consonants used in construction of the original word, provided that it sounded reasonably similar, or if in conversation the other party was totally tuned into the conversation, under which circumstances it could well become something like "conpongipun", or "kekerconipun", or some other invention of the speaker. Clever native speakers of Javanese paint with words and in exchanges with close friends or family do not always stick with recognised forms.

If we consider the word "keris", in friendly conversation this will sometimes become "keferis", which in turn can have "ipun" added to it = "keferisipun".

Just to clarify:- I do not speak nor understand Javanese sufficiently well to always be able to recognise the Javanese use of language I have described above, I am repeating what I have been told by Javanese native speakers.

You possibly know of "Cockney rhyming slang" ? "noah's ark" = "shark", "trouble & strife" = "wife" and so on.

Its a similar sort of thing with spoken, non-formal, Javanese.

The words "complong" and "combong" both mean "hole".

Both words can have a number of completely different meanings and forms, depending on context.

Neither word, in any of their forms, refers uniquely to keris.