Sukarno's keris gift to Fidel Castro

A. G. Maisey · 13th July 2020, 12:36 PM

Mickey, I know a lot of Balinese people, people ranging from village housewives to university department heads, but I do not know a single Balinese person who is competent in reading honocoroko. Going back around 30 odd years I had some old Balinese texts dealing with symbols in Balinese script that i wanted translated, so I asked a relative who lived in Bali and was married to the daughter of a Brahmin if he could find somebody to do the translation for me. His father-in-law had a go, but gave up because he reckoned it was written incorrectly, he could get some, but not all. I think there are probably still a few people who can read the old scripts, but I imagine they are mostly academics.

Its a similar thing with reading and writing honocoroko in Jawa. The last man I knew in my community who could read and write honocoroko fluently died around 25 years ago. I think all kids are still taught a more or less standard form in lower school, and I have text books that I can use with great difficulty. My son-in-law is pretty good, but only with the standard forms, he struggles when the script is cursive.

In today's Jawa & Bali the old scripts are pretty much irrelevant unless you are an academic or have some special need to use or understand the scripts.

As for pronunciation of uwer it is the normal, straightforward phonetic pronunciation, the thing most native English speakers fail to do, maybe cannot do, is to roll the "r". Indonesian pronunciation is a lot like Italian pronunciation.

As to usage, most people I know simply call it a keris ring --- cincin keris. But that's probably because Balinese people tend to use Indonesian with everybody who is not Balinese, as with Javanese, Balinese really needs to be learnt from the time one's feet are permitted to touch the ground, or maybe before.

My opinion on correct usage is because I've heard uwer used more often than wewer.I could be wrong.

13th July 2020, 12:36 PM	#8
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 6,992	Mickey, I know a lot of Balinese people, people ranging from village housewives to university department heads, but I do not know a single Balinese person who is competent in reading honocoroko. Going back around 30 odd years I had some old Balinese texts dealing with symbols in Balinese script that i wanted translated, so I asked a relative who lived in Bali and was married to the daughter of a Brahmin if he could find somebody to do the translation for me. His father-in-law had a go, but gave up because he reckoned it was written incorrectly, he could get some, but not all. I think there are probably still a few people who can read the old scripts, but I imagine they are mostly academics. Its a similar thing with reading and writing honocoroko in Jawa. The last man I knew in my community who could read and write honocoroko fluently died around 25 years ago. I think all kids are still taught a more or less standard form in lower school, and I have text books that I can use with great difficulty. My son-in-law is pretty good, but only with the standard forms, he struggles when the script is cursive. In today's Jawa & Bali the old scripts are pretty much irrelevant unless you are an academic or have some special need to use or understand the scripts. As for pronunciation of uwer it is the normal, straightforward phonetic pronunciation, the thing most native English speakers fail to do, maybe cannot do, is to roll the "r". Indonesian pronunciation is a lot like Italian pronunciation. As to usage, most people I know simply call it a keris ring --- cincin keris. But that's probably because Balinese people tend to use Indonesian with everybody who is not Balinese, as with Javanese, Balinese really needs to be learnt from the time one's feet are permitted to touch the ground, or maybe before. My opinion on correct usage is because I've heard uwer used more often than wewer.I could be wrong. Last edited by A. G. Maisey; 13th July 2020 at 12:52 PM.