Quiz 5 Sociolinguistics - Chika

Javanese in the eyes of its speakers
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PERCEPTIONS OF FUNCTION AND

IDENTITY
The first three sections of this chapter will examine further the
functions of Javanese in relation to the local identity of its
speakers. The discussion will take advantage of the findings
made in previous chapters and relate these findings to the
general mode of social and cultural development surrounding
the Javanese community. The exploration will include peoples
attitudes to choices between the variety of Javanese spoken in
East Java in relation to that spoken in Central Java. In this
regard, the focus is to indicate the extent to which people in East
Java have developed their own linguistic identity, separate from
the identity of those living in Central Java, and to provide some
clarification of why they have done so.
Previous chapters have revealed that contemporary
Javanese has been under heavy pressure from the development
of nationalism and the Indonesian language. Given this fact, the
last section of this chapter will examine the extent that such
pressure has affected childrens Javanese communicative
repertoire. Since people in East Java possess their own local
linguistic identity, the section will also consider the extent to
which this repertoire may affect local linguistic identity. Finally,
with these two considerations, the section will examine the
extent to which Indonesian is the likely candidate for peoples
Chapter 9: Perceptions of function and identity
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future linguistic identity. To begin with, the following section

deals with peoples Javanese communicative repertoire and its
implications for their perceptions of the language.
9.1. Beyond Communicative Repertoire

In one of his studies, Errington (1998:35-50; ) found that
Javanese people in Central Java, when observing their own
native communicative repertoire, would generally comment with
a saying Negara mawa tata, desa mawa cara (The exemplary
is ordered, villages have their ways). In this investigation, I also
encountered the same comment presented by a retired man
from Yogyakarta, Pak Wardoyo, who had moved to stay in
Jembatan when he was young to work at the central post office
in Bangjo. The saying basically reveals common peoples
understanding that the practice of speaking neatly differentiated
and socially hierarchical Javanese speech varieties exists in
most ideal form only at the two Javanese courts of Solo and
Yogyakarta, Central Java. In contrast, those living around and
some distance from the centres, though trying to emulate the
practice of such differentiation, have their own ways of
expressing the speech varieties.
In this regard, Errington (1998:45) illustrates that common
people, such as those in Gudangan and Mulih, his two fieldwork
sites not far from Solo, do not finely differentiate and mark status
differences in their use of Javanese; instead, they key more to
samenesses and differences in relative age and kin status than
24 Chapter 9: Perceptions of function and identity
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to ranks in official or descent hierarchies. These people are

aware of the aesthetic value of the high speech variety of
Javanese modelled from the exemplary centre, but they do not
use this type of speech in their daily routine because it is simply
beyond the communicative repertoire of the majority.
Javanese people in Jembatan, however, do not share the
archetypal aphorism above. They have their own maxim that
says Seje desa mawa cara (Different villages have their own
ways). By this saying, they mean that every village has its own
traditions and ways of expressing things, including, in this
regard, the way villagers perceive, understand, and use their
ethnic language, Javanese. Understandably, when they evaluate
their own Javanese, they do not compare it with the practice of
speaking Javanese existing in the two exemplary centres,
although they may be well aware of the existence of these ways
of speaking. Rather, as revealed in Section 5.4 and indirectly in
different parts of the succeeding chapters, they stereotypically
indicate that people in different areas of East and Central Java
speak Javanese with different levels of politeness, and consider
that their own Javanese is kasar (rough) compared to the alus
(refined) Javanese spoken by people living closer to the centres
of authority of Javanese culture.
When such a different way of perceiving Javanese is
examined further, there is a strong indication that so far
Javanese people in East Java have developed their own
linguistic identity separate from the way people in Central Java
have built up their identity. In this regard, it would be interesting
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to examine what Pak Syai said to the audience during the

procession of ngundhuh mantu discussed in Section 7.2. As
described in that section, Mas Priyadi agreed to choose Pak
Syai to represent his family for the procession in Jembatan and
to present the religious advice on that occasion. The choice was
made on the grounds that Pak Syai was able to deliver the
speech in high Javanese. Even so, as many of the audience
were from Central Java and his Javanese speech was meant to
fulfil the need to respond to the Javanese speech by the
representative of Mbak Genits family, Pak Syai could not resist
the temptation to reveal the fact that his Javanese speech would
not match the Javanese speech of the representative from
Panjatan, Kulonprogo, Central Java. Thus, the following is what
he said to the audience before presenting the main points in his
Javanese speech.
Para RAWUH SEDAYA INGKANG kula hurmati, sak
DERENGIPUN kula MATUR SEKEDHIK KATHAH
dhateng PENJENENGAN SEDAYA, LANGKUNG
RUMIYIN kula NYUWUN PANGAPUNTEN awit kula,
atas nami wakil SAKING shahibil chajah UTAWI
SAKING keluarga ngriki, MENIKA parek KALIAN tlatah
mandura. Tata KRAMANIPUN nggih NGATEN
MENIKA, nggih kasar. Nek ngomong, ketok rada kodo.
DADOS mila yen kula DIPUN SUWUN ngrakit ukara
sing KADOS Gatut Kaca, Abi Manyu, Janaka,
ngapunten sing KATHAH. Pun kula cara Wisang Geni,
Anta Sena mawon. Nggih, cara Bangjoan, cara Wisang
Geni, cara Anta Sena, nggih?
All attendants whom I respect, before I say a bit more to
you all, first I would like to request forgiveness because I,
as the representative of the shahibil chajah [Arabic:
holder of the proceedings] or the family here, am close to
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the tlatah Mandura [group of unsophisticated Javanese

puppet show characters]. Their linguistic etiquette is like
that, literally rough. As when speaking, they appear
somewhat uneducated. So, if I were to be expected to
fabricate sentences like the ones by Gatut Kaca, Abi
Manyu, Janaka [stylish Javanese puppet show
characters], forgive [me] a lot. I speak the way of Wisang
Geni, Anta Sena [rough Javanese puppet show
characters] only. Yes, Bangjoan way, the way of Wisang
Geni, the way of Anta Sena, yes [dont you know]?
As the quote reveals, as a Javanese person from Bangjo,
Pak Syai asserted that he himself and other people in the
regency speak a distinct variety of Javanese. He clarified his
point by making a comparison that should he speak Javanese in
front of a public gathering, he would speak the language in the
way several unrefined Javanese puppet show characters, such
as Wisang Geni and Anta Sena, would do. On the contrary,
should a Javanese person from Central Java speak Javanese to
a public gathering, they would speak the language in the way
elegant Javanese puppet show characters, such as Gatut Kaca,
Abi Manyu, and Janaka, would. In other words, through this
comparison, Pak Syai admitted that he might appear less
educated because he could only speak rough and unpolished
Javanese. For that reason, he requested forgiveness from the
audience.
Certainly, it is understandable why Pak Syai should
express that concern. For people in Bangjo, speaking publicly
using graceful high Javanese is beyond their communicative
repertoire. Yet, for people from Central Java, speaking publicly
using courtly high Javanese is a privilege. In fact, not many
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people can do this, but efforts to enable oneself to speak

publicly using such a high level of Javanese speech could pay
off (see Pemberton 1994:197-235). This is what Pak Jamiun, as
a Javanese person from Central Java, has done; he got paid for
his represention of Mbak Genits family during her wedding
ceremony in Panjatan, Kulonprogo, Central Java (see Section
7.2). In such a case, Errington (1998:68) would consider that
Pak Jamiuns job constitutes the ritual commodification of high
basa by Central Javanese people. The following is part of Pak
Jamiuns Javanese speech that I recorded during the wedding
procession of Mbak Genit.
SAGUNG para LENGGAH INGKANG SATUHU
KINURMATAN, MBOK BILIH KAWULA MATUR
dangkik dangkik WONTEN NGERSA PANJENENGAN
SAGET NGIRANGI kawicaksanan, KEPARENGA
KAWULA PINUNGGAL SEMANTEN. PRAMILA,
NAMUNG SEMANTEN ATUR sapala PINONGKO
TALANGING basa SAKING BAPA Karyo. Lan SAKING
KAWULA, ing MBOK BILIH KAWULA MATUR WIWIT
KOLO WAU, MANGGIH babakan INGKANG nalisir
DHUMATENG PAUGERING KASUSILAN, SEPINDAH
MALIH KAWULA NYUWUN GUNGE SIH SAMUDRA
PANGAKSAMI.
To all the seated who are dearly respected, as when I say
a lot and in great detail in front of you [I] may reduce [my]
prudence, [so] permit me to end [the speech] up here.
Thus, only these are the words as the representation of
the language from Mr Karyo. And from me, as when I say
[to you] from early on, [you] find something [in my
speech] that breaks the rules of politeness, once again I
beg [from you] a large ocean of forgiveness.
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The attitude of Pak Jamiun toward Javanese, clearly, is

different from the attitude of Pak Syai toward the language. In
this case, Pak Jamiun tries to demonstrate to the audience the
linguistic excellence that he has learned and acquired. Even so,
he still asks for forgiveness from the audience, as he is aware
that while making the speech, he may unintentionally break the
rules of linguistic politeness. Therefore, I consider that this act of
making an apology is a sign of his effort to maintain in
socioculturally appropriate manner the quality of his high
Javanese speech. As can be observed in the previous quote,
Pak Syai acknowledges the beauty of high Javanese. However,
as a Javanese person living in East Java, he seems to consider
that socioculturally he has less or no obligation to master such a
variety of Javanese. Accordingly, instead of masking his
communicative repertoire by trying to speak graceful high
Javanese, he prefers to honestly tell the audience that he can
only speak cara Bangjoan, a way of speaking Javanese typically
used by people in Bangjo. This is a local linguistic identity term.
People in other parts of East Java also create a similar term.
Those living in Surabaya, for example, would say that they
speak cara Surabayan. In this regard, Smith-Hefner (1987) uses
the expression Cara Tengger (Tengger way) as part of the title
of her article to suggest the style of speaking Javanese by
people in the Tengger mountains of highlands of East Java.
When the two quotations above are compared, there are
several apparent differences between the variety of Javanese
used by Pak Syai and that by Pak Jamiun. One difference is the
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way they address the audience. When Pak Jamiun says

SAGUNG
para
LENGGAH
INGKANG
SATUHU
KINURMATAN, Pak Syai says Para RAWUH SEDAYA

INGKANG kula hurmati. Another difference is when Pak
Jamiun says KAWULA to refer to himself, Pak Syai simply
says kula for this purpose. When the former says NYUWUN
GUNGE SIH SAMUDRA PANGAKSAMI to make an apology,
the latter says NYUWUN PANGAPUNTEN or ngapunten sing
KATHAH to do the same thing. Still, when Pak Jamiun says
MBOK BILIH (as when), Pak Syai simply uses nek to express
the meaning.
A further examination of these differences indicates that
the more refined words a speaker has used in a speech, the
more politeness and respect the speaker has paid to the
audience. Pak Syai used four words of respect and politeness
(RAWUH, SEDAYA, INGKANG, kula) to address his audience,
but Pak Jamiun used five words (SAGUNG, LENGGAH,
INGKANG, SATUHU, KINURMATAN). To make an apology,
Pak Syai used only two polite words (NYUWUN and
PANGAPUNTEN, or ngapunten and KATHAH), but Pak
Jamiun used
five (NYUWUN, GUNGE, SIH, SAMUDRA,
PANGAKSAMI). These instances reflect the extent to which

people in East Java have chosen their own way of identifying
themselves linguistically, separate from the linguistic identity of
those living in Central Java.
Further examination corroborates this assertion. When I
listened again to my recording of the sample speech made by
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Pak Syai, I had an impression that when he started his speech,

he tried to deliver the speech carefully and politely. However,
soon after he said the first two sentences in the quote above, he
began to speak less carefully and less politely. In fact, in the
third sentence Nek ngomong, ketok rada kodo, he used no
polite words. This is a typical expression of Javanese
unreflectively spoken by people in East Java. At this point, if Pak
Syai had been more conscious of his word choice, he might
have expressed the third sentence in this way: MENAWI
rembakan,
KETINGAL
RADE
KIRANG
UNGGAH-
UNGGUHIPUN.
In fact, in the fourth sentence Pak Syai continued to use
some polite words, but if he had been more careful and
conscious of his word choice, he should not have used the nonpolite word sing (whom or that). Instead, he should have used
INGKANG, as in the first sentence of the quote. Ideally, he
should
not
have
used
ngapunten
either,
but
PANGAPUNTEN, as in the first sentence too. All these

instances, once again, are a reflection of the linguistic identity of
the East Javanese, which is different from the linguistic identity
of the Central Javanese, who emphasise the use of high
Javanese for a traditional public speech.
According to Pak Jamiun, based on my interview with him
on the evening before the day of the wedding ceremony of Mbak
Genit and Mas Priyadi, he acquired the skill of presenting a
speech using high Javanese through self study and practice,
pursuing this linguistic hobby since he was a high school
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student. He is aware that there are two exemplary centres of

Javanese culture: one in Solo and the other in Yogyakarta. This
awareness has led him to develop his skill based on the
traditions and customs deriving from the two examplary centres.
In this way, the variety of Javanese of his speech is actually his
identification with the linguistic tradition available in the two
centres.
Because of this, it is worth exploring further the way
people in East Java have identified themselves linguistically. In
Indonesia, it is common practice that the script for a speech by a
high ranking official, such as a governor, is prepared by
somebody else other than the official(s) themselves. This is
what happened to Pak Basofi Soedirman, the governor of the
province of East Java, when he was given the honour to open
the Second Javanese Language Congress (Kongres Bahasa
Jawa II) in Malang, a city about 100 kilometres southwest of
Surabaya, in 1996. I was fortunate to have an opportunity to
participate in the congress, so I could take note of his reaction
when he was reading the script of his speech on the opening
ceremony of the congress.
The congress was sponsored by the local governments of
East and Central Java and the organising committee included
members from both provinces. Yet, the symbolic presence of the
authority of the Javanese cultural exemplary centres was
undeniably quite dominant. A few minutes before the opening
ceremony began, for instance, a parade of horse-drawn
traditional carriages was arriving, full of people wearing
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Javanese traditional costumes. Meanwhile, inside the large hall

of Purnama Hotel in Batu, Malang, many people were ready with
their Javanese traditional costumes as well. Soon after that, a
group of people inside the building, in their traditional costumes
too, were playing their Javanese gamelan ensemble. This was
the sign that the opening ceremony was about to begin. With all
these circumstances, every message was transmitted in courtly
high Javanese. Indonesian at that moment was seemingly a
forbidden language. The script for the speech of Pak Basofi was
also prepared in courtly high Javanese.
As Pak Basofi is a native Javanese of East Java, his
communicative repertoire does not take account of the courtly
high Javanese of Central Java. Understandably, although he
was dressed in traditional costumes when he was reading the
script of his speech in front of the audience, he stumbled many
times and his intonation was unnatural, not only because he had
difficulty pronouncing some of the words, but apparently also
because he did not quite understand what he was reading.
Thus, at some point when he was desperately trying to
pronounce a word but failed, he surprisingly said in his truly
unmasked Javanese Wis, embuh rek, sak karepmu (Well, [I
am] baffled folks, [its] up to you). Glancing at the audience, Pak
Basofi smiled and a burst of laughter by many members of the
audience resounded through the hall. He then continued reading
the script. A moment after he finished the speech, he formally
opened the congress by hitting the biggest gamelan instrument
provided for this purpose.
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Even if it is only one sentence, the comment by Pak

Basofi is meaningful in terms of the linguistic identity of East
Javanese people. Firstly, the comment strongly suggests that
Pak Basofi has an indifferent attitude toward the use of high
Javanese. In this regard, his attitude complements the attitude
of Pak Syai in that they both seem to consider that it is not their
business to master such a variety of Javanese. Secondly, the
comment is completely in low Javanese. In this case, the high
Javanese for wis is SAMPUN (already, all right, well), for
embuh is kula MBOTEN NGERTOS (I dont understand), for
rek is para kadang (fellow members), and for sak karepmu
is SUMANGGA KEMAWON KERSA PENJENENGAN (it is
fully up to your intention). With all these elaborate equivalents, it
is possible to transform the low Javanese comment of Pak
Basofi into the high Javanese variety as follows: SAMPUN,
kula
MBOTEN
NGERTOS
para
kadang,
SUMANGGA
KEMAWON KERSA PENJENENGAN. Even so, Pak Basofi did

not express his comment in this way because high Javanese is
beyond his communicative repertoire.
Thirdly, the overall atmosphere surrounding the comment
suggests that courtly high Javanese, though it is spoken in a
formal traditional context, does not create much authority in East
Java. Normally, one would not regard a flaw in a formal speech
as a humorous stuff. Yet, Pak Basofi did and smiled at the
audience due to the mistake he made. Amusingly, many of the
audience also responded accordingly with their laughs. This is
contradictory to the practice of speaking refined high Javanese
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in Central Java. Errington (1998:65), for instance, has noted that

in this region, its function can imbue the reinvention of its
formal traditional context with an aura of exemplary dignity. In
this regard, Pak Jamiun admitted to me that, to indicate both his
respect to the audience and his commitment to maintain
politeness to them, he had crafted his Javanese speech in
accordance with the formal linguistic tradition available in the
two Javanese exemplary centres of Solo and Yogyakarta. With
these contradictory facts, therefore, it becomes obvious that the
ostensibly superficial and funny circumstances surrounding Pak
Basofis speech are actually an indication that refined high
Javanese is not quite a suitable medium of communication in
East Java.
In fact, as reflected in Sections 6.1 and 7.2, high Javanese
is now no longer a significant part of the communicative
repertoire of people in East Java, and, as discussed in Section
5.4, people in Jembatan claim that the Javanese of people in
East Java is kasar (rough, unpolished). This local term, when
related to the low Javanese comment of Pak Basofi, suggests
that although the comment can be transformed into high
Javanese, it does not mean that the low variety of Javanese in
East Java is the same as the low variety of Javanese generally
found in Central Java. A striking difference, in this regard, is the
use of rek in the above comment, a word which does not exist
in the variety of Javanese spoken in Central Java, but becomes
part of the egalitarian view of people in East Java.
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Nonetheless, the discussion of this typical word is not the

focus of this section. The word will be dealt with in the next
section. Suffice it to say here that there are significant
differences between the variety of Javanese spoken in East
Java and the variety of the language spoken in Central Java.
While such differences have motivated Javanese people in East
Java to recognise the relative beauty and authority of high
Javanese, the differences have also caused them to realise that
high Javanese is simply beyond their communicative repertoire.
Justifiably, instead of attempting to acquire the skill of speaking
high Javanese, which is not sensibly demanded in East Java,
they prefer to identify themselves linguistically as a distinct
group of Javanese speakers, separate from those in Central
Java. In other words, instead of identifying themselves
linguistically with the Central Javanese aphorism Negara mawa
tata, desa mawa cara, they have created their own maxim
simply by saying Seje desa mawa cara.
9.2. Rek Ayo Rek (Guys, Come on, Guys)

Rek (guys) is native to East Java. It is the short form of arek. It
is not known when the word first appeared, but historically, it
was popular during the Indonesian revolution. Frederick
(1989:1-32), for instance, has noted that the word was used to
characterise the bravery and egalitarian view of people in
Surabaya to challenge Dutch colonial forces and to retain their
independence from Madurese and Central Javanese. With this
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struggle, they call themselves arek Surabaya (native or real

Surabayans). The spirit of the struggle, however, was not limited
to people in Surabaya. It widened to embrace those in other
regions of East Java, such as Mojokerto, Kediri, Malang,
Lamongan, and Madiun (Abdulgani 1964:53-54). In terms of
space, Bangjo is just in the middle among these regions.
Due to the spreading spirit of the above struggle, perhaps,
the word rek has nowadays gained its prominence as the
linguistic identity of people in East Java. Arek itself has been
part of such expressions as arek Mojokerto, arek Kediri, arek
Lamongan, arek Malang, arek Madiun, and arek Bangjo.
Even in Malang, there has emerged a strong soccer group
(kelompok sepak bola) representing the region with the name
Arema, which stands for Arek Malang (Native or Real people
of Malang). Used rather differently, rek has been popular with
expressions, such as Rek, kate nangdi awakmu? (Guys, where
are you going?), Rek, aku tak mulih mangan sik ya? (Guys, I
am going home to have dinner first OK?), Aku dhewe ya
kepingin urip enak rek, gak awakmu thok. (I myself also want to
live decently guys, not only you), and Rek-rek, gelem tah
awakmu ngrewangi aku? (Guys, are you willing to help me?).
Apart from rek and arek, cak (brother, elder brother)
and ning (sister, elder sister) are distinctively another set of
emblematic words that are native to East Java. They are similar
in meaning to mas and mbak respectively, but this latter pair
are used in both East and Central Java. Cak and ning are
used not only to address ones older brother or sister
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respectively, but also to speak to any young male or female

person regardless of the age. Thus, one might use cak or ning
to address a friend with or without the name of the addressee.
This principle may apply as well to mas and mbak.
Socioculturally, however, the two pairs have rather
different connotations. According to some people that I
interviewed, there is a common understanding among people in
Jembatan that the use of mas and mbak could give more
respect to the addressee than the use of cak and ning would.
The reason for this is the fact that mas and mbak are part of
the Javanese of Central Java, the Javanese that is indirectly
claimed to be more refined and respectful by some older people,
as discussed in Section 8.3 and in other parts of the previous
chapters, who consider themselves more educated than others
because of their ability to speak the language in accordance
with the speech varieties imposed from Central Java.
Meanwhile, the use of cak and ning is somehow associated
with the Javanese of people from rural areas. In this regard,
Berman (1998:4, 229) has noted a specific experience while
conducting her fieldwork in Central Java. People in the region,
though they were older than her, would address her with an
initial mbak when they wanted to indicate respect to her.
Understandably, as reflected in different parts of the discussion
in the previous chapters, and with the exception of the pseudo
nickname Cak Frengki in Section 5.2, I felt the need to use
mas and mbak instead of cak and ning when I conducted my
fieldwork in Jembatan.
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Even so, cak and ning remain symbolic of East Java.

The words have been part of the linguistic behaviour of the
majority of Javanese people in the province, particularly those
living in rural areas. The words gained significance due to the
development of the East Javanese proletarian drama called
ludruk (Peacock 1968:5), which originated from Bangjo
sometime in the 1920s and spread over different parts of East
Java (Supriyanto 1992:11). Consequently, to honour the past
glory of ludruk and to pay tribute to the career of one of its
performers, Gondo Durasim, the building of Taman Budaya
Jatim (East Java Cultural Centre) in Surabaya is named after
Cak Durasim (Brother Durasim). To further recognise the
significance of cak and ning, the words are now used as the
emblematic nomination of the brother and sister of Surabaya
(pemilihan Cak dan Ning Surabaya) every year.
Surabaya, in fact, is the capital city of the province of East
Java. As decribed in Section 4.1, it is the second biggest
Indonesian metropolitan city after Jakarta and has become a
magnet that attracts people from different areas in the province.
Accordingly, any sociocultural establishment that is considered
monumental would likely be located in the capital city. The
establishment of the East Java Cultural Centre in Surabaya with
the symbolic name Cak Durasim is just such an example in this
regard.
Yet, this does not mean that the spirit of ludruk is
diminished or confined to Surabaya. In terms of attendance,
ludruk is not as popular nowadays as it was in the past, but the
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word cak remains part of the repertoire of people in East Java.

What this means is that since ludruk emerged in 1920s and
spread over different parts of East Java, the moral fibre of its
staging was not separate from peoples struggle against Dutch
forces. This is reflected in one of Cak Durasims popular
kidungan (epigrams), when he was on stage, which says
Bekupon omahe doro, melok Nippon urip tambah soro.
Basically, the first part of the epigram tells that bekupon is the
house of pigeons (omahe doro) and the second part informs that
following Nippon, a word representing Japanese occupation, life
is even worse (tambah soro). The meaning of the first part,
clearly, is not related to that of the second. What relates the two
is the rhyming of the words bekupon and Nippon and the words
doro and soro. Using such rhyming words, the first part of the
epigram functions as the introduction and the second part
contains the message. In brief, therefore, the epigram conveys
that under Dutch forces, life is miserable, but under Japanese
occupation, life is even worse.
This is the sort of understanding that people in East Java
hold with regard to the emergence of ludruk in relation to the
history of Indonesia. The phenomenon of Cak Durasim, in fact,
is monumental in their mind, not only because of his strong
satirical social criticisms but also because of his courage. In this
case, Frederick (1989:110) has noted:
One evening after a show in the town of Bangjo
(pseudonym of original place in text), Durasim was forced
off stage by police [of the colonial regime] and asked to
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report the next day to headquarters in Surabaya. There

he was detained and apparently tortured. Durasim died
not long after returning to his home .
This
incident made Cak
Durasim
even more popular.
Immediately after his death, he began receiving praise as a hero

in the peoples fight against injustice. The implication is that the
word cak, which gained its symbolic significance through the
involvement of ludruk performers as social critics before and
after Indonesia rose to its independence, does not simply signify
a common bond among the weak and poor people in the social
strata, but also denotes an egalitarian view among those
involved in the act of speaking. Thus, by comparison, although
cak and mas literally can mean brother or elder brother, they
are different in a significant way. The use of cak nowadays
often denotes speaking to (a) comrade(s), but the use of mas
suggests addressing someone superior.
The egalitarian perspective of cak becomes more
conspicuous when it is related to the emblematic sense of rek.
As described earlier in this section, the use of rek was
symptomatic of the spreading spirit of peoples struggle against
the forces of colonialism. This fact is in line with the use of cak,
which was also symptomatic of the spread of common
awareness among lower class people of the prevailing injustice
imposed upon them by the colonialists. The combination of
these two symbolic words, therefore, strengthens my claim at
the end of Section 9.1 above that Javanese people in East Java
41
have
chosen
their
own
way of
2014
identifying
themselves
linguistically.
In this case, Emha Ainun Nadjib, a nationally recognised
social and cultural essayist from East Java, has demonstrated in
writings the significance of cak and rek as symbols of the
linguistic identity of people in the province. For instance, in his
effort to reveal the adverse impact of the New Order government
upon life in villages, he treats in one essay how in the 1970s, the
government-backed political party, GOLKAR, was just starting to
put his village in its grip. In the meantime, the majority of people
in the village were supporters of PPP, the Islamic affiliated party
known as Kabah. Since they were resisting and saw GOLKAR
as an intruder, anyone supporting this newcomer party could risk
suffering a social stigma. To be safe during a general election
campaign, therefore, one would openly tell PPP supporters
Saya Kabah Rek, meaning I am Kabah guys (see Nadjib
1994:224-227).
In
another
(Surabaya
Model
essay
of
entitled
Demokrasi
Democracy),
Nadjib
Surobayan
criticises
the
authorities in Semarang, Central Java, who banned (mencekal)

his theatre group from staging Lautan Jilbab (Ocean of Veils) in
that city. On the contrary, he praises the warm acceptance of the
authorities in East Java that allowed his group to present it in
Surabaya in 1991. What made Nadjib surprised was that one
day after the performance was over, a number of impotant
people (sejumlah tokoh) in Surabaya who were involved in a
discussion supportively gave a comment saying Kritiknya
2014
kurang pedas, Cak! (the social criticisms [in Lautan Jilbab ] are
not hot [i.e. sharp] enough, Comrade). Accoding to Nadjib
(1995b:35-37), the criticisms seemed too hot for the authorities
in Semarang, Central Java.
What Nadjib has presented in the two essays above
reflects how cak and rek are symbols of the open-minded
outlook and egalitarian view of the East Javanese people. The
strength of this claim, as already stressed above, is further
corroborated by the lyrics of a Javanese song Rek Ayo Rek that
I have used to title this section. The song is sung by an East
Javanese singer, Mus Mulyadi. It was very popular in the late
1970s and early 1980s and reflects the egalitarian way of life
espoused by people in East Java. The following is the
introductory part of the lyrics of the song.
Oalah, wis malem Minggu dhuik
gak gableg, sir-siran ya durung
duwe. Wis, enake nemui kancakanca ae wis nang nggone
prapatan.
Ah, already Saturday evening [I]

have not got any money, neither
have [I] got a sweetheart. Well,
[its] better to meet friends well
around the intersection.
Despite comprising only two sentences, the opening of the

song suggests three things. Firstly, there is an indication of a
strong egalitarian bond among the ordinary people due to their
shared poverty, as reflected in the phrase dhuik gak gableg
(having no money). Secondly, despite the Indonesian economic
boom in 1970s and 1980s (Hill 2000:195-203), the bond seems
to motivate them to enjoy freedom in their own way, as
43
2014
expressed in enake nemui kanca-kanca (its better to meet

friends).
Thirdly, all the words used in the opening of the song are
in low Javanese. As in the case of the words rek and cak,
which are iconic in East Java, the above quote contains other
words that are typical of the province. Gak gableg, for instance,
which may mean very poor or completely penniless, belongs to
the East Javanese people. To the Central Javanese people, this
is considered an instance of the kasar (rough) elements of the
Javanese variety spoken by people in East Java. In Central
Java, people would say ora duwe, but not gak gableg. When I
discussed these words with people in Jembatan, they regard
gak gableg as more expressive than ora duwe. They consider
that gak gableg emphasises spontaneity and frankness about a
life condition whereas ora duwe is too soft (kalusen) for this
purpose. Even without such emphasis, ora duwe is still soft to
their ears. They would not normally say ora duwe in their daily
communicative activities; instead, they would say gak duwe.
Thus, the word gak (no or not) itself is typical of the
Javanese in East Java. Other words in the quote that are part of
the Javanese spoken in East Java are sir-siran (sweetheart),
enake ([its] better), and nang nggone (at or around the place
of). There are other words that are typical of the Javanese
variety spoken in East Java. At this point, however, it is worth
continuing with the next quote from the lyrics of Rek Ayo Rek.
The following are several lines after the introductory part of the
song.
Rek ayo rek, mlaku-mlaku nang

Tunjungan. Ayo ngan.
Rek
ayo
rek,
rame-rame
bebarengan. Ayo ngan.
Cak ayo cak, sapa gelem melu
aku? Ku ku.
Cak ayo cak, golek kenalan sing
ayu.
2014
Guys come on guys, [lets] take a

walk to Tunjungan. Rhyming
sounds.
Guys come on guys, lets have
fun walking together. Rhyming
sounds.
Comrades come on comrades,
any of you want to come along
with me? Rhyming sounds.
Comrades come on comrades,
[we] gonna acquaint [ourselves]
with beautiful girls.
As revealed previously, Surabaya functions as the

background in the establishment of the East Java Cultural
Centre (Taman Budaya Jatim). In this song, Surabaya also plays
a significant role. It provides the setting of the song. The quote
of the lyrics, in fact, does not contain the word Surabaya, but the
word Tunjungan, as the focused reference of the setting is a
very popular shopping plaza. The plaza is in the heartland of
Surabaya. Precisely, it is now just across the road from the
historic Simpang Hotel, formerly branded Oranje Hotel during
the 1945 revolution in Surabaya (see Frederick 1989:200, 280).
Since the capital city of East Java is a magnet that attracts
people from different parts of the province (see Section 4.1), the
popularity of the song has displayed a nuance that may remind
its listeners of the struggle by arek-arek (folks) and cak-cak
(comrades) for freedom and equality. Understandably, the use of
rek and cak as part of the lyrics of the song further enhances
the significance of the words as symbols of the linguistic identity
of people in East Java.
45
2014
Earlier in this section, I indicate that rek and arek are

already part of peoples daily communicative acitivities in East
Java. Their mundane function is also recognised by people in
Central Java. One day in Perth, Australia, for instance, when I
met a group of postgraduate students from Central Java, one of
them, already familiar with me, wanted to associate my
presence with the comradeship of the word rek. Then he said to
me, Rek, yek apa kabare wong Bangjo? Asmuni, yek apa
kabare? Pada waras tah? (Friend, how are Bangjo people?
How about Asmuni? Are they all OK?) In response to this, I said
Aman, saiki Asmuni jik manggung. (Safe, now Asmuni is still on
stage).
The use of rek in this question addresses me both as the
addressee and as the representation of people from East Java.
The question about Asmuni also refers to someone from East
Java. This Asmuni, in fact, is native to Bangjo, but he is a very
popular clown member (anggota pelawak) of Srimulat, the name
of a long-standing and nationally popular group of Javanese
traditional entertainers who have dedicated themselves to the
presentation of humour (see Section 6.4). Justifiably, this
Asmuni is not a strange person to those from Central Java.
Since I knew exactly which Asmuni was in the question, I
answered by indicating that he was still on stage, meaning that
Asmuni was still presenting his humorous material (dagelan) to
his audience. In brief, therefore, the above exchange reflects an
attempt to open the channel of communication, a phatic
function, and to establish friendship (perhaps also to create
2014
humour) by invoking symbols of the linguistic identity of the East

Javanese.
Hence, the use of rek in the question suggests that apart
from its mundane function in East Java, its reputation has been
reinforced by the popularity of the song Rek Ayo Rek. Indeed, its
reputation should go back to the Indonesian revolution I mention
at the beginning of this section. This assertion is supported by
the fact that when I first met a man from Yogyakarta, Central
Java, who had stayed in Australia permanently for more than
thirty years, he directly prompted me with a typical East
Javanese question Rek, yek apa kabare? (Friend, how are
you?). Yet, when I started talking to him in high Javanese, he
declined to respond in his native language. Instead, he replied to
me in Indonesian indicating that he had forgotten toto kromo
(way of speaking Javanese properly).
Due to the unfavourable political practices among the
elites of Suhartos regime and the distribution of the economy
that did not trickle down much to the majority of the Indonesian
people, there have been significant gaps between the poor
segments of the society and the rich groups. This fact has
triggered the social significance of cak even further. Nowadays,
the word becomes attached to those from East Java who, in the
public eyes, have been concerned about the disadvantaged
groups of the Indonesian society or have been voicing claims on
their behalf. Cak Narto, for instance, is the name given by the
public to a Mayor of Surabaya, Sunarto Sumoprawiro, due to his
involvement in the social and environmental problems of people
47
2014
in the city. Emha Ainun Nadjib is called Cak Nun because of his
commitment to stand behind the poor and the disadvantaged.
The use of this nickname can be observed in the public media
and in the published collections of his journalistic essays (see,
for example, Nadjib 1995a:113, 1995b:viii, 1995c). Cak Nur is
the public name of Nurcholis Madjid, an independent national
figure from East Java, who is now mounting a challenge to
become a presidential candidate in the 2004 general election. A
strongly dedicated human right activist from Malang, East Java,
Munir, who died on his way to pursue his further eduction in
Amsterdam in 2004, has also been called Cak Munir by other
human right activists.
To this extent, I have elaborately revealed that cak and
rek are symbols of the linguistic identity of Javanese people in
East Java. Along the discussion in this section, I have also
indicated
that
word
choice
differences
are
significant
determinants for their linguistic identity. In my view, it is not

necessary to provide a comprehensive list of such differences to
support this claim. What is important here is to indicate that
word choice differences, such as gak gableg versus ora duwe,
embody different attitudes toward the variety of Javanese
spoken in East Java relative to that spoken in Central Java.
Moreover, as concluded in Section 9.1 above, such differences
are a reflection of the fact that Javanese people in East Java not
only hold a different communicative repertoire, but also view the
variety of Javanese spoken in Central Java as not representing
their linguistic identity. The question is: how could all this
2014
conspicuously emerge? What has happened to the central

authority of the Javanese culture? The following section will
provide some clarification.
9.3. Where Have the Priyayi Gone?

When I mentioned that the 1968 curriculum formally confined
the use of Javanese for classroom instruction up to the first to
third years of childrens schooling (see Section 8.1), I implied
that Javanese was still an authoritative language around that
year. Indonesian was not yet the common language of the
people. This fact, in turn, implies that around 1968, the cultural
authority of Central Java was still influencing the functions of
Javanese in East Java. This was due to the fact that around that
time Javanese priyayi were still flourishing (see Frederick 1989;
Geertz 1960; Sutherland 1979).
Priyayi were considered the elite of Javanese people.
They were bound together by a shared culture and occupation
differentiated themselves on the ground of birth, family
connections, rank, ability, relations with Europeans and mastery
of highly respected cultural skills (Sutherland 1979:25). They
conserved and cultivated a highly refined court etiquette and
their style of life was the model not only for the elite but in
many ways for the entire society in which they lived (Geertz
1960:6). Thus, in terms of linguistic etiquette, the way a priyayi
spoke Javanese was the model that many ordinary people might
aspire to imitate. This is the ideal of the Javanese language, as
discussed in Section 8.3, that is indirectly claimed as their model
49
2014
by older people in Jembatan who consider themselves more

educated than others because of their ability to speak the
language in accordance with the relative standard imposed from
Central Java.
Now, however, the development of nationalism and
modernity have substantially weakened the authority of the
Central Javanese courts as the centres of the Javanese culture
(see Errington 1985). As a result, the priyayi have lost their
authority at the general societal level of the Javanese
community. This is particularly true with East Java. Despite the
fact that priyayi had once flourished in the region, their presence
had always been challenged by the majority of non-priyayi
groups. Frederick (1989:21), for instance, has noted,
The arek Surabaya resented priyayi mannerisms,
especially when these took the form of Central Javanese
aristocratic and cultural affections. They disliked, for
example, the way social distance was maintained through
the use of forms of address: the rakyat (common people)
felt required to use the honorifics gus, den, jeng when
speaking to the priyayi who showed no respect in return.
In a less obvious manner, the unfavourable attitudes of the
Abangan and Santri groups toward the exclusive and selfglorifying behaviour of the Priyayi group in Modjokuto, the
pseudonym of Geertzs (1960) fieldwork area in East Java,
suggest that the majority of members of the community disliked
the presence of the priyayi.
During my fieldwork in Jembatan, when I asked people
what they know of a priyayi, they always referred to a very old
2014
but sturdy big building standing on a relatively very large block of

land adjacent to the site where Muhammadiyah Senior High
School 1 exists. People call the building Kasepuhan, meaning
the house of the Javanese elders. They say that this is the
house of the first leader (now called Bupati) of Bangjo regency,
and the priyayi used to gather in this house. However, I could
not obtain further information about the existence of priyayi in
Jembatan because family descendants in Kasepuhan have
migrated to Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia. The building
was sold to the Muhammadiyah organisation early 1980s and
the last servant working in Kasepuhan, who was supposed to be
able to shed some light, had already died. This limited
information, certainly, is understandable because as late as
1980, Schiller (1984) witnessed the last presence of a priyayi
with a pseudonym Pak Budi in Jepara, a town about 90
kilometres northeast of Semarang, Central Java.
Before the revolution, the priyayi served their king, but
after Indonesia declared its independence, they shifted their
orientation. Their attention was no longer focused fully on the
courts, but on the central government of Indonesia in Jakarta.
They found new roles in the ongoing process of nation building
and their successors have become part of the bureaucratic elite
of the Indonesian government. In reality, they had lost symbolic
supremacy in the Javanese community, but gained political
power at the panethnic, national level (Errington 1985:56).
Naturally, their feudal image has coloured the Indonesian
bureaucracy (see Sutherland 1979).
51
2014
Nonetheless, since the priyayi have had to adjust

themselves to the modernisation of the Indonesian society, they
have also had to discontinue their traditional court related
practices. Most of them have dropped their noble initials in front
of their names. Javanese is no longer a significant language in
their daily social relations because their role now is not so much
to retain the hierarchical authority of the courts of Central Java,
but to strengthen the central authority of the Indonesian
government in Jakarta. In this case, Errington (1985:56-57) has
found that almost half of one extended priyayi family, comprising
300 members, of the court of Surakarta has gone to Jakarta.
Many others have stayed in big cities, such as Bandung,
Semarang, and Surabaya. Only less than one in eight lives in
Surakarta (also called Solo). Consequently, there is no
compulsion to retain the use of Javanese. On the contrary, they
are urged to promote the use of their national language,
Indonesian.
Thus, somehow, Javanese has been left stranded by the
priyayi. This can be deduced from the discussion in Section 8.3,
in which some Javanese people in Jembatan feel that they have
lost their elders who used to provide exemplary models of their
native language and maintain the control of its appropriate use.
Understandably, as the demands of modernity and peoples
accommodation of social and religious differences have
increased (see Section 4.3 and 5.2), the influence of the Central
Java courts upon the function of Javanese in East Java has at
the same time decreased. This can be observed from the
2014
testimony of Bu Bani, at the end of Section 6.3, who says that in

the past people would feel very uncomfortable when they could
not speak Javanese appropriately. Now the reality is different.
People do not have to worry about the quality of their Javanese
because they can mix it with Indonesian.
All these suggest that nowadays people in East Java have
more freedom to speak their own local variety of Javanese. To
some degree, therefore, the striking emergence of cak and
rek discussed in the previous section, combined with the
different communicative repertoire that people in East Java
have, is the product of such freedom. Possibly, it is also due to
this freedom that today, despite the increasing demands of
modernity (see Section 4.3), ludruk has been nostalgically
reinvented as part of the identity of East Java (see Melestarikan
Ludruk yang Terpinggirkan in Surabaya Post, 28 September
2001). In Jembatan, for instance, aspects of ludruk have been
discussed on several occasions by a number of young people,
mostly university graduates, who organise a local theatre group
called Tombo Ati (Cure for Heart). In this case, they have found
two important aspects of ludruk that should be maintained and
incorporated into their theatrical presentations: social criticism
and egalitarian low Javanese.
Given that the function of Javanese in East Java has been
relatively free from the influence of priyayi linguistic etiquette,
the boundaries of linguistic identity between people in East Java
and those in Central Java are more apparent nowadays than
they used to be. At the superficial level of analysis in Section
53
2014
5.4, for instance, people in Jembatan have claimed that despite

vaguely distinct varieties of Javanese available in different parts
of East Java, the overall variety of Javanese in the province is
different from the variety available to people in Central Java.
Earlier in this chapter, Pak Syai has demonstrated that as an
East Javanese speaker, his communicative repertoire is
different from Pak Jamiuns. Pak Basofi has also demonstrated
that refined high Javanese is simply beyond his communicative
repertoire. Section 9.2 has as well revealed that symbolically,
rek has emerged as the linguistic identity of the East Javanese,
well recognised beyond the confines of the province. Cak too
has appeared as the egalitarian symbol of the East Javanese.
Accordingly, it is understandable that nowadays people in
Central Java still have the tendency to recall nostalgically or
attempt to maintain melancholically the culture and linguistic
behaviour of priyayi. In her ethnographic description, Berman
(1998) reveals that in this region, people would find it very
difficult to express a protest or disagreement in an open manner.
This is so because direct confrontation is not in line with the
value of speaking and behaving in cara Jawa (the Javanese
way), the value that highly upholds consistency and stability of
social demeanor, including the acceptance of fate without
resentment and, most certainly, without unveiled ambition
(p.12).
Her finding demonstrates that many of the poor young
working women, despite extreme hardship, abandonment,
hunger, and illness, failed to continue their fight against injustice
2014
imposed through their employment. This was not only due to the
(legal) practice of employment that had the tendency to put them
in a disadvantaged position, but more importantly also due to
the system of culture of the (Javanese) families in which they
had been nurtured. Despite their strong desire to fight against
the injustice of the business industry, their parents had
discouraged them from continuing their protest. They considered
that this act, verbal or physical, would only result in a breach of
social stability and order. Accordingly, instead of unleashing their
desire for protest, these young women chose to tame it to
achieve peacefulness and serenity. They could nrimo or accept
their fate without anger because no one would stop them from
speaking through the silence.
Though indirectly, Bermans finding clearly reflects the
strength of the Javanese speech varieties that have been put in
place by the priyayi as a means of ordering peoples relative
positions and power in the society and the type of speech variety
expected from them in their linguistic behaviour. What this
means is that people having less power in the societal map, in
terms of wealth, education, and or rank, should generally speak
high or honorific Javanese to those possessing more power.
This is a sign of respect to the latter. On the contrary, the latter
would speak low or non-honorific Javanese in return. Such
socioculturally charged interpersonal relations were recently
documented by Rahardi (2001:168) in his study on code choices
involving buyers and sellers in Baringharjo market, Yogyakarta,
Central Java. He found that the ngoko variety of Javanese was
55
2014
often used by the buyers because they were in the position of

having more power in terms of money and perhaps social
status. Meanwhile, the sellers tended to speak in the kromo
variety of Javanese because they were in the weak position.
They were the ones who showed more respect to the buyers
because they needed money from them.
Since expressing a protest means exposing anger,
resentment, or opposition to somebody else, it becomes very
difficult for those having no power. The reason is that when the
powerless launched the protest to the powerful, the former
would have to disregard respect to the latter. In other words, the
powerless might speak non-honorific Javanese to those with
power. If this is the case, a breach of social order has taken
place. Conventionally, this should be avoided. This kind of order
also applies to nonverbal behaviour and, therefore, justifies the
failure of the womens desire to protest in the above scenario.
This event is in stark contrast to a similar incident in East
Java. In May 1993, young women workers of a watch factory in
Porong, Sidoarjo, East Java, were raising a protest demanding
rises to meet the new official minimum wage. Among the
protesters was a twenty-three year-old single woman named
Marsinah (not a pseudonym). She was from Nganjuk, a small
town about 200 hundred kilometres to the west from her
workplace and an hour drive to the west from Bangjo. As
detailed in the national and international media, Marsinah was a
labour activist. She was the key leader of the protest and was
very outspoken (meledak-ledak) in her effort to achieve its goal.
2014
Unfortunately, some time after she met another labour activist

on the evening of the third day of the protest, dark forces took
her and she was found dead in a village of her own hometown,
Nganjuk.
When related to the bravery of arek-arek (the common
people) and cak-cak (the comrades) in East Java to challenge
Dutch colonial forces discussed in Section 9.2 above, the spirit
of Marsinah supports my claim of the egalitarian culture of
people in the province. It reflects the spirit of Cak Durasim, the
spirit of being open and speaking freely. While this has been
due to their specific set of Javanese communicative repertoire, it
has also been due to the substantial decline of the priyayi life
style in the region. On the contrary, the failure of young women
workers in Central Java to proceed with their protest indicates
that residue of the priyayi life style still hinders freedom of
expression among people in the region.
To end this section, therefore, we can conclude that now
there has been a significant change of attitudes toward the
functions of Javanese in East Java. In the past, communicative
behaviour in this province was under the shadow of authority of
the Javanese culture of Central Java. Now, however, people in
East Java have become reasonably free from such influence,
and they have had more opportunity to express themselves
using their own word choices, not the words chosen or imposed
by priyayi. Understood in this way, their own regional Javanese
linguistic identity has emerged more conspicuously than it used
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2014
to be, separate from the Javanese linguistic identity of people in

Central Java.
9.4. Childrens Lack of Control of Javanese

Socioculturally, linguistic diversity is an asset. It reflects
freedom. Yet, for the East Javanese, such convenience appears
rather hollow because even if now they are fairly free from the
influence of the priyayi life style, they are not free from the
powers of nationalism, modernisation, and globalisation. Not
only that, the real impact of these phenomena already exists
and can be observed in the following table.
Table 9.1: Childrens ability to translate the Indonesian

sentence Ibu sedang mendengarkan radio into
Javanese.
No.
Varieties of translation
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
Ibu lagi mirengake radio.

Ibu lagi mirengaken radio.
Ibu lagi ngrungokna radio.
Ibu lagi ngrungokake radio.
Ibu lagi mengrungokna radio.
Ibu lagi merungokna radio.
Ibu lagi engrungokna radio.
Ibu lagi ngirengna radio.
Ibu tasih mirengna radio.
Ibu tasih ngrukna radio.
Ibu arep ngrungokna radio.
Ibu ngrungokna radio.
Ibu mirengaken radio.
Number of
Respondents
10
5
10
5
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
3
1
2014
Total number of respondents
41
Note: Respondents were year-six students of a primary school

in Jembatan.
In brief, none of the sentences in the table achieves the proper
translation
of
the
Indonesian
sentence
Ibu
sedang
mendengarkan radio (Mother is listening to the radio). When I

discussed this issue with elder members of the community in
Jembatan, they indicated that the key to a proper translation is
the word ibu (mother). In this case, any young person, such as a
child, should use proper honorific words when describing the
activity of an older person, such as ibu. According to them, the
Javanese of the Indonesian word sedang (word indicating
something in progress) should be either taksih or SAWEG,
the former reflects the use of ngoko alus (refined ngoko), also
termed kromo madya (mid level kromo), and the latter reflects
the use of kromo or kromo inggil (high level kromo). With the
same token, the Javanese translation of mendengarkan (listen
to) should be either mirengaken or MIDANGETAKEN.
Accordingly, while the words ibu and radio remain the same,
the proper translation of the whole Indonesian sentence should
be either Ibu taksih mirengaken radio or Ibu SAWEG
MIDANGETAKEN radio.
As can be observed in the table, the children got mixed
up. They were confused. Their Javanese lacks coherence.
Ngrungokna or ngrungokake is the (acceptable) ngoko lugu
(non-honorific ngoko) translation of the Indonesian word
mendengarkan, but each of four children (no. 05, 06, 07, 10)
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expressed it in their own way (mengrungokna, merungokna,

engrungokna, and ngrukna). Ngrungokna itself is a transitive
verb, but quite possibly the use of the prefix me- in
mengrungokna and merungokna is an interference from the
Indonesian word mendengarkan, which is the combination of
the prefix me-, root dengar and transitive suffix -kan. Either
mirengaken or mirengake (no. 01 and 02) is an acceptable
ngoko alus translation of mendengarkan, but mirengna (no.
09) is not quite appropriate. Surprisingly, ngirengna (no. 08)
has nothing to do with listening. Ngirengna means making
something look blacker or dying something with black colour.
Tasih (no. 09 and 10) is acceptable, as it is a variation of
taksih, the ngoko alus translation of sedang, but lagi (no. 01 08), though it is the literal equivalent of sedang, is not
acceptable because culturally it is ngoko lugu. Like ngirengna,
arep (no.11) has nothing to do with sedang. It denotes a future
activity. It means will (i.e. Indonesian akan).
Thus, it is obvious that the lack of translation ability above
is the product of marginalisation of the Javanese language. The
childrens confusion stems not only from their scanty knowledge
of kromo varieties, but it is also due to the improper treatment of
the language at school (see Sections 8.3 and 8.4). In this case,
Section 8.3 has succinctly concluded that at school Indonesian
has been given far more dominance and privilege; meanwhile,
Javanese has been systematically disadvantaged. Moreover,
nowadays many East Javanese parents do not really care about
the Javanese of their children because they can mix it with
2014
Indonesian or even train them to speak the latter language (see

Sections 6.2 and 6.3).
The impact of the marginalisation of the Javanese
language can also be examined through information about
students ability to translate Indonesian words into Javanese. It
is worth noting here that I collected this information by giving a
list of Indonesian words, which have both ngoko and kromo
Javanese equivalents, to year-three up to year-six students of a
primary school in Jembatan. I told them that an Indonesian word
might have only one equivalent in Javanese, but another might
have more than one. Their job was to provide the Javanese
equivalent(s) they knew for each word in the list and to write
them in the space provided next to each word.
This strategy was meant to reveal their knowledge of
ngoko words in relation to their kromo equivalents. The term
ngoko here includes simple or low ngoko (ngoko lugu) and
polished ngoko (ngoko alus), as differentiated in Javanese
school textbooks. In addition, the list of ngoko words covers not
only the ones commonly found in school textbooks, but also
includes the words typical of Bangjoan Javanese, the local
variety reflecting the kasar or unrefined Javanese spoken in
East Java (see Sections 5.4, 9.1, and 9.2). In consultation with
Javanese teachers and several older members of the
community in Jembatan, I managed to prepare a list of eightyone Indonesian words for this purpose. The complete list of the
words and their possible Javanese equivalents can be seen in
Appendix D.
61
2014
To carry out the data analysis, first I tallied all acceptable

Javanese equivalent(s) for each Indonesian word in the list and
calculated the total. I did this separately for the ngoko and
kromo equivalents. After that, I calculated the average of the
eighty-one totals obtained in the first calculation for each
category (ngoko and kromo) of each year group. Then I
converted the average into a percentage in terms of the number
of students in each year group. The graph that follows is a
summary of the percentages that I obtained through the
analysis.
Graph 9.1: Percentage of the average of the totals of
acceptable translation of Indonesian words into
ngoko and kromo varieties of Javanese
100
80
86
80
79
74
60
40
20
13
21
29
30
Year 5
N = 38
Year 6
N = 45
0
Year 3
N = 42
Year 4
N = 37
Acceptable translation of Indonesian words into ngoko variety

Acceptable translation of Indonesian words into kromo variety
Note: Respondents were students from years three, four, five,

and six of a primary school in Jembatan.
2014
The graph shows that with an average of percentages

around 80 percent of respondents who provided acceptable
translation
of
Indonesian
words
into
ngoko
Javanese
equivalents, it indicates that Javanese is still a dominant means

of communication among members of the community in
Jembatan. However, that average of percentages also indicates
that nowadays children in this suburban area are lacking in the
proper ngoko communicative repertoire, the basic capital
needed for them to be able to communicate in their native
language. This is due to the power of Indonesian as the
language of the ideology of the nation-state, which has
dominated the media and education, and the demands of
modernity, which have accelerated acquisition of Indonesian by
children and which have driven parents to recogise the
importance of mastering English for their children in order to
compete in the ever-increasing process of globalisation. This
interpretation is in line with the previous finding which reveals
the lack of childrens ability to express the ngoko equivalent of
the Indonesian word mendengarkan (see Table 9.1).
Apart
from
that,
the
progress
of
nationalism,
modernisation, and peoples accommodation, discussed in

Sections 4.3, 5.2, 5.3, that indirectly has caused the priyayi life
style to diminish substantially in East Java (see Section 9.3),
has made kromo (high) speech variety of Javanese lose its
function in the Javanese community at large. Consequently, as
revealed in the graph above, nowadays children have serious
difficulty finding the kromo equivalents of the eighty-one
63
2014
Indonesian words listed. In fact, the graph shows that, as

respondents reach a higher level of schooling, there is a
progressive increase of the average numbers of them, from 13%
to 30%, who are able to find kromo equivalents for the
Indonesian words listed. This, however, is not so much due to
the function of the words in childrens daily communicative
interaction, but because they have learned them at school. This
finding, therefore, reflects the lack of childrens communicative
control of the Javanese language.
9.5. Stereotypical Perceptions of

Javanese Speakers
All the findings above, combined with the findings discussed in
earlier chapters, provide strong evidence that people in
Jembatan
nowadays
are
shifting
their
attitudes
toward
Javanese. Evidence of this ongoing shift is supported by the

findings that I collected using the matched-language guise
technique. As discussed in Subsection 3.5.1, the purpose of
using this technique is based on the assumption that spoken
language is an identifying feature of members of a national or
cultural group and any listener's attitude toward members of a
particular group should generalise to the language they use
(Lambert et al. 1960:44). The semantic differential scales for this
technique were prepared using nineteen personality traits
adapted from the work of Creber and Giles (1983). These
2014
nineteen traits fall into three categories: six solidarity traits, six
status traits, and seven identity traits.
As described in Subsection 3.5.3, the first step in the
analysis for the matched-language guise data was to assign
numerical values to the repondents' ratings on the seven bipolar semantic differential scales. The second step was to
compare the average or mean of the numerical values assigned
to the respondents' ratings on each trait for the group of
speakers of each variety of Javanese guise with that on the
corresponding trait of their Indonesian guise. To obtain
meaningful comparisons from such pairs of ratings, a statistical
procedure, called the t-test, was used. The level of significance
of the difference of two averages resulted from the t-test
procedure is called the t-value. Statistically, a t-value is
considered significant if its value equals .05 or less.
For the purpose of administering the matched-language
guise technique, I managed to organise 480 subjects, ranging
from year-four up to year-six primary school children. The
following table is a summary of t-values of their perceptions of
the solidarity traits of speakers in their Javanese and Indonesian
guises.
Table 9.2: T-values for significance of mean differences of
perceptions of the solidarity traits of speakers
speaking kromo and ngoko varieties and their
corresponding Indonesian guises.
No. Solidarity Traits
Kromo
Ngoko
Alus
Ngoko Bangjoan
Lugu
65
2014
Friendly -unfriendly
6.009****
4.736****
0.743
-4.013****
Polite -- impolite
7.248****
4.758****
1.025
-4.486****
Generous -- not
generous
3.859****
3.824****
1.459
-3.224****
Helpful -- not
helpful
2.092*
2.836***
1.962* -3.366****
Cooperative -- not
cooperative
2.556**
3.964****
1.510
Trustworthy -- not
trustworthy
3.412****
3.078***
-0.123 -3.231****
-2.113*
Notes:
1. Positive entries indicate that Javanese guises are evaluated
more favourably than Indonesian guises, and negative entries
indicate a more favourable evaluation for Indonesian guises.
2. Significance levels with two-tailed tests:
* equals .05 or less
** equals .01 or less
*** equals .005 or less
**** equals .001 or less
3. Degrees of freedom = 479
As can be observed in the table, the subjects were given
opportunities to listen to four varieties of Javanese and their
corresponding Indonesian guises (see Appendix A for details of
the transcripts). The reason for this is the fact that in their daily
life, children are exposed to the local variety termed by some as
Bangjoan Javanese, the variety that is believed to be kasar or
unrefined (see Section 5.4). Yet, at primary schools, they are
taught and made aware through textbooks that Javanese has
three levels of speech: kromo (high Javanese), ngoko alus (mid
Javanese), also known as kromo madyo, and ngoko lugu
(simple or low Javanese), all of which are, to varying degrees,
2014
different from their daily communicative repertoire. These are

the types of Javanese imposed from Central Java that
complicate the teaching and learning of the language at school
nowadays (see Section 8.4).
Surprisingly, as can be observed in the table, this fact is
related to childrens perceptions of Javanese. They regard their
Bangjoan Javanese as somehow an unacceptable variety. In
contrast, the imposed varieties of Javanese are considered
desirable. In this case, the table shows that, except for the
negative t-value for ngoko lugu in line 6 (-0.123), all other tvalues for the imposed varieties are positive. Moreover, except
lines 4 and 5, there is a gradual but significant increase of
positive t-values along other lines from ngoko lugu to kromo
varieties.
It is understandable why all the solidarity traits for ngoko
alus and kromo receive more favourable evaluation than ngoko
lugu. The function of these two speech varieties suggests that
the speakers are refined and caring. In contrast, ngoko lugu is
the type of Javanese without honorific words, thus lacking the
qualities that ngoko alus and kromo have. Since the function of
Bangjoan variety does not reflect any of the desired varieties of
Javanese taught at school, the solidarity traits of its speakers
are rated the least favourable, suggesting that the speakers are
rough, uneducated, and uncaring (see Section 5.4).
Certainly, one might expect a positive evaluation of the
local (i.e. Bangjoan) variety because symbolically the variety
carries the egalitarian values espoused by its speakers, as
67
2014
reflected in the use of cak and rek discussed in Section 9.2

above. Such expectation is understandable, but it should be
noted that the subjects who rated the speakers in the matchedlanguage guises were children. They were not adults, so their
perceptions of Javanese should not reflect the adults attitudes
to the language.
Grown-up Javanese represent a separate generation.
They have their own background experience for appreciating the
value of the different varieties of their ethnic language. As
evidenced in Section 9.3, they belong to a generation whose
communicative behaviour was once under the shadow of priyayi
linguistic etiquette. Although now their linguistic behaviour is
relatively free from such influence, their past experience still
dictates their attitudes to Javanese. As evidenced in Sections
5.4, 9.1, and partly 9.2, they are predisposed to compare the
value of the variety of Javanese spoken in East Java and the
value of the variety spoken in Central Java.
Children, however, do not have such background
experience. At school they are taught to appreciate the nobility
of the kromo variety of Javanese, which is not native to them,
but they are not socialised to value the egalitarian aspect of their
native variety of Javanese. Instead, as evidenced in Sections
6.1, 6.2, and 8.2, they are socialised in Indonesian both by their
teachers at school and by some of their parents at home.
Understandably, they evaluate the solidarity traits of the
speakers of Bangjoan Javanese guises significantly less
favourably than the solidarity traits of the speakers of the
2014
corresponding Indonesian guises. Indirectly, in fact, the overall

significant t-values in Table 9.2 strongly suggest that children
consider Bangjoan Javanese as the least favourable variety.
Nevertheless, this finding does not mean that children
would aspire to acquire the imposed varieties of Javanese
taught at school. As previously revealed, to a certain degree,
they may have knowledge of these varieties, but they are
unlikely to be able to use them in practical terms. This
interpretation is corroborated by the negative prospects for the
teaching and learning of Javanese discussed in Section 8.4. It is
also corroborated by the fact that nowadays priyayi life style is
pratically nonexistent in East Java (see Section 9.3). Moreover,
there has been a tendency among parents to socialise children
in Indonesian (see Sections 6.1 and 6.3). Consequently, the
development of Indonesian has so far been the biggest
challenge to the existence of Javanese. As can be observed in
Table 9.2, since speakers of Bangjoan Javanese guises receive
five traits bearing negative t-values significant at .001 or less,
indisputably, Indonesian appears to be the preferred candidate
for peoples future linguistic identity, not Bangjoan Javanese.
This prediction, in fact, is tentative, but it is in line with the
findings contained in the following table.

perceptions of the status traits of speakers
69
2014

No. Status Traits
1
2
3
4
5
6
Modern
conservative
Educated
uneducated
Intelligent
unintelligent
Cosmopolitan
parochial
Rich poor
High social class
low social class
Kromo
Ngoko
Ngoko
Bangjoan
Alus
Lugu
-8.215**** -7.190**** -7.416**** -9.193****
-2.221*
-0.826
-1.694
-5.003****
0.113
-1.109
-2.730**
-5.718****
-0.556
-0.177
-1.321
-2.909***
-6.603****
-6.589**** -5.496**** -7.287****
-3.272**** -0.685
-2.309*
0.187
Your interpretation is here: based on data on the table shows

that indonesia language is more favourable than javanese
language in term of language symbol and cultural status. It can
be seen from the negative entries that dominates the 4 stages of
javanese language.this is indicated by the fact that, except for
the two insignifficant positive t-values of Kromo in line three and
Bangjoan in line 6 (0.113 and 0.187) they unfavourably
evaluated the status traits of speakers in Japanese guises
relative to their corresponding indonesian guises. Moreover, the
significant mean differences of 22 t-values, the ones with a star
or more, constituting 91,67 % of the total 24 t-values in the
table, are in favour of Indonesia. This prefference is strong and
supports the prediction that indonesian is the probable
candidate for childrens future linguistic identity. The following
table will show the information about the strenght of the
prediction.
2014

perceptions of the identity traits of speakers
No. Identity Traits
Kromo
Ngoko
Alus
Ngoko
Lugu
Bangjoan
Like -- dislike
way of speaking
5.037****
4.173****
-0.105
-6.295****
Easy -- difficult
to understand
-1.517
-2.567**
-4.487**** -6.845****
Very Javanese
not very
Javanese
3.639****
Very
Indonesian
not very
Indonesian
0.945
-0.983
-1.620
-4.115****
Similar not
similar to parent
traits
4.370****
3.443****
0.528
0.316
Similar not
similar to your
traits
0.281
0.893
0.269
-1.975*
Want to be like
the speakers
-3.300****
2.216*
-1.198
5.094****
7.923****
10.405****
12.297****
Your interpretation is here ... as stated earlier that primary

school children have serious difficulties in translating indonesian
words into kromo Javanese equivalents. If they like the way of
speaking by speakers in kromo and ngoko alus guises ( see.
Line 1), it doesnt mean that they really tried to master these two
speech levels of Javanese. In practical terms, it is hardly
71
2014
possible. If they express that they like the way of speaking by

the speakers in these two guises. It is simply because at school
they are taught to believe that the use of these two speech
levels reflects the politeness and refinement of the speakers.
On the other side, if they evaluate negativelly the style of
the speakers in Bangjoan javanese guises ( see. Lines 1,2,4
and 6) it means that they acquire indonesian as the language
that gives the promise for future status in their life. This
interpretation is supported by the fact that they perceive all of
speakersin
indonesia
guises
as
more
modern,
more
educated,more intelligent,more cosmopolitant, richer and higher

in social class than the same speakers in Bangjoan guises
( see. Table 9.2). In addition, there is a suggestion that they
regard indonesian as the language that promise more solidarity
than Bangjoan Javanese ( Table 9.1). This interpretation is
supported by the fact that altough they speak javanese, their
javanese lack coherence may easily motivate them to shift from
speaking javanese to speaking indonesian.
Its clear that linguistically children in suburban areas of
east java, such as in jembatan,view themselves as more
indonesian than Javanese. In this case, the t-values in line 2 in
table 9.3 shows that they find speakers in Indonesia guises
easier to understand than the same speaker in Javanese
guises. This implies that, even if they regard speakers in
javanese guises as more javanese than indonesian. This
interpretation is supported by the evidence that altough the
children regard their parents as similar to the speaker in Kromo
2014
and Ngoko alus guises ( line 5),they do not consider themselves

as such ( line 6). Understandbly, even if they express that they
want to be the speaker in these two guises (line 7), it doesnot
mean that they will pursue the linguistic identity. Instead, they
will likely follow the modern trend that gives them opportunities
to acquire indonesian. In fact, they regard the speaker in
Indonesian guises as more indonesian ( line 4), and consider
themselves similar to these speaker (line 9).
BUT YOU HAVE TO CORRECT THE CONCLUSIONS...
Thus, to end this chapter, I need to emphasise that now
there has been a significant change of attitudes toward the
functions of Javanese in East Java. In the past communicative
behaviour in this province was under the shadow of authority of
priyayi linguistic etiquette. Since priyayi have had to adjust
themselves to their new role in the modernisation of Indonesian
society, they have had to discontinue orientation to their Central
Javanese traditional court-related practices. Consequently,
people in East Java have become reasonably free from the
influence of priyayi linguistic mannerism, and they have had
more opportunity to express themselves using their own word
choices, such as the symbolic words cak and rek, not the
words chosen or imposed by priyayi.
In fact, there are significant differences between the
variety of Javanese spoken in East Java and the variety of the
language spoken in Central Java. While such differences have
motivated Javanese people in East Java to recognise the
73
2014
relative beauty and authority of high Javanese, the differences

have also caused them to realise that high Javanese is simply
beyond their communicative repertoire. Accordingly, instead of
attempting to acquire the skill of speaking high Javanese, which
is not sensibly demanded in East Java, they prefer to identify
themselves linguistically as a distinct group of Javanese
speakers, separate from those in Central Java.
Nonetheless, for the East Javanese, such linguistic
identification appears rather hollow nowadays because even if
they are fairly free from the influence of priyayi life style, they are
not free from the powers of nationalism, modernisation, and
globalisation. In fact, childrens attitudes to and perceptions of
Javanese in relation to Indonesian provide some elaboration to
this effect. As evidenced in Section 9.4 children consider their
parents as similar to speakers of the kromo variety of Javanese
(line 5), but they identify themselves as similar to speakers of
Indonesian (line 6). Since they lack communicative control of the
Javanese language (Section 9.4), naturally they consider
speakers of Indonesian easier to understand than Javanese
speakers. All this evidence, therefore, strongly suggests that
Indonesian is the likely candidate for childrens future linguistic
identity. However, it would be better for the children of east java
not to forget their background culture so that they do not only
proof their identity as Indonesia citizen but specifically as the
member of certain level group of people from one of various
ethnic groups in Indonesia. This kind of thing can be determined
from the use at least one of four stages language in Javanese or
2014
even their own local variety of Javanese as the roots of their

culture.
To change the way
To analyze everything based on the data
Last two table are different analyze
2. Focus in on cultural values, norm. Speaking is cultural
practices
What is the sig of the calculation in function of the lang.
75

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Javanese in the eyes of its speakers

PERCEPTIONS OF FUNCTION AND

Javanese in the eyes of its speakers

future linguistic identity. To begin with, the following section

9.1. Beyond Communicative Repertoire

Javanese in the eyes of its speakers

to ranks in official or descent hierarchies. These people are

Javanese in the eyes of its speakers

to examine what Pak Syai said to the audience during the

Javanese in the eyes of its speakers

the tlatah Mandura [group of unsophisticated Javanese

Javanese in the eyes of its speakers

people can do this, but efforts to enable oneself to speak

Javanese in the eyes of its speakers

The attitude of Pak Jamiun toward Javanese, clearly, is

Javanese in the eyes of its speakers

way they address the audience. When Pak Jamiun says

KINURMATAN, Pak Syai says Para RAWUH SEDAYA

five (NYUWUN, GUNGE, SIH, SAMUDRA,

PANGAKSAMI). These instances reflect the extent to which

Javanese in the eyes of its speakers

Pak Syai, I had an impression that when he started his speech,

PANGAPUNTEN, as in the first sentence too. All these

Javanese in the eyes of its speakers

student. He is aware that there are two exemplary centres of

Javanese in the eyes of its speakers

Javanese traditional costumes. Meanwhile, inside the large hall

Javanese in the eyes of its speakers

Even if it is only one sentence, the comment by Pak

KEMAWON KERSA PENJENENGAN. Even so, Pak Basofi did

Javanese in the eyes of its speakers

in Central Java. Errington (1998:65), for instance, has noted that

Chapter 9: Perceptions of function and identity

Javanese in the eyes of its speakers

Nonetheless, the discussion of this typical word is not the

9.2. Rek Ayo Rek (Guys, Come on, Guys)

Javanese in the eyes of its speakers

struggle, they call themselves arek Surabaya (native or real

Javanese in the eyes of its speakers

respectively, but also to speak to any young male or female

Javanese in the eyes of its speakers

Even so, cak and ning remain symbolic of East Java.

Javanese in the eyes of its speakers

word cak remains part of the repertoire of people in East Java.

Javanese in the eyes of its speakers

report the next day to headquarters in Surabaya. There

incident made Cak

even more popular.

Immediately after his death, he began receiving praise as a hero

Chapter 9: Perceptions of function and identity

Javanese in the eyes of its speakers

authorities in Semarang, Central Java, who banned (mencekal)

Javanese in the eyes of its speakers

Ah, already Saturday evening [I]

Despite comprising only two sentences, the opening of the

Chapter 9: Perceptions of function and identity

Javanese in the eyes of its speakers

expressed in enake nemui kanca-kanca (its better to meet

Javanese in the eyes of its speakers

Rek ayo rek, mlaku-mlaku nang

Guys come on guys, [lets] take a

As revealed previously, Surabaya functions as the

Javanese in the eyes of its speakers

-6.589 -5.496 -7.287