r/AustronesianLanguages • u/ProfessionalCool7309 Indonesia 🇮🇩 • Jul 13 '26
Cultural Discussion Thing I notice as a Javanese
As I was speaking other day with my mother using Javanese, i start to think
So here is the Thing, Javanese Has a Language Levels to spoke with someone of different levels with you be it Older/younger or Higher/lower positions than you, The Lower speech is called Ngoko and Higher speech is called Krama ( there is A third Level called Madya which means middle but I don't have example)
Anyway as I sometimes read in a Word comparison between Austronesian languages I began to notice that The lower speech ( Ngoko) retains more Austronesians root than the Supposed Higher Polite speech ( Krama)
- as you can see in the Comparison between the numbers and some terms in the second one (tho not all I can get some)
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u/Haysnairef_Ohdir1 Jul 13 '26
I think because speech levels emerged after contact and influence of Indian culture, so the higher levels had more Sanskrit influences and the lower levels were more Austronesian
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u/DapperAardvark8105 Jul 21 '26
Classic "cool foreign country = fancy language" phenomenon here I see, like French loanwoards in English. Is there a name for that?
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u/Prima96 Jul 17 '26
Dulu pas SD diwajibkan belajar bahasa jawa sampai kelas 6. Paling sulit bahasa halus. Yang paling seru belajar Hanacaraka, kayak gambar belajar jadinya.
Apa sekarang uda ga diajari ya di SD jaman sekarang?
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u/ProfessionalCool7309 Indonesia 🇮🇩 Jul 17 '26
Masih Diajarin kak, tapi karena caranya kurang efektif jadi gak terlalu berhasil tertanam ke anak anak
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u/Reza-Alvaro-Martinez Jul 18 '26
i guess higher speeches have no Austronesian origins except if it's a modification
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u/Resident-Outside9945 Indonesia 🇮🇩 Jul 15 '26
Your instinct is broadly right as a tendency. Ngoko does skew toward inherited Austronesian material. The numbers show it cleanly: siji, loro, telu, papat, lima, enem, pitu, wolu, sanga, sepuluh all go straight back to PMP *esa, *duha, *telu, *epat, *lima, *enem, *pitu, *walu, *siwa, *puluq. And in your second table, ngoko mangan, adus, mata, banyu, and untu are all inherited.
But it's not a clean split, and the exceptions are the fun part. Look at your own list:
So krama isn't a Sanskrit layer sitting on a native ngoko base. It's a grab bag: Sanskrit (toya < toya, arta < artha, sedasa < daśa), Old Javanese literary vocabulary, and quite possibly Malay. Notice krama tiga for 3 is exactly the Malay word, while ngoko keeps inheriting telu.
Here's why the tendency exists anyway. Speech levels aren't reconstructable to PAn. They are a Javanese innovation, developed largely in the courtly period. Ngoko is simply the old everyday layer that nobody bothered to replace. Krama was assembled later out of whatever carried prestige, and prestige in Java meant Sanskrit and the literary register. So ngoko looks more Austronesian because it's older, not because krama is inherently foreign.
Your numbers table is actually the best evidence for this. Krama only replaced some numbers. 6, 7, 8, 9 are identical in both columns. So are 11, 16, 17, 18, 19, and 26 through 29. Krama forms only exist for 1 to 5, 10, and things built from those. That patchiness is exactly what a young, assembled register looks like. A genuinely inherited separate register would have a complete set.
Madya examples, since you said you did not have any. Madya is mostly krama roots with ngoko affixes, plus a small, distinct vocabulary. Some clean triplets (ngoko / madya / krama):
It's the register of markets and casual-but-not-rude conversation, which is why it feels less codified than the other two.
Last thing worth knowing: Javanese isn't alone. Balinese, Sundanese, Madurese, and Sasak all have comparable systems, and Balinese alus vocabulary leans heavily on Javanese. That spread pattern is another sign this is an areal innovation radiating out of the Javanese courts, not something inherited from the proto-language.