Agustus 11, 2014

Basò Kulònggé: The Honorifics of Jambi, Central Sumatra


Abstract

ONE OF the areal features of Southeast Asian languages is the presence in many of them of special sets of honorific vocabulary, used when addressing royalty. Well-known examples are the Javanese Krama Kedhaton (Soepomo et al. 1979) and the Thai Rachasap (Kulasap and Saimai 2002). Malay has its own royal vocabulary, known as Bahasa Diraja (Asmah 2004).

Tanjung Raden is a village in Jambi, Central Sumatra, where the descendants of the royal family of Jambi live. In the village’s dialect, honorifics are used when addressing senior members of the community. This honorific system is known as Basò Kulònggé; basò means ‘language’, and ‘kulònggé’ is made up of the honorific 1st person singular pronoun kulò and the honorific affirmative particle nggé. A study of this honorific system indicates that, even though the inhabitants speak a Malay dialect, the honorifics seem not to be related to Malay royal vocabulary (Bahasa Diraja). Rather, they are more closely related to the Javanese Krama, although not necessarily to forms used in modern Javanese when addressing royalty.

This paper discusses Basò Kulònggé, its origins, and its sociolinguistics, and compares it to Bahasa Diraja and Krama Kedhaton.[]

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Uri Tadmor & Yanti, “Basò Kulònggé: The Honorifics of Jambi, Central Sumatra”, Paper presented at the Tenth International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics, Palawan, Philippines, January 17-20, 2006.


Program of the conference is available here.

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