A Brief Description of Ancient Kaupelanese

"Wone wijaya’a i Indra nyiwayi ngawaqi qao jawok jaya adi, ina wayi ngutu mu’suhra; na hunta mesara ina dinira lah nayido limaina, na ngèmake adi jih akni’a, na sulikra adi jih la’a, na kisara wasi sitra adi. Wom qirama swarga jawokni saet adi, prawira’u, na wayim mate raksasa i Rawana, jih i Indra nyiwayi ngutu asurara, abat ina dahwok, qatayi o lah tawotjawoqa."

"For the victory, Indra sends to thee this fortunate chariot, exterminator of enemies, and the big bow made by his hand, and this armour comparable to the fire, and these arrows similar to the Sun, and these shinning iron spears. So come, hero, into this celestial chariot and kill the demon Ravana, like once, with me as driver, Indra did with the devils."

Excerpt of "Ramayana" in old Kaupelanese

Introduction

Old Kaupelanese, or Makuwa, was spoken in the south of Kiwangar, from the IX century to the XVI century. It was a Bandanese language heavily influenced by Javanese and Sanskrit. The language had a particular characteristic: the existence of a classical and literary form – the Raja or Noble Speech – forbidden to those not belonging to the nobility and a colloquial form – the Daqè or Common Speech – used by the rest of the people. During the time of the Sultanate of Rajakaopalan, due to the trade among the Kaupelanese kingdoms, the colloquial form, spread to the neighbour islands and became the "lingua franca" of the region.

Since the introduction of the writing system by Hindu priests in the X century, but mostly during the XIII century, a significant literary production took place in the region using the Raja form. These texts, made in lontar palm leaves and normally concerning about the local nobility or religious matters, are the basis for the modern study of old Kaupelanese. Very few written documents were left in the Daqè form and most information about this form had to be inferred by scholars from modern dialects.

The Ancient Scripts

The ancient Kiwangar alphabet is basically the same writing system used today in modern Kaupelanese with minor changes. It was derived from scripts brought from India. Basically there were two symbols for each consonant; one for the consonant followed by the vowel a and the other for the isolated consonant. These symbols originally represented consonants plus long and short vowels respectively. Other vowels were indicated by the addition of diacritics to the symbol. The sounds are inferred by comparing the modern Kaupelanese dialects.

The numbers came also from India and followed the decimal system. In modern Kaupelanese they were totally replaced by the occidental numbers.

Lexicon

Although modern Kaupelanese – in fact, the Kauta dialect of old Kaupelanese – is not a direct descendant of Raja, since its origin is more related to Daqè, the popular form of the language, the study of that variant is still important today. The Raja form, originally restricted to the royalty and the nobility, became the cult and literary form of the language and the link among the dialects that appeared during the colonial period. Raja is not used as spoken language since then but modern Kaupelanese incorporated most of its lexicon.

At the time they were spoken, Raja and Daqè had a parallelism between them, i. e., for a word in one of the forms frequently there would be an equivalent in the other. Normally when both forms were incorporated to the modern language, the words from Raja acquired a meaning slightly different of their Daqè equivalents. The Raja words often became more complex and sophisticated in their meanings or are applied in more erudite contexts. As examples we have:

Grammar

The grammar of Raja was more complex than that of modern Kaupelanese, that had a significant simplification due to its use as "lingua franca".

The comparative relations were formed with yut "more" and jih "than" and the superlative with saqèra "most", both postponed to the qualified word.

There were three definite articles: i (before proper nouns), -a (after common nouns) and -ra (postponed, for the plural of common nouns).

Personal pronouns were used to form the possessive case, following the order "possessor-possession".

There were a distinct verb conjugation for each person using the following prefixes: u- "I", qo- "you", nyi- "he, she, it and they", ma- "we (exclusive)", ta- "we (inclusive)", mi- "you (polite form)" and ra- "they (polite)". The past perfect was formed with the prefix dah-, the imperative with the suffix -m. The passive voice was created with the infix -in-. Other tenses and moods are formed with auxiliary words before the main verb, such as maluk, imperfect, aewok, future. Causative verbs were formed with the auxiliary wayi. The passive agent was preceded by lah "by, through".

The personal pronoun in the Raja and Daqè forms are compared to those in modern Kaupelanese dialects. When two forms exist, the first is the familiar form and the second is the polite one:

Some phrases in Raja are given below:

The same phrases in Daqè:

And in modern Kaupelanese: