User talk:Swarabakti

Delpher

Hello there! I just wanted to draw your attention to the Dutch digital archive Delpher, which has many newspapers from Indonesia during colonial times. I don't know if this might be useful for Betawi bikin for instance: https://resolver.kb.nl/resolve?urn=ddd:010321660:mpeg21:a0028 Appolodorus1 (talk) 18:43, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

Thank you! I'll look into it. Swarabakti (talk) 18:45, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

@Appolodorus1 Tangentially related: early texts from Batavia usually just call the language "Malay". Often it's impossible to decide whether a certain passage is actually written in Betawi/Batavian Malay, generic "low" Malay, or something else entirely... I've relied on identifying passages with Betawi-specific diction and pronunciation (e.g. a "Malay" poem rhyming durian, aren and kemarin; Betawi durèn, arèn, kemarèn), but I don't know; are those enough grounds to justify using them as attestations for Betawi entries? Swarabakti (talk) 19:06, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

@Swarabakti That's a very interesting question. I don't know enough about languages spoken in Indonesia to say something with authority on the matter; I read at Wikipedia that Betawi's exact demarcation is subject to academic debate.

I do think it is generally true that historical texts written down by (Western) non-native speakers may contain errors of interpretation, but are still worth citing, especially in a less documented language. For example, it may well be that a Dutchman in the nineteenth century wrote down something he thought was Malay, but for which there are good grounds to classify it as Betawi. Or it may be that a native speaker switched between different registers or dialects in a text.

In such cases, the tags |termlang= and |norm= are useful in the quote template. |termlang= helps you to indicate that the term in language A occurs in a language B-context, and |norm= lets you transcribe the quoted text in a current, standardized spelling, in case it exists (your rhyme example would become apparent that way, for instance.)

Moreover, it might also be a matter of citing scholarly literature in the lemma, for example in the etymology section, to substantiate your editorial choices. From Sranan Tongo I know, for instance, that linguists have attempted to analyze the choices of some early Western dictionary writers, including the kind of registers/dialects they were mostly exposed to.

I might ping my gurus @Lingo Bingo Dingo and @Lambiam, maybe they can help you more. Appolodorus1 (talk) 19:11, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Ooohhh, the tags would be very useful, thanks! Re: the debate on the origin of Betawi, the actual scholarship on it has moved well past beyond simplifying its history as a "creole". Adelaar's (1992) Proto-Malayic (PM) monograph considers it a direct continuation of PM due to it having phonemic /ə/ in final closed syllables seemingly preserved from PMP and PAN, as in atep /atəp/ 'roof' (ultimately < PAN *qatəp), while most other Malayic lects merged it to /a/. That being said, it does have a lot of "vehicular" (i.e. "creole", "contact", "bazaar", "lingua-franca" Malay) characteristics akin to Eastern Indonesian Malay (Ambonese Malay, Manado Malay etc.), not found in the more "traditional" Malayic lects of Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula.

Grijns (1991, 1994) in particular argues that it originated from a lingua-franca variety of Malay and only became stabilized as a native language in the early 19th century. Nothofer (1995) argues for Betawi being a continuation of a local Java Malay variety in what he calls a "relic" area, comparing the conservatism in Betawi with nearby Malayic lects of Bangka and Palembang. There were several distinct Malay varieties spoken in colonial Batavia and the surrounding area; the (reconstructed) Batavian Mardijker Malay of the 17th and 18th century (cf. Adelaar 2021), for example, seemingly resemble Eastern Indonesian varieties a lot more than modern Betawi, and might well be the source of vehicular features in modern Betawi (aside from local Peranakan Malay influence?).

Hoogervorst (2021, 2024) noted that the earliest attestation of arguably Betawi phonological and lexical characteristics in "Malay" materials came from 1692; traces of influence from this early variety can also be found in Sri Lankan Malay and (now-extinct) Cape Malay. The earliest Betawi dictionary is from 1868 and explicitly uses the name basa Betawi (lit. "Betawi/Batavian language") already. I think if we really need to demarcate its history, we can consider the language as originating from "Java Malay" (pre-17th century; entries under "Malay" heading), which evolves into "Early Batavian Malay" (17th-18th century; under "Betawi" heading?), then "Betawi" (from 19th century onwards; firmly under "Betawi").

These days, Betawi's role as a lingua franca has been wholly replaced by Jakarta Indonesian, which does have Betawi features but not really "based on Betawi" as the Wikipedia page seems to suggest (cf. David Gil's works on Malay/Indonesian koinés). "Traditional" Betawi varieties are mostly endangered (except perhaps the Bekasi dialect), with at least one specific dialect nearing moribund: Tanah Abang with its characteristic *-ah, *-a > /ə/ reflex (cf. gahwĕ)... Swarabakti (talk) 21:40, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

In this specific example, the source of these two uses of bekin is De Sumatra Post, which bills itself below its masthead as “Daily for Sumatra’s East Coast”. It was based in Medan in North Sumatra, some 1400 km distant from Java. This makes it unlikely that ads in this newspaper are in a vernacular spoken on the north coast of Java. (An ad from the same Parisian pharmacy in the Batavia-based Java-Bode is in Dutch.)  --Lambiam 07:59, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

Yes, upon inspection, most of the instances there are actually more or less generic "low" Malay of Dutch East Indies, which does have some Batavian Malay influence but not quite the same. Other than considering the place of origin, IMO a "Malay" citation for Betawi also needs to show multiple typically Betawi features, whether in diction or morphology, e.g. using -in instead of generic Java Malay -ken. Cf. the one I used in sense #5 of bikin, which has jem, lu, misti, and ronda besides bikin; each of these are not exclusive to Betawi, but when considered together it's pretty typical of a Betawi utterance. Swarabakti (talk) 09:49, 29 January 2025 (UTC)