Scripting The Javanese Language

Errista Yuniasti, the creator of Gendhis, showing off her script program that she hopes will help preserve the Javanese language. (Amir Tejo, JG)

Surabaya, East Java -An ancient script that is in danger of fading away may just be rescued by modern computer technology, at least if one information engineering student in East Java Province has her way.

Errista Yuniasti, 24, from the University of Surabaya, has developed a software program that can translate Javanese as written today into the script that had been used for centuries.

Javanese script, Brahmic in origin, was already being used in literature in the 8th century and by the 17th century had evolved into the script that still exists in some places today. However, in 1926, the Dutch transformed written Javanese using the Latin alphabet, which has now largely replaced the original script.

Many may have forgotten Javanese script, but not Errista. When it came time to do her final thesis, Errista recalled an idea that had been with her from her earliest university days: developing computer software to translate Latin-based Javanese into the precolonial script.

“Why Javanese script? From elementary school to junior high school I learned about Javanese letters,” she said.

Basing her idea on computer engineering theories commonly used to create dictionary software packages, Errista decided to go one step further and create a more translation-like software that could not only produce translations of the script alphabet, numbers and punctuation, but also translate Latin-based phrases into Javanese script.

She said that the software would make it easier for people to learn to write the old script, but she also hoped that it would help preserve the script, even if by just reminding people that it existed.

She worked for a year developing the software, including researching authentic Javanese letters and writing methods. She used the Internet, spoke with Javanese language experts and hunted down books on the subject in the city`s used bookstores.

The more she learned about Javanese script, the more complex it got, and in the end she decided to narrow her focus on the most currently used words and phrases in the Javanese language. At the moment, her software can only process 200 Javanese syllables at a time.

Errista named the software Gendhis, which in Javanese means girl or sugar.

“I`m a woman, so I named my software Gendhis,” she said, adding that her thesis received an A.

The software is simple to use. You just type in the Latinized Javanese alphabet or phrases into the computer and in one click, it is translated to the traditional Javanese script, and vice versa.

“Just type in, for example, `mangan sego telo` — eating sweet potato rice — and that phrase will be shown in script,” Errista said.

She said there were other software programs around that focus on Javanese script, for example Pallawa, which can create Javanese fonts. However, she said her program works differently and she was preparing to patent it.

Indonesia is home to hundreds of languages and dialects — a total of 746 local languages, according to the Ministry of National Education`s Language Center. However, only 11 local language scripts are still in use today, including Javanese, Bataknese and Balinese.

“There are about 75 million Javanese language speakers, however, only a small number of them are able to write the script,” Dendy Sugono, head of the Language Center, said on Friday. “This is indeed a sad fact, because that`s part of our culture that needs to be preserved.” Amir Tejo & Anita Rachman

Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com (17 April 2009)

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