Kawi Language

Kawi Language

Kawi (from Sanskrit: kavi, "poet") is a literary and prose language on the islands of Java, Bali, and Lombok, based on Old Javanese, a language with a sizable vocabulary of Sanskrit loanwords. Kawi is the ancestor language of modern Javanese. The name "kawi" is derived from the root ku, which in Sanskrit means “poet”, and, in derived forms, a “wise, educated man”. The syllabic meter of Kawi poetry is sekar kawi, which means “flowers of the language”, sekar itself deriving from the Sanskrit "sekhara" (“garland”). All Javanese languages are hierarchical and stratified, with strict social conventions for appropriate language subsets to be used for one's superiors or social and cultural functions. Kawi is commonly considered the pinnacle language.

Read more about Kawi Language:  Writing System, Usage, Literature, Scholars

Famous quotes containing the word language:

    Play for young children is not recreation activity,... It is not leisure-time activity nor escape activity.... Play is thinking time for young children. It is language time. Problem-solving time. It is memory time, planning time, investigating time. It is organization-of-ideas time, when the young child uses his mind and body and his social skills and all his powers in response to the stimuli he has met.
    James L. Hymes, Jr. (20th century)