Two uninvited keris for comments

[HughChen]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

For the kebo style keris I'd be inclined to give it as Kebo Dengen Luk Sembilan.

But there is a problem in that Kebo Dengen should be Luk Lima & it should not have an ada-ada.

In any case, the keris has good age.

Both these keris are nice, middle of the road, collectable items.

Thank you Alan, can you tell us what's the meaning of the following words?
Kebo
Dengen
Sembilan

[A. G. Maisey]

kebo is low level Javanese --- ngoko --- for water buffalo, high level --- krama (kromo) --- is maesa/maisa/mahesa, and the high level is sometimes used for this form also; Bahasa Indonesia/ Malay for "kebo" is "kerbau".

dengen is a tricky one, because it is Old Javanese, the form of Javanese in general use before the later Mataram period, & it means friend/servant/slave/acquaintance, dengen is not a misspelling or variant spelling of "dengan" which is BI/Malay for "with".

sembilan is BI/Malay for the number 9.

[HughChen]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

kebo is low level Javanese --- ngoko --- for water buffalo, high level --- krama (kromo) --- is maesa/maisa/mahesa, and the high level is sometimes used for this form also; Bahasa Indonesia/ Malay for "kebo" is "kerbau".

dengen is a tricky one, because it is Old Javanese, the form of Javanese in general use before the later Mataram period, & it means friend/servant/slave/acquaintance, dengen is not a misspelling or variant spelling of "dengan" which is BI/Malay for "with".

sembilan is BI/Malay for the number 9.

So many names for water buffalo in Jawa. So the English name of this kind of Keris is: friend of buffalo?

[A. G. Maisey]

There is no English name, but I think perhaps 'buffalo friend' might be more suitable:- no kerbau = no rice

It is not really many names for the buff, but rather many languages, Old Javanese is no longer used except in a limited degree for some literary purposes, BI is a form of Malay, & Modern Javanese has a number of levels, in palace usage I have been told there are around 11 levels of Javanese.