[A. G. Maisey]

Yeah Bob, pretty much so, I'll only talk about Javanese, because Bahasa Indonesia is based upon Malay, and Malay is historically a market place language, it lacks the fine tuning of Javanese, and also Balinese. I will not talk about Balinese because i do not know this language particularly well. But Javanese is a very socially based language.

It is a multi level language so one addresses one's betters in a higher form of language whilst the betters address their underlings in a lower form of language, there is not an immense difference in the three or four major levels, mostly it is just the addition or substitution of "respect" words.

However, in my experience, Javanese communication relies very heavily upon the unspoken, it relies upon body language, inflection in the spoken word , and the understanding between speaker and listener.

Javanese in its spoken form is played with, in a sort of a way, in a similar fashion to the way Cockney rhyming slang is played with, the people engaged in the conversation will understand each other, a casual listener might not.

Words get changed, almost at will, FX, keferis might mean keris. A linguist once wrote that Javanese people communicate in a similar fashion to Humpty Dumpty, they believe that they own every word they speak and what they say is never more nor less than what they mean. If you don't understand, well then, that's your problem. Maybe you were not meant to understand.

Javanese is in linguistic terms not a standard language, when you add this to the various levels of the language, and to the many dialects and group forms of the language, it becomes quite difficult for an outsider to get a clear understanding of things.

Javanese culture is difficult to categorise as single culture, so if you ask would every person who speaks Javanese across the entire Javanese society understand everything that every other Javanese speaker might say, then in my opinion, not necessarily so, provided no word games are going on most people would get a good general idea of what has been said, but might need some clarification.

Javanese society is not divided into castes, but it does have social stratification. Two people who meet for the first time will usually spend a few minutes on very polite questioning in order to determine the language level that they need to use to each other. These days a lot of educated people cut straight to the chase and switch into Bahasa Indonesia, which does not have similar levels of difficulty.

Yes, complex culture, complex society.

EDIT

One other little thing that I probably should add to my comments on the nature of Javanese communication is this:- there is an overall tendency, or maybe even commitment, to try to provide responses in communication that reflect what the responder believes the other person wishes to hear. In simple terms, if we believe that the person we are speaking with is of the opinion that it is not raining, even though we can see the rain drops falling, we do not point out that it is definitely raining, we give a response that in some way agrees with his opinion.

Javanese people try not to be confrontational and not to disappoint a questioner. Truth & accuracy are not valued if they fail to agree with the perceived belief of the other person.