Gustav's Discovery

[A. G. Maisey]

Here's a good little extra one for you, this is also from Waluyodipuro, 'Dhuwung'. This is an old text published 1959.

Compare with previous.

tengil --- this means 'a bulge or a swelling', I cannot remember hearing it used as a keris term, except to describe an obvious bulge, usually one that looks a bit out of place, but here it seems as if Waluyodipuro knew it as a keris term

lanjarngirim --- I do not know if this is a word or a description, I don't know it as a keris term, but I understand the sense in Javanese as "something extra that has been sent", in Indonesian, it might be "something long and tapering that has been sent". Frankly, to me, it just doesn't make sense. I just ran it past two native speakers of Javanese,both from Solo, both asked me to put it in a sentence, out of context, even as a descriptor, they had no idea what it meant.

Fun, isn't it?

EDIT

OK, it took a bit of effort, but I found some handwritten Javanese notes that translate as:-

"The thingil or lanjarngirim is placed below the eri-pandan'

So Waluyodipuro understood 'lanjarngirim' as an alternate name for 'thingil', and 'tengil' is simply dialect for 'thingil'.

Really great fun working with Javanese.

Wonderland language.

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."