Re: Old Languages

On Wednesday, October 3, 2001, at 08:30 PM, Roger Mills wrote:

> A "dead" language with a considerable and fascinating literature, all but
> unknown in the West, is Old Javanese.  It's relationship to modern Jav.
> seems to be about the same as literary Old English to modern Engl., or
> Latin
> to Romance langs.-- closely related, but not the direct ancestor.  It is
> still used (though probably as memorized) in performances of the
> shadow-puppet plays in Java and Bali.   The script is elegant.  (I had a
> couple professors who were able to speak it, more or less.)
Roger, I've been curious about shadow-puppet plays for a while.  :-)
Could you recommend resources for learning (and learning about) Old
Javanese and/or modern Javanese?  I may not be able to pick up on it this
year but come the summer...

YHL