Contemporary Use of The Balinese Script

Babad (History)

Tutur (Advice)

Usadha (Medical Prescription)

Kidung (Chorus)

Kidung is the ritual chorus sung simultaneously by dozen singers. The most well known kidung is Kidung Wargasari, describing the descendant of God and deities cheered by various offering of Gamelan music, songs, dance, foods, and other arts to receive their blessings.

Kidung Malat is also popular with the love adventure of prince Panji and princess Rangkesari.

Kakawin (Verses)

The performance of kakawin is a ritualistic oral reading for a religious celebration, similar to that of the ancient Greek Rhapsodies. Reciting story from the epic of Ramayana,.Mahabharata, and other stories one rhapsodist reads the poem in a highly strict musical rules and another alternately translates it into a high dignified Balinese language. In contemporary Bali, numerous temple festivals and other religious celebrations feature kakawin recital on a special site with amplifier.

Sekar Rare (Children's Story Telling)

Sekar Rare is the Balinese lullaby, sung frequently by a (grand) mother to her (grand) baby, or by and among the playing children. There are a countless number of these types, with varying content from the clear narrative meaning to the tricky unsolved puns.

Most of the streets in Denpasar (the capital city of Bali) now have street names written in both Latin and Balinese. And so do the villages’ border sign (“Welcome to the ... Village”).

Traditionally, temple announcements are in Balinese script, often without any Latin scripts at all. Building names inside the temples are in Balinese script only.

Government offices’ building names are always in Balinese. But it doesn’t apply to any letterheads or documents.

Even private houses and greetings.

Perhaps the most frequent use of Balinese scripts are in ‘Sekaha Pesantian’ (Kakawin Reading Group) in banjar. A little explanation about Balinese community should help here. The smallest organization of a neighborhood is called banjar. The size of one banjar varies from ten to hundreds of families. A complete banjar has its own kindergarten, youth group, women group, gamelan musical group, kakawin reading group, and now even a internal security group (pacalang). There are around 1300 banjars exist in the island (with 3 million people). Banjars in nearby location formed desa pakraman (village). Unfortunately, the sekaha pesantian organizations are loose and no sekaha pesantian exists at the village level.

My father is a member of sekaha pesantian in our banjar. As a kid, I followed him went to the sekaha reading sessions. The situation was similar to the one in a karaoke room, everyone is eager to take turn reading. In one turn, there were three people participating; one reading (sounds more like singing) the Kawi text, one translating to Balinese, and the last one telling
the description about the meaning or the moral story of the verse. Of course the singing part is the most exciting one that also requires the higher skills. Those sessions can take hours, even from dusk until dawn.

The percentage of women in the sekaha is generally low. It is perhaps related to the traditional view of women in domestic matters and lack of interest among the women themselves. But there are no rules whatsoever about women membership, anyone can join the group. Sadly, for most of the Balinese, there are no habits of writing new literatures. Old literatures
are reproduced and recited over and over for years. Maybe writing is a strange activity for the Balinese, because of its individualistic nature compared to social gathering of sekaha sessions.

Less frequently, sekaha pasantian also formed in office or schools, which together with banjars’ sekeha continue to preserve the tradition of pasantian.

The Indonesian proclamation of Independence on August 17 th 1945 brought the Indonesian archipelago together in one state. The founding fathers of Indonesia decided on Bahasa Indonesia as the national and official language. Bahasa Indonesia originally was a dialect of Malay spoken by people of Riau in Sumatra Island. This dialect is commonly written in Latin script, and less frequently using a kind of Arabic script called Jawi. Since the introduction of Bahasa Indonesia to the Balinese people, it becomes the official language in Bali also, used commonly in schools and offices, although people still are using the native Balinese language in daily life.

Although math and sciences are taught using Bahasa Indonesia, the Balinese language and alphabets is a compulsory subject for primary and secondary school students in Bali. Since the 3rd grade in school, students spend two hours weekly to study the language and the alphabet, the same hours they also spend for learning English. For most students, learning Balinese language is fun, because most of them already use it at home and in other traditional community group. But learning the scripts is not as easy. How can a student master an alphabet if they only use it for two hours a week? There’s a popular saying among students “malajah basa bali, macane takutin” which has double meaning, “learning Balinese language, we are afraid of the reading part” or “learning Balinese language, we are afraid of tiger”. That’s why, after I graduated from high school, only one person in my class could read the Balinese script with a decent speed. And that’s after ten years of learning!

The most popular book for students learning the Balinese script is “Purwa Aksara”, by author I Wayan Simpen, A.B. This man of letters actually had written all the Purwa Aksara editions ranging from 3 rd grade until 12 th grade. They are reprinted over and over again without major modifications from <19xx> until the present date. In one text, we still can read that the price for one plate of rice is Rp 25, which is nonsense for year 2003 (at least Rp 2000 now for decent meal).

There are rarely any grammar lessons inside Purwa Aksara and the contents are mostly texts. The teachers are expected to teach the letters, grammar, and rules then use Purwa Aksara for students to practice reading. The emphasis of the course is mostly on reading, not writing. It is one reason the lack of students’ capability of reading. I personally feel that writing is essential for learning an alphabet. One can read a text fluently with continuous reading practice, then will forget it within a week. Writing (not only copying), in the other hand, would make the brain memorize the letters more permanent than only reading.

In Purwa Aksara for elementary school, a lot of the contents are nouns and their picture. For more advanced students in high school, the book contains mostly short stories. I remembered in my high school times, each student had to read one or two paragraph of text loudly in front of the class. Because of the inability of most of the students to read the whole story, we took the short cut. The first student in the teacher’s list is always read the first paragraph. He is a lucky guy (His name starts with ‘A’, that’s why he was always first). The remaining of the class guessed his/her part, and learnt only those paragraphs. If he/she wrongly guessed, he/ she was in trouble, and might stand in front of the class until the bell rang.

The English courses, which took the same two hours a week enjoyed more attention both from the teachers or the students. While teaching Balinese is a part time job (Balinese language teachers are actually teach other subjects, usually also teach Hindu Religion subject), English teachers are really English teachers. They are educated as English teacher. They can have part time job as tour guides, or giving private English courses after school times. For the students, learning English is essential for their future, as well as can improve their GPA. Balinese language subject is not part of the GPA, and they simply put no extra effort of learning it..

Will the Balinese script reading skills be lost over generations? I don’t think so. Some of the students will be interested in the script at their middle ages, like what their parents did. Personally I am not afraid that the skills will vanish. But I suggest improvements of the teaching method of Balinese script (and also language) in school. Two hours a week for ten years should produce output with better quality than what are produced now. Reading religious texts are not only for the old people, but it’s for everybody.