World’s Oldest Malay Script Found in Sumatra

andrewstar54

World’s Oldest Malay Script Found

Posted on 05 May 2011.

                                                                               
                                               

Uli Kozok, assistant professor of Indonesian language at the University of Hawai‘i, is studying the oldest Malay manuscript ever discovered. It appears to date from before the advent of Islam.

In 2001 I received a Research Relation grant to study the Kerinci script of central Sumatran as part of my work on the palaeography of Southeast Asia. The grant was used for the mapping of existent variants of the central Sumatran scripts that provided us with new insights into the internal relationship between the two closely related scripts.

In 2002 I received a second Research Relation grant that resulted in the spectacular discovery of what I believed was the oldest extant Malay manuscripts. This manuscript, a legal code of 34 pages that I found in the village of Tanjung Tanah, contains two texts, one in the old Malayu script, and one in an ancient form of the Kerinci script, which is very likely the missing link in the development of the Kerinci and other South Sumatran scripts from an earlier version of the Sumatran version of the kawi script [Indic-derived and used to write Old Javanese].

The research was continued in 2003, again supported by a Research Relation grant. In the meanwhile my assertion that the Tanjung Tanah manuscript is the oldest extant Malay manuscript came under attack by scholars of Javanese palaeography who argued that, on palaeographic grounds, the manuscript is not older than 200 years. As an expert in Sumatran script I immediately knew that such a late age was impossible, and also the textual evidence (e.g. the absence of any Arabic loanwords) ruled out a date as recent as the 18th century. Since I was unable to challenge their conclusion (I am not in expert of the Javanese script to which the Sumatran Malayu script is closely related), I decided to support my claim with scientific evidence and asked the owner to provide me with a small sample of the manuscript that I sent to the Rafter laboratory in Wellington, New Zealand. The result corroborated my hypothesis which was based on philological and historical evidence unanimously.

This manuscript is now beyond any doubt the oldest Malay manuscript in the world (most likely 2nd half of the 14th century) predating the hitherto oldest manuscript by nearly 200 years! …

My research on the Tanjung Tanah manuscript (which is the only Malay manuscript in a pre-Islamic script) is significant in that it makes a number of theories on early Malay literacy obsolete, and forces us to entirely rethink the intellectual history of the pre-Islamic Malay world.

If it can be established that the Tanjung Tanah manuscript is palaeographically related to the 13th century Adityawarman inscriptions, we will not [only] have convincing proof that the manuscript dates to the 14th century, but it is also very likely that the manuscript will force us to entirely rethink Sumatran palaeography that hitherto had been closely linked to Java with its abundance of stone inscriptions and (from the 14th century onwards) manuscripts [in Arabic-derived Jawi script].

The translation of the manuscript, and the analysis of the language it is written in will give us new insights into the early Malay legal system, the political relationship between the coastal Malay maritime kingdoms with the upriver communities in the Bukit Barisan mountain range, but also into the development of the Malay language since this is the oldest existing substantial body of text in the Malay language.

HangPC2

AKsara Kerinci.....

5229

AKSARA RENCONG a.k.a TULISAN RENCONG - TULISAN MELAYU ASLI

Siapa kata orang Melayu tiada tulisan ciptaan bangsa mereka sendiri? Sebelum tulisan Rumi digunakan dalam persuratan bahasa Melayu, orang-orang Melayu pernah menggunakan sekurang-kurangnya empat jenis tulisan iaitu Rencong, Kawi, Palava dan Jawi. Antara keempat-empat tulisan tersebut, hanya tulisan Rencong sahaja yang dikenalpasti sebagai tulisan Melayu yang asli. Tetapi sayang, tulisan Rencong, Kawi dan Palava telah lama pupus manakala Jawi pula dalam keadaan nyawa-nyawa ikan.

SEJARAH AKSARA RENCONG





Aksara Rencong telah digunakan dalam persuratan Bahasa Melayu Purba (zaman sebelum kedatangan pedagang India ke Kepulauan Melayu).

‘Aksara Rencong’ ialah huruf-huruf Melayu asli yang digunakan oleh orang-orang Melayu pada zaman purba dalam sistem penulisan Bahasa Melayu Purba. 'Rencong' adalah perkataan Melayu yang bererti 'serong' dan ia dikenali sedemikian kerana huruf-hurufnya yang serong. Aksara Rencong didapati telah wujud lebih awal daripada aksara Jawa Kuno (tulisan Kawi). Ia juga merupakan tulisan Melayu tertua yang digunakan dalam sistem persuratan bahasa Melayu sejak abad keenam masihi iaitu ketika zaman kerajaan Melayu Srivijaya di Sumatera. Walaubagaimanapun, tulisan Rencong dipercayai telah pun digunakan sebelum abad ketiga masihi lagi. Aksara ini dicipta oleh orang-orang Melayu dengan meniru bentuk-bentuk cabang, ranting, potongan kayu dan bentuk aliran sungai. Tulisan Melayu Purba ini telah dijumpai pada tahun 1892 pada sebatang tiang batu iaitu Batu Bersurat Kota Kapur di Kota Kapur, Bangka Barat, Sumatera, Indonesia. Selain Rencong, aksara Kawi dan Palava (kedua-duanya dari India) juga pernah digunakan dalam persuratan Bahasa Melayu Kuno. Namun begitu, aksara Rencong merupakan satu-satunya tulisan yang dicipta oleh orang Melayu tanpa pengaruh dari luar Nusantara atau Alam Melayu. Dengan menggunakan huruf-huruf Rencong, Kawi dan Palava, orang-orang Melayu Purba dan Melayu Kuno menulisnya di atas kulit-kulit kayu, kulit binatang, daun-daun lontar, kepingan-kepingan logam dan juga pada batu-bata (termasuk batu bersurat).

Setelah penyebaran Islam di Kepulauan Melayu, orang-orang Melayu Klasik cuba untuk terus menggunakan aksara Rencong (serta Kawi dan Palava) untuk menulis tentang Islam. Mereka mendapati ketiga-tiganya tidak sesuai kerana tidak mampu untuk merakam bunyi perkataan-perkataan baru dari al-Quran dan hadis secara tepat. Daripada mencipta atau menambah huruf baru pada aksara Rencong, Kawi atau Palava, orang-orang Melayu Klasik telah mengambil keputusan untuk mengabaikan terus ketiga-tiga tulisan tersebut. Sebaliknya, orang-orang Melayu Klasik cuba mengeksperimennya ke atas huruf-huruf Arab dengan mengejanya dalam bahasa Melayu. Hasilnya, lahirlah tulisan Jawi yang berasaskan huruf-huruf Arab dengan beberapa huruf tambahan dan digunapakai dalam sistem persuratan Bahasa Melayu Klasik. Walaubagaimanapun, aksara Rencong terus digunakan di Minangkabau dan Sumatera Selatan (Bangkahulu dan hulu Palembang), kekal hingga kurun ke-18 iaitu sebelum Belanda menjajah Indonesia.





Tulisan Kawi dan Palava mula digunakan dalam persuratan Bahasa Melayu Kuno selepas diperkenalkan oleh pedagang dari India.

Tulisan Jawi mengambil alih peranan sebagai sistem penulisan Bahasa Melayu Klasik selepas kedatangan Islam di Kepulauan Melayu. (Huruf-huruf di dalam bulatan adalah keunikan bahasa Melayu dan tidak dijumpai di dalam tulisan Arab).

p/s : genot ka sapa taw kn pasal menda nih?

areenarena

x faham  bahase org putih..persoalan adakah tulisan itu tulisan indonesia atau melayu..bukan apa takut indonesia mengamuk orang melayu claim dorang punya..

genot

tulisan tu tulisan hindu... orang2 ni yang ajar ammma

genot

nah pallava tulis tangan, bahasa melayu moden

winamp05

Reply 6# genot


ko paham tak apa yg manuscript tu cakap ? terjemahkan la untuk kitorang.

genot

hehehehehee
aku ada simpan lagi jampi2 buddho yg x dan nak bakarq