If I were to undertake a linguistic study in Indonesia, I would begin working on conversational Bahasa Indonesia as existent in central Java. After gaining proficiency in Indonesian, I would like to focus on the Javanese poetry that accompanies gamelan music, both the lyrics of the pesindhen (singer) and the gerong (male chorus) as well as Bawa Sekar Ageng, sacred vocal music used to introduce long gendhing pieces.
My initiative to learn Bahasa Indonesia would allow me to undertake this study with cultural bearers in their native language, allowing them to share cultural understandings in their own words.
I would incorporate elements from the SDLAP by transcribing the Javanese texts, possibly in IPA, and would like to learn the Javanese alphabet as well.
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