2008/01/01 by W. van der Molen · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Asian Studies and History #Linguistic, Cultural, and Literary Studies #Language, Linguistics, Cultural Analysis #Malay #Arabic #Style (visual arts) #Poetry #Indonesian #Archipelago #Literature #History #Art #Linguistics #Philosophy #Archaeology
paper · pdf · doi:10.1163/22134379-90003689
openalex publication_date 2008/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
The allegedly satisfactory state of affairs suggested by the above quotation relates to one of the most intriguing inscriptions of the Indonesian archipelago, the Malay poem on one of the two tombstones (nisan) of a princess in Minye Tujuh, Aceh. This inscription, dated 781 AH (1380 AD), is written not in the usual Arabic script but in so-called Old Sumatran characters. The particular style which caught the attention of the Dutch epigrapher J.G. de Casparis and which made the inscription so difficult to read refers to the influence of the Arabic script on these old characters. Looking for an explanation of this influence, De Casparis (1975:58-9) suggests that it may have been a matter of training: the Arabic script must have been the most familiar type of script for the clerk charged with the reproduction of the text in stone in old characters.