KORil is the Javanese name for Bima in the island of Sumbawa, but the origin
of the word is unknown.
KORINCHI. The name of a valley of the interior of Sumatra, between the
equator and the second degree of south latitude. Mr. Logan estimates its extent at
100 miles long and 50 broad, giving an area of 5,000 square miles, and he ascribes to it
a population of 75,000, or 15 to the square mile. The inhabitants are a tolerably
civilised people, practising a respectable agriculture, well clad in their own manufactures
of cotton, and living in easy circumstances. Insecurity of life and property
among them, however, is evinced by the form of their habitations, which consist, like
those of the wild inhabitants of Borneo, of barn-like dwellings, capable of accommodating
many families, sometimes to the number of forty. The people of Korinchi
are of the Malay nation, speak the Malay language, and write it in an alphabet of
their own, the same, very probably, in which it was written by all the Malays before
the adoption of the Arabic character. The country contains several lakes, but one,
tbe Danau-korinchi or lake of Korinchi, is of considerable size. On this, Mr. Charles
Campbell, an eminent botanist, the only European who is known ever to have visited
the country, sailed in 1800, and he and his companions estimated its breadth, without,
however, rendering any account of its length, at seven miles. I t abounds in
good fish, especially in a species of mullet and of carp, and its borders are the chief
seats of the agriculture and population of the country. The elevation of the valley
above the level of the sea has not been ascertained, but as the coco-palm refuses to
bear fruit in it, it is concluded that it must be considerable.
KORIPAN. The name of an ancient kingdom of Java, which was situated in
the modern district of Grobogan, within the proper country of the Javanese. Koripan
is of great celebrity in Javanese romance, but of its true history nothing is known.
KOTARINGrIN, an abbreviation of Kota-waringin, literally, “ fortress of the
Indian fig-tree,” a district of the kingdom of Banjarmasin in Borneo, and now of a
Dutch residency. This name, partly Sanscrit and partly Javanese, was probably,
like several others in the same part of Borneo, imposed by the Javanese princes of
Majapait, when they acquired a supremacy over Banjarmasin, by the marriage of a
Javanese prince with the heiress of the throne of that country. Kotaringin forms
the most westerly district of the Residency of the Dutch Bainjarmasin.
KRAMA. This is the name given by the Javanese to their ceremonial or polite
dialect, also occasionally called bahasa. Both words are Sanscrit, the first meaning order
or arrangement, and the last, speech or language. These names are applied to it in contradistinction
to the word ngoko, applied to the vernacular tongue, and which signifies
common or vulgar: The following is a brief account of this singular and unique dialect.
The ceremonial language is that of the court, or more correctly of courtiers, for the
sovereign and members of his family addresB others in the vulgar tongue, while they
themselves are addressed in the ceremonial. In epistolary writing, the ceremonial
dialect is always used, even by superiors to inferiors, unless the party addressed be
of very humble rank indeed. The exception is the sovereign, for all royal letters,
edicts, and proclamations are in the vulgar tongue, that is, in the language of command.
In books, according to the nature of the subject, both dialects are used indifferently.
In framing the polite dialect, for it is obviously a factitious language, the obj ect
seems to have been to avoid every word that had become by frequent use familiar,—
to adopt words that were not so, to borrow from other languages, and even to coin
new words, or alter old ones, for these purposes. The distinction in words does not
absolutely pervade the whole language, but there is a very near approach to it, for it
extends to every word in frequent use, including even pronouns, prepositions,
auxiliaries, particles, and numerals. In some cases, the words of the ceremonial language
are native synonyms. Thus, bafiu is water in the vulgar tongue, but toya in the
ceremonial. The ceremonial language has borrowed largely from Malay and Sanscrit.
Thus, wadi, sand, is changed into the Malay pasir, and dawa, long, into panjang, of
the same language. From the Sanscrit, we have asta, the hand, and akasa, the sky,
substituted for the Javanese words tangan and langit. If, however, the Sanscrit word
itself should have become familiar, it is rejected, and another word from the same
language or from a native source is substituted for it. Thus, jagat, the world, belongs
to the vulgar tongue, but buwana to the ceremonial,—manusa, a man, to the first,
but jalma to the last, all being alike Sanscrit.
But besides synonyms taken from obsolete native words, or from foreign languages,
the ceremonial dialect has other resources of wider application. I t converts words
of the vulgar tongue to its own purpose by a permutation of vowels and consonants,
sometimes by a combination of both these means, and sometimes by substituting a
syllable terminating in a consonant, when the word of the ordinary language happens
to end with a vowel. Of these methods, the most frequent is the permutation of
vowels, generally of the final vowel, sometimes of the medial, but never of the initial.
For this purpose, the low and broad sounding vowels, u, o, and a, are exchanged for
the high and sharp ones, &, e, and i. The vowel u, for example, belongs to the vulgar
tongue, and, sometimes, we have a scale of ascending respect, according to the quality
of the party addressed, ending as a climax in.i. The verb, to sit, is an example, for
it may be varied in four different ways, lunguh, lungah, l&ngah, and lingah. A single
change, however, is more frequent, as in the case of swarga, heaven, which becomes
swargi; mula, source, which becomes mila; and jajar, a row or rank, jejer.
When, however, a word of the vulgar tongue terminates in a slender vowel, or
from other cause is not amenable to this kind of formation, another expedient is had
recourse to. This consists in substituting for such slender vowel, a syllable ending
in consonants, which are always nasals, liquids, or the sibilant. Euphony seems the
object chiefly held in view in making these changes, as aji, to teach, becomes in this
manner ayos, in the polite dialect; w&di, fear, wados; s&gara, the sea, sagantan; and
apura, pardon, apuntan.
Sometimes the word in the ceremonial dialect is an epithet, or a translation, true
or fanciful, of that in the vulgar tongue. Thus, the sugar-cane in the vulgar tongue
is tabu, and in the polite rosan, which is literally the object with joints. Bebek
in the ordinary language is the domestic duck, which in the ceremonial becomes
kambangan, which literally means the thing that swims or floats. For words of very
frequent occurrence, the polite dialect has often several synonyms. Thus, for news,
there are two, warti and wartos, and for the heart three, nala, manah, and galih.
Names of persons are not changed in the ceremonial dialect, but those of well-known
places and even nations are. Thus the royal province of Mataram has two forms in
the polite language, Matawun and Matawis. Frequently, the word of the polite
language is a translation from that of the vulgar, as from Surabaya, Surapringa, and
Surabangi. The word bali means “ to return” in the vulgar tongue, and wangsul is
its correlative in the polite and hence the last word is also the polite name for the
island of Bali.
There is, of course, no record of the time or manner in which this singular dialect
was introduced among, or framed by the Javanese, but we may be tolerably certain
that its formation was gradual, and that in its present shape it is the accumulation
of many ages. I t contains many Sanscrit words, and we may therefore infer that it
received a large accession after the introduction of Hinduism. I t contains even a few
Arabic words, and of course has gone on increasing ever since the comparatively
recent time of 1178, the year of Javanese conversion. See J ava and Language.
KRAMAN. This word signifies in Javanese an impostor, pretending to some
great secular or spiritual mission, or both united. The simplicity and credulity of
the Javanese has, in all known periods of their history, rendered them peculiarly
amenable to the impostures of persons of this description, and there are many
examples of formidable and obstinate rebellions produced by them, such as that of
Surapati, a Balinese slave, which lasted nine years; of Mangkubume, which lasted
fifteen, and ended by splitting the kingdom of Mataram into two principalities, the
rebel being rewarded with one of them; and, lastly, the rebellion of Dipa Nagara,
whicb, after lasting four years, was brought to a conclusion only in 1830, by the
cession of four provinces to the Netherland government, with an expenditure of,
probably, not less than a million sterling. The maladministration of a province, for
any continued length of time, is pretty sure to give birth to such impostors, who,
however, after an oriental fashion, are reckoned a kind of patriots.
KRAWANG. A province of Java in the country of the Sundas, and on the northern
coast of the island. It is generally an alluvial tract, with many small streams, and one
considerable river, the Chaitarum (indigo or blue river), which disembogues into the
eastern side of the bay of Batavia. The area of Krawang is 1538 square miles, and
its population in 1850 was 125,112, which, therefore, gives little more than 81
inhabitants to the square mile, or. not above one-ninth part of the density of some
of the proper Javanese provinces of the central and eastern portions of the island. By
enumeration the number of horses in this province were computed at 5000, and that
of its homed cattle 36,000.