THE ACHEHNESE - Acehbooks.org

een followed by the Javanese and Sundanese, — a method which
certainly appears more rational, but which is on the other hand so
fraught with difficulties, that most of those who adopt it lose courage
long before they attain their purpose.
Difference Thus in Java the preparatory subjects (Arabic grammar etc.) so inbetween
the .. i i - i i r r •
methods of dispensable in theory are left in abeyance and often not practised till
instruction in t]lc vcry enc|_ yjlc pUpii after being grounded in a few elementary
vogue in Java * '
and in Acheh. manuals is immediately introduced to the greater Arabic text-books.
These he reads sentence by sentence under the guidance of a teacher
who probably knows as little of Arabic grammar as his pupil, so that
if he makes no serious mistakes in vocalizing the Arabic consonants,
he owes it to his good memory alone. After each sentence is read, the
teacher translates it into Javanese; the language employed of course
differs greatly from that of daily life, as it is a literal rendering of the
Arabic text, dealing with learned subjects and leaving technical terms
untranslated as a rule. It is only the similarity of these subjects one
with another and the unvarying style of the writers that assist the
pupil in committing to memory the text (lap a I) ') and translations
(mana or logat) '). The teacher follows up his word-for-word translation
with an explanatory paraphrase (murad) '), designed to make the
author's meaning comprehensible.
Strange as it may appear, diligent students attain in the end so
much proficiency by this curious method, as to be able to translate
from Arabic into Javanese simple text-books. They are of course liable
to gross errors, and even their vocalizing of the Arabic words is seldom
entirely accurate. Much depends on the comparative age of their tradi­
tions in affairs of grammar. Where for instance their teacher or their
teacher's teacher was well grounded in grammar, they are likely to
pass on the text in a more uncorrupted form than if it had been for
a long time past transmitted from the memory of one to that of his
successor.
The chief reason why the patience of the Javanese students docs
not become exhausted in this process, is that they feel the sum of their
knowledge augmented by each lesson. They take a pleasure in the
consciousness of having read the authoritative text (lapal) in the original
and this they would miss did they like the great majority limit them-
i) Arab. Jail — ij?>* — olyi.