_Languages._--In spite of Sundanese, Madurese and the intrusive Malay, Javanese has a right to the name. It is a rich and cultivated language which has passed through many stages of development and, under peculiar influences, has become a linguistic complex of an almost unique kind. Though it is customary and convenient to distinguish New Javanese from Kavi or Old Javanese, just as it was customary to distinguish English from Anglo-Saxon, there is no break of historical continuity. Kavi (Basa Kavi, i.e. the language of poetry) may be defined as the form spoken and written before the founding of Majapahit; and middle Javanese, still represented by the dialect of Banyumas, north Cheribon, north Krawang and north Bantam, as the form the language assumed under the Majapahit court influence; while New Javanese is the language as it has developed since the fall of that kingdom. Kavi continued to be a literary language long after it had become archaic. It contains more Sanskrit than any other language of the archipelago. New Javanese breaks up into two great varieties, so different that sometimes they are regarded as two distinct languages. The nobility use one form, Kråmå; the common people another, Ngoko, the "thouing" language (cf. Fr. _tutoyant_, Ger. _dutzend_); but each class understands the language of the other class. The aristocrat speaks to the commonalty in the language of the commoner; the commoner speaks to the aristocracy in the language of the aristocrat; and, according to clearly recognized etiquette, every Javanese plays the part of aristocrat or commoner towards those whom he addresses. To speak Ngoko to a superior is to insult him; to speak Kråmå to an equal or inferior is a mark of respect. In this way Dipå Negårå showed his contempt for the Dutch General de Kock. The ordinary Javanese thinks in Ngoko; the children use it to each other, and so on. Between the two forms there is a kind of compromise, the Madya, or middle form of speech, employed by those who stand to each other on equal or friendly footing or by those who feel little constraint of etiquette. For every idea expressed in the language Kråmå has one vocable, the Ngoko another, the two words being sometimes completely different and sometimes differing only in the termination, the beginning or the middle. Thus every Javanese uses, as it were, two or even three languages delicately differentiated from each other. How this state of affairs came about is matter of speculation. Almost certainly the existence side by side of two peoples, speaking each its own tongue, and occupying towards each other the position intellectually and politically of superior and inferior, had much to do with it. But Professor Kern thinks that some influence must also be assigned to _pamela_ or _pantang_, word-taboo--certain words being in certain circumstances regarded as of evil omen--a superstition still