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LANGUAGE It is an important rule that one may not use high terms when speaking about oneself; it would be poor taste to call one's head by the elegant term prabu, instead of the common word sirah, or to refer to one's feet as tiokor instead of batis. It would be a dreadful insult to speak of someone's head as tandas, meaning the head of animals. The type of language used in conversation is prescribed by one of the strict rules of caste etiquette, and the use of the wrong form is a serious offence. A prince has to be addressed as " highness " (Ratu or Agung) , but he and the people of his caste talk to everybody in the low language, except perhaps to their parents, elder brothers, and members of the priestly caste, the Brahmanas. Polite people (not all high-born people are considered polite) are supposed to address old people in the high language. There is still a fourth language, the Kawi, used on ritual occasions, in poetry and classic literature. It is archaic Javanese, in which nine out of ten words are Sanskrit; but the knowledge of Kawi rests almost entirely with the priests and scholarly Balinese. The language problem of Bali has been further complicated by the addition of Malay, now officially the language of the Dutch East Indies. It is taught in the schools and is spreading rapidly among the Balinese youth because it is considerably simpler than the difficult Balinese and is free of the caste regulations. Thus a modern Balinese scholar would require five languages for social and cultural intercourse: the high, middle, and low Balinese, plus Kawi and Malay. Such a linguist is not rare today in Bali.
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