I am indebted to Edwin Wieringa and Thoralf Hanstein, without whose discovery this article would not have been possible. I wish to furthermore thank the Orientabteilung of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin for an early facsimile scan of the 1696 poster. My thanks also go to Annabel Gallop for helping me with the Malay text, to Claudine Salmon and Yunpei Deng who helped me with the Chinese text, and to Roderick Orlina, David Moeljadi and Tom Hoogervorst for helping out with Chinese character fonts.
I am particularly grateful to Gerhard Ertl, former director of the Physical Chemistry Department of the Fritz Haber Institute, Berlin, and the present director Martin Wolf, for the generous opportunity to use Department facilities in my linguistic and culture-historical studies, and also to Marcel Krenz, Albrecht Ropers, and Frank Quadt, for invaluable technical support.
1It is surely no news to anyone that history is not a singular thread or chain of individual happenings, but a multi-dimensional complex of multifarious interwoven processes, presenting itself to the student in countless facets. Consequently, any single historiographical document may prove to be of significance in numerous aspects.
- 1 The original is too large to reproduce here in facsimile, but an electronic scan is accessible on t (...)
2While choosing perceptible demonstration material for a lecture in Berlin in March 2012, Edwin Wieringa of the University of Cologne, assisted by Thoralf Hanstein of the Berlin State Library, made a remarkable discovery in that library’s collection: a rolled 52´73.5 cm poster with four text columns—ca. 23, 16.7, 16.4 and 15.4 cm wide—in Dutch, Malay, Javanese, and Chinese respectively. Obtaining a scan of the poster roll from the library1 for a closer study, I found it to open unexpected insights into aspects of VOC colonial governance.
- 2 See Appendix 1, I will refer to it as van Outhoorn (1696). An English translation is given in Appen (...)
3The Dutch text, dated July 24, 1696, represents a decree of the governor general in Batavia, Willem van Outhoorn.2 It is quite unique, because in the Netherlands-Indies Placard Book (van der Chijs 1885–1900) that provides a documentation of such official documents, comparable texts were only published in abridged and often reedited form. The inspection of stylistic and orthographic particularities of the presently reviewed unabridged and not reedited original can therefore be expected to provide new social anthropological insights into the Indies-Dutch community of VOC employees and functionaries.
- 3 Valentyn (1726: 324); Encyclopædie (1917–1921: 3.216); Molhuysen et al. (1924: 1087–9); Stapel (193 (...)
4Governor General Willem van Outhoorn (*1635 Larike, Ambon; ?1720, Batavia) was the son of a Dutch community chief in Maluku. When his father, meanwhile governor of Banda, died in 1653, he was studying law in Leiden, the Netherlands. Returning to the Archipelago in 1659, he successfully climbed the career ladder, and was appointed governor general in 1691.3 He was thus the first Indonesian-born VOC governor general, which provides a further interesting aspect to the subject of this discussion.
5His decree, having the form of a public announcement, forbids the opening of new sugar mills, arrack distilleries, chalk burners, brick and tile kilns, and lumber mills in Batavia and environs for reason of scarcity of firewood. Ironically enough, this seems to have been completely ignored, making an inspection of the circumstances around the decree’s issuance interesting too.
6The presently discovered poster roll is not the original placard of van Outhoorn’s decree that is recorded in the Placard Book under the date of June 26 (van der Chijs 1885–1900: 3.405–407), twenty-eight days earlier than the date of the poster. For sake of convenience I write placard for the original document, and practically synonymous poster for a publicly displayed copy of it (a so-called publicatie, literally “publication”), also when one such a poster was subsequently archived besides the original placard. I was unable to acquire a copy of the original placard of van Outhoorn’s decree from the Arsip Nasional Republik Indonesia and can only quote it from the strongly abridged record given in the Placard Book.
- 4 With the exception of some short excerpts, I will not touch upon the Malay, Javanese, and Chinese t (...)
- 5 A catalogue of the archive that served as source for the Placard Book is provided in Balk et al. (2 (...)
7The last paragraph in the recorded placard, as well as in the Dutch text of the discovered poster, contains the order that local officials display the decree in Dutch, Malay, Javanese, and Chinese on posters in their respective areas of jurisdiction.4 Such locally displayed posters were not generally archived.5 But the presently considered roll is not some arbitrary poster. Besides bearing Governor General Willem van Outhoorn’s signature is countersigned by a C. van Swoll, noted in a subscript to be of the rank of a clerk (Clerck).
Fig. 1 – Signatures of W. van Outhoorn and C. van Swoll in the van Outhoorn (1696) poster.
- 6 Encyclopædie (1917–1921: 4.228–229); Molhuysen et al. (1927: 1195–1197), but in 1695 according to V (...)
8This is apparently Christoffel van Swoll (*1663, Amsterdam; †1718, Batavia), who was appointed secretary of the high government in 1696.6 His signature implies that the poster was displayed at the office of the high government, making it a government document as well. The simple signature of the higher ranking van Outhoorn, compared with the ostentatious one of van Swoll with its extravagant swirls, see Fig. 1, suggests that the former was inserted per procurationem by the copyist.
9Indeed, many entries in the Placard Book carry two dates: that when the decree was laid down, and that of its public display (van der Chijs 1885–1900: 1.viii). Hence, the notation of two dates indicates that an original placard as well as the poster displayed at the office of the high government had been archived. In our example, only one date is given in the Placard Book, the earlier one, meaning that the placard was archived, but not the official poster. For decrees of Governor General van Outhoorn, for which the Placard Book does provide two dates—twenty-three in all—the difference in date ranges from one to seventy-two days. In three examples it is between twenty-five and twenty-nine days, so that the delay of twenty-eight days of the presently inspected poster roll is not unusual.
10The explicit provision to provide the posters with translations seems to have been unique for decrees of that time. Only some decades later, since the 1740s, are Malay translations explicitly noted in the archives. The earliest set that included placards with Malay translations is dated from February 27, 1744, till December 19, 1748 (Balk et al. 2007: 244 no. 2283). It is possible, however, that translations were provided in not-archived posters displayed in areas with a mostly Non-Dutch-speaking population.
11Also for the period, for which Malay translations are noted in the archives, specific orders for such translations are not noted in the Placard Book (van der Chijs 1885–1900: 5.136–542). However, as the placards are not quoted in full, while several explicitly address Chinese, or Malays and other indigenes, some such orders possibly were not noted in the Placard Book.
12However, for some decrees with relevance for Chinese persons, an explicit order to include translations is recorded in the Placard Book. The earliest instance—besides van Outhoorn (1696)—seems to have been Governor General Adriaan Valckenier’s “Act of amnesty for Chinese” of October 22, 1740 (van der Chijs 1885–1900: 4.513), which provided:
… opdat een iegelyk van dese onse intentie g’informeert moge werden, gelasten wy dese, sowel inde Nederduytse als de inlandse talen, alomme te publiceeren en affigeeren.
… so that everyone be informed about this our intention, we order that this be made public and be displayed in all places in the Dutch as well as indigenous languages.
13The next instance was in a decree by Governor General Gustaaf Willem van Imhoff forbidding Chinese persons to offer New-Year presents to employees of the Company, dated December 3 and 12, 1743 (van der Chijs 1885–1900: 5.114):
En, opdat niemand hier van ignorantie soude kunnen pretendeeren, soo lasten en beveelen wy dese, in de Maleydsche en Chineese tale overgeset zynde, alomme te affigeeren.
And, so that nobody should pretend ignorance about this, we order and command that this, translated in the Malay and Chinese languages, be displayed in all places.
14Although not explicitly stated in van Outhoorn (1696), it may be assumed that it too was addressed in particular to Chinese entrepreneurs, because these were the principal producers of sugar, arrack, etc. Indeed, the above-cited 1740 and 1741 decrees suggest that illegal business activity of VOC employees were enhanced by contacts with Chinese merchants and moneylenders (compare Ong 1943: 60–61).
- 7 De Haan (1910–1912: 1.7–8, 2.13 fn. 1; 1935: 329); Encyclopædie (1917–1921: 2.694). It is presently (...)
15The production of sugar, arrack, and the other items indicated in the decree indeed required a steady supply of firewood which was stored since very early at some few specially reserved places (de Haan 1935: 189). A particular role was played by Cornelis Senèn, a Bandanese-born schoolmaster (meester) and church preacher (Brumund 1864: 84), who began providing wood from five square kilometers of forest confined between the Cipinang and Ciliwung rivers. The area would come to be named after him as Meester Cornelis.7
- 8 Day (1904: 69). The text of the contract is reproduced in de Jonge (1875: 324–327).
16By the mid 1690s, the timber reserves in Meester Cornelis were depleted, and this was apparently the reason for van Outhoorn’s decree of 1696. Nevertheless, in complete disregard of it, the number of sugar mills simply continued to increase, reaching a maximum of 130 in 1710 (Hooyman 1781: 238). This even proceeded with complicity of the administration: a tripartite contract between the government, indigenous landowning nobility and Chinese entrepreneurs for a new sugar production enterprise was signed in 1707 in Cirebon (Cheribon).8 The number of arrack production sites increased even longer: twelve distilleries were reported for 1712, eighteen for 1715, seventeen for 1752, and twenty for 1761 (Hooyman 1781: 177–178; de Haan 1935: 328).
17Consequently, shortage of firewood remained a problem throughout the eighteenth century (see Jacobi 1784). This led at first to relocation of sugar mills ever further from the city, and later also to a forced decrease in their number to eighty in 1738, and sixty-six in 1750 (de Haan 1935: 323–324). Van Outhoorn’s decree of 1696 was thus motivated by an objective problem, and its neglect by both the public and administration all the more surprising, raising questions about its political background.
- 9 See Boxer (1965: 23–24); Steins Bisschop & Wiersma (2002: 37); Mahdi (2007: 22). This already appli (...)
- 10 See also Boxer (1965: 268ff.).
18The VOC was a revolutionary trailblazer of corporate enterprise. Sailings around Africa to the sources of coveted spices required such an enormous amount of capital, as could only be provided through collaboration of all the involved previously competing companies as one corporation, an effective mode of enterprise till our days.9 However, the period of gradual but steady areal growth and power consolidation of VOC governance and entrepreneurial success in the Archipelago up to the late seventeenth century (see Stapel 1939: 42–422 and Gaastra 2002: 55–61) was followed by a time of internal controversies. Van Leur (1955: 266-267, 270–271) refers to this as a 17th versus 18th century “up-and-down,”10 however, the reversal apparently already happened during the last two decades of the 17th century.
- 11 Valentyn (1726: 316); Encyclopædie (1917–1921: 1.435); Stapel (1939: 425).
19It began with the governor-generalship of Cornelis Speelman (from 1681 till 1684) who had caused considerable losses for the Company (Stapel 1939: 425–426). To avoid internal disunity through competition, VOC employees had been strictly forbidden to engage in private business. However, temptation and opportunity prevailed, leading to formation of adverse interest groups, undermining the government’s structural stability (Day 1904: 101–105). As successor of Cornelis Speelman, the government council surprisingly elected the uninfluential Joannes Camphuys (governed from 1684 till 1691). Many had reportedly voted for him by default, to avoid giving their secret vote to a competitor,11 revealing the extent of internal disunity.
- 12 Encyclopædie (1917–1921: 4.228–229); Molhuysen et al. (1927: 1196); van Putten (2002: 120).
20Camphuys was succeeded in 1691 by van Outhoorn who was allegedly not effective in dealing with corruption (Rijnenberg 1867: 80), but had own interests that led to political controversies (see van Putten 2002: 105–106), undermining his administrative authority. He finally resigned in 1701 (Rijnenberg 1867: 80; Encyclopædie 1917–1921: 3.216), but had to remain in office till 1704, because only then could his son-in-law, Joan van Hoorn (*1653, Amsterdam; ?1711, Amsterdam)—whom he had managed to get appointed as his successor—finally take office. Above-cited Christoffel van Swoll had directed serious accusations of nepotism against van Outhoorn and van Hoorn (Molhuysen et al. 1924: 804–806; van Putten 2002: 105–106), revealing his enmity. Van Swoll was indeed noted for acting strictly against private business interests.12 Whether, however, his enmity towards van Outhoorn may explain why the official poster of the latter’s decree was not archived, but got sidetracked, to finally end up in a Berlin library, remains a speculation.
21Particularities of the language of the decree are of interest not only from a purely linguistic perspective. The presently reviewed poster is a relatively unique, genuine, and complete original of a ca. 1340-word late seventeenth-century document written by VOC officials in the colony. It represents a remarkable corpus of contemporaneous Indies-Dutch official style, which allows certain insights into social aspects of the community of Dutch VOC employees.
- 13 Veth (1850: 24); Freijss (1859: 24-25); Bickmore (1868: 21); Schuchardt (1891: 150).
22As noted above, Willem van Outhoorn was Indonesian born. The first language learned by Dutch children born in the colony typically was not Dutch, but the Malay vernacular of their nannies.13 However, the Dutch text of the original placard was likely to have been written by a secretary or scribe, the more so that of the poster, so the orthography probably did not directly reflect van Outhoorn’s personal spelling. Besides that, the decree represented a resolution of the Council of India, the “High Government,” so the text should probably be seen as an example of official language use by Indies-Dutch functionaries in general.
- 14 See à Winschooten (1681: 175); van der Sijs (2003: 205–206); Mahdi (2007: 128–131).
- 15 Marcel Devic (1876: 33–34); Yule & Burnell (1903: 36); Mahdi (2007: 201–206).
23Memoirs of seventeenth-century visitors to the Archipelago had noted the development of a specific locally assimilated Indies-Dutch community. Their members were known as oorlam “person with experience in the east” (from Malay orang lama “old-timer”), as opposed to oorambaar , or simply baar, “greenhorn” (Malay orang baru “newcomer”).14 One feature was the acquisition of Malayisms in their speech. Nevertheless, although oriental loanwords do occur in the Placard Book, the alternatingly spelled word arack ~ arak “arrack,” which was already well known in Europe,15 is the only one I found in van Outhoorn’s 1696 decree. Actually, the latter document seems to avoid any particularities of contemporaneous Indies-Dutch language use altogether. Instead, it exhibits an exaggeratedly presumptuous official style.
24This is characterized in particular by an excessive length of sentences that encompass long chains of (occasionally more than a dozen) clauses, making it difficult to follow the line of reasoning. Excluding the header and signature lines (lines. 1–3 and 75–78), the entire main text consists of only nine sentences. The first two encompass 319 and 309 words respectively, and the seven remaining ones an average of ninety-five words each. For comparison, this four-sentence paragraph consists of only seventy-six words.
25Comprehensibility is further hampered by frequent replacement of an explicit reference by voorsz[egt] “aforementioned” or deselve “the same,” respectively twelve and eleven times. Another feature is frequent and unnecessary use of Latinisms, apparently aimed at demonstrating cultivated language competence. The redundancy of Latinisms is particularly demonstrated by accompaniment of an indigenous Dutch synonym, for example (with text line number on the left):
5:
|
accresseert ofte toeneemt “increases or grows”;
|
36-37:
|
aen ons te demonstreren, ofte over te brengen “to demonstrate,
|
|
or bring up to us”;
|
60:
|
besit ofte possessie “ownership or possession.”
|
26Such synonym pairs occasionally also involved two borrowings:
64:
|
onse ordre en dispositie “our order and disposal.”
|
27That this style of duplicate expression was not particular to van Outhoorn (1696) is apparent from the above-cited passages from decrees of Valckenier (publiceeren en affigeeren “make public and display”) and van Imhoff (lasten en beveelen wy “we order and command”).
28A further circumstantiality is naming an action as a succession of the decision to do something and then doing it, for example:
12:
|
hebben goetgevonden te ordonneren, gelijk wij ordonneren
bij desen “have considered [it] suitable to ordain, and we
hereby do ordain”;
|
26:
|
is met eenen goet gevonden te ordonneren, gelijk bij desen
werd geordonneert “[it] is now found suitable to ordain, and
[it] is hereby ordained”.
|
29In one quite complicatedly formulated instance, such a sequential expression of an administrative act is (perhaps unwittingly) accompanied by a double negation:
46-47:
|
… soo is al met eenen goetgevonden een ijgelijk wien het ook
soude mogen wesen te verbieden, gelijk verboden wert bij desen, geen
hout altoos, onder wat pretext het soude mogen sijn, meer te kappen
ofte te halen “…[it] is now found good to forbid any each one whom
ever it may be, so be [it] hereby forbidden, to chop or fetch no wood at
any time, under whatever pretext it may be.”
|
30This abundance of redundant expressive means, explicit repetitions, and unnecessarily circumstantial formulations seems more than one might expect for mere demonstration of own official importance. To my mind, it is an inversion of the oorlam versus [ooram]baar apposition mentioned above. It is not about a newcomer from Europe seeking to demonstrate assimilation to life in the East, but an old-timer feeling obliged to prove his European education by exaggeratedly pretentious language.
31This apparently became so common in the writing of VOC officials in the Archipelago, that on September 3, 1735, the annoyed management in the Netherlands ordered that official reports be henceforth kept “short and clear” (kort en klaer), repeating this again on July 19, 1736 (van der Chijs 1885–1900: 4.385 and 396). It was apparently this excessive verbosity too, that motivated the quite drastic abridgement of recorded texts in the Placard Book. Therefore, we are fortunate to have in the present poster an authentic full-length example of that style.
32The decree repeats the lengthy paratactic listing “sugar mills, arrack distilleries, chalk burners, brick and tile kilns, as well as lumber mills” in slight variations altogether ten times:
- 16 See facsimile of the list from line 24 in Fig. 2a.
4-5:
|
Suikermolens Arack en kalk branderijen, Item Steen en pannebackerijen mitsgaders Houtsagerijen
|
7:
|
suijkermaekers, arack en kalkbranders steen en pannebackers mitsgaders houtsagers
|
14-15:
|
Suikermolens, Arack ofte kalkbranderijen, Steen en pannebackerijen, Item Houtsagerijen
|
16-17:
|
Suijkermolen, Arak ofte kalkbranden, Steen ende pannebacken, ofte houtsagen
|
19-20:
|
Suikermolen, Arak ofte kalkbranderijen, Steen ofte pannebackerijen en Houtsagerijen
|
24:
|
suijkermolens, arak branderijen, kalkovens, steen en pannebackerijen Item Houtsagerijen16
|
27-28:
|
suikermolens, arak branderijen, kalkovens, steen en pannebackerijen ofte houtsagerijen
|
31-32:
|
Suijkermolens, Arak branderijen, kalkovens, Steen en pannebackerijen als Houtsagerijen
|
34-35:
|
Suijkermolens, Arakbranderijen, kalkovens, steen en pannebackerijen, ofte Houtsagerijen
|
38-39:
|
Suijkermolens Arak branderijen kalkovens Steen en pannebackerijen, Item Houtsagerijen
|
Fig. 2 – Facsimile reproduction of the list of production sites (with the respective reading direction indicated by a grey arrow): (a) in line 24 of the Dutch text, split here into two lines; (b, c) in lines 6 and 28 respectively of the Malay text; (d) in columns 3–4 of the Chinese text.
33Noteworthy here is also the alternation of Latin item (in four lists) with Dutch mitsgaders “so too, as well as” (in one), ofte “or” (three), en “and” (one), and als “as [also]” (one), again demonstrating the redundancy of using the Latinism.
34As though to demonstrate how superfluous this frequent repetition is, the Chinese version, being the one directly addressing those whom the decree actually concerned, conveys the message of the decree with 432 characters—less than one third the number of words of the Dutch text—only citing the paratactic listing twice, uniformly rendered (in right-to-left columns 2 and 3–4; see facsimile of the latter rendering in Fig. 2d):
- 17 Chinese orthography of the 18th century, particularly of dialects of the South and the diaspora, is (...)
zhèbù jiǔzào huīyáo wǎzhuānliáo fāngpéng (𣞢廍酒灶灰䆙瓦磚寮枋棚).17
sugarcane mill, liquor distillery, lime oven, tile brick shack, timber shed.
35Indeed, the synopsis of the decree in the Placard Book (van der Chijs 1885–1900: 3.405–407) too is only a little over 400 words long. It furthermore provides the full list of the production sites only once, in the introductory heading. In the further text, the list is referred to representatively as suiker-molens, enz. “sugar mills, etc.,” and that too only four times. There was no reason not to similarly shorten the list at repeated citation in the original text of the decree. Indeed, in line 30 of van Outhoorn (1696) too, it is given as araksbranderijen Etc:a “arrack distilleries etc.,” rendered in the Placard Book as arak-branderijen, enz.
- 18 With variations in the Jawi-script calligraphy that do not show in the transliteration—compare facs (...)
36In the Jawi-script Malay version, which apparently strives to approach the Dutch original more closely than the other translations, the listing is nevertheless only repeated eight times (in the lines 6, 12–13, 17, 20, 21–22, 23–24, 25, and 28) uniformly18 as:
penggilīngan gūla dān tempat memāsaq āraq dān pembākar kāpur dān bāta dān genting dān pegergajiyan kāyū.
sugar mill and place for cooking arrack and burning lime and brick and tiles and sawing wood.
37The excessive verbosity and redundancy of employed expressive means was however not an individual feature of Willem van Outhoorn’s writing. As example passages from two other decrees quoted above, as well as the annoyed response of the home office, demonstrate, this seems to have been a common feature of Indies Dutch official texts. However, particularities in expressive means used explicitly in the decree are likely to represent formulations of persons in politically responsible positions, rather than of secretaries or scribes, and van Outhoorn was their chief and personally responsible as signatory.
38Although particular spelling features of the verbatim-quoted passage of the placard possibly represent van Outhoorn’s personal style, the likelihood that it actually reflected the personal qualifications of the scribe or secretary are significantly greater. This too however, will open insights into general language use in the colony.
39In some aspects, the spelling in van Outhoorn (1696) conforms to contemporaneous developments in the Netherlands. For example, the word for “jurisdiction” is spelled jurisdictie with internal s in the poster as well as in the passage of the placard quoted verbatim in the Placard Book. The spelling in Middle Dutch had been juridictie (Verwijs & Verdam 1885-1929: 3.1080 sub juridictie), but the s of the Latin precursor was restored during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Woordenboek 1882–1926: 7/1.555), implying that the involved Indies-Dutch writers were up-to-date on this point.
40In those days, the spelling of words tended to variegate even in print publications. In the poster text too, one finds examples like ijgelijk (twice) ~ ijegelijk (once) “each, every”, tijt (twice) ~ tijd (three times) “time,” cf. also suiker (four times) ~ suijker (six) “sugar” in the production-site listings quoted above. These variants are all represented in Verwijs & Verdam (1885–1929: sub iegelijc, suker, and tijt). Noteworthy are some consistent spelling differences between poster (cited with line-numbers) and verbatim-quoted part of the placard, compare:
- 19 English bailiff and (Middle) Dutch baljuw ~ bailluw are cognate, both from Latin baillivus.
8-10:
|
voorsz: neringen ... moeijelijke processen krakelen en sware banquerotten
|
placard:
|
voorsz. neeringen ... moeyelycke processen, crackeelen ende swaere bancqueroeten aforementioned businesses ... difficult processes, quarrels and severe bankruptcies
|
30-38:
|
de Jurisdictie van den Baljuw ... het ware getal van Soodanige Suijkermolens, ... met bijvoeginge waar deselve sijn gelegen, en wanneerse sijn opgeregt ... soodanigen dispositie over ijder van deselve te laten gaen, als wij dat ten beste onser Ingesetenen, sullen oordelen en bevinden te behoren
|
placard:
|
de jurisdictie van den Bailluw ... het waere getal van sodanighe suyker-molens, ... met byvoeginge, waer deselve syn gelegen en wanneerse zyn opgerigt ... sodaenighe dispositie over yeder van deselve laeten gaen, als wy dat ten beste onser ingesetenen, sullen oordeelen ende bevinden te behooren the jurisdiction of the Bailiff19 ... the true number of such sugar mills,... with addition of where these are located, and when they were set up... proceed with such disposition over each of them, as we shall judge and decide to be in the best interest of our residents
|
62-66:
|
behoorlijke aentekeninge te laten doen waar soodanige landen sijn gelegen, ... daarop aftewagten ende dat onaengesien Imand ... eenig besit vergunt ofte gegeven mogten sijn ’t welk dan bij voorsz: aentekeninge mede voorgestelt
|
placard:
|
behoorlycke aenteeckeninge laeten doen, waer sodanige landen zyn gelegen, ... daerop aff te wachten ende dat onaengesien yemandt ... eenich besit vergunt ofte gegeven mochte zyn, ’t welcke dan by voorsz. aenteeckeninge mede voorgestellt let proper notation be made where such lands are located, ... await and regardless of whether somebody... may have been granted or given any possession, the which should then have been presented or declared at aforementioned notation
|
41The consistent ij of the poster as against y of the placard were alternative renderings of one and the same, but the former is more consistent with modern spelling. The initial z in the spelling of zyn “his” in the placard, however, conforms better to modern spelling than the s in sijn of the poster. The initial of a word in the midst of a sentence in the poster is occasionally written with a capital letter, as one can see in several text-passages quoted above (also in the paratactic listings of production sites). This is not so in the verbatim-quoted passage of the placard which follows modern orthographic rules on this point, capitalizing only the initial of the first word in a sentence, proper names and titulary terms.
42With regard to poster/placard baljuw / bailluw “bailiff” and banquerotten / bancqueroeten “bankruptcies,” Verwijs & Verdam (1885–1929: sub baliu) note both variants of the former, while those of the latter are attested to in Woordenboek (1882–1998: sub bankbreuk and bankroet), but the base-final oe in the placard conforms better to modern bankroet.
43A Dutch vowel before an intervocalic consonant is long by default, and vowel length is therefore not explicitly indicated in Modern Dutch spelling. One frequent spelling particularity in the above quotation pairs is that long vowels are explicitly spelled as such before an intervocalic consonant in the placard, but not in the poster. In this respect the spelling in the poster is more modern than that in the placard, compare:
poster/placard:
|
behoren / behooren “belong, should be”;
|
imand / yemandt “somebody”;
|
|
krakelen / crackeelen “quarrels”;
|
laten / laeten “to let”;
|
|
neringen / neeringen “businesses”;
|
oordelen / oordeelen “judge”;
|
|
sware / swaere “heavy.”
|
|
44In some instances, however, the situation is ambiguous, e.g.
45soodanige ~ soodanigen / sodanighe ~ sodaenighe “such.”
46For some entries, the Middle Dutch dictionary of Verwijs & Verdam (1885–1929) does not include variants with explicit long-vowel notation (for example ibid.: sub behoren, and sware). In most other instances, however, such variant spelling was attested to, for example oordeelen (sub delen), eenich ~ eenig (sub enich), krackeelen ~ krakkeelen (sub crakeel), neeringhe ~ neeringen (sub neringe), sodaenigh (sub sodanich), or [aen-]teekeninge (sub tekeninge), and in the case of imand / yemandt explicit indication of vowel length even was the rule (ibid.: sub ieman).
- 20 The cluster in the former is part of the word base (-wacht-), but not in the latter (word base mog-(...)
47By contrast, one spelling error in the Dutch text of the poster is that an internal -cht- cluster (read [t]) is consistently spelled -gt- (as if it were to be read [t]), as in aftewagten “await” and mogten “may have.”20 In the dictionary of Verwijs & Verdam (1885–1929: sub wachten and mogen) for Middle Dutch, and in Woordenboek (1882–1998: sub afwachten and mogen) for New Dutch, the cluster is spelled exclusively -cht-, never -gt-. Remarkably, the same words are spelled with -cht- in the verbatim-quoted passage of the placard in van der Chijs (1885-1900: 3.406).
48From the above it seems likely that orthographic discrepancies between the poster and the verbatim-quoted part of the placard reflect personal spelling customs of the respective scribes or copyists. In the main, the spelling in the poster seems to be more up-to-date than that in the placard, but in some points, e.g. capitalization of word initial letters, the use of initial s- in place of z-, or of internal -gt- in the poster, it is the other way round.
49To have comparative material for official texts written in the East in that period, I accessed a contemporaneous six-page manuscript at the Nationaal Archief in The Hague, a 1696 elucidation of a 1688 instruction of the VOC directors, compiled by J. Donker (1696). A zigzag zed occurs there in several words, amongst others zaken “matters,” zal “shall,” zelven “same,” zij “they,” zijn “are, be.” Noteworthy is that the -cht- cluster of received spelling is consistently replaced by -gt-, as in afwagten “await,” kragtige “strong,” nogtans “nevertheless,” lijffwagten “life guards,” verrigten “carry out.” Hence, Donker uses word-initial z- like the writer of the placard, but has word-internal cluster -gt- instead of -cht- like the writer of the poster. The use of s- instead of z- or of -gt- instead of -cht- was thus not consistent amongst the Indies Dutch, regardless of whether the spelling of the placard is that of van Outhoorn himself, or of a scribe.
Fig. 3 – Examples of voorsz. as written in: the van Outhoorn (1696) poster; the Donker (1696) manuscript; and the 1602 VOC charter.
- 21 Note the particular form of e, r, or word-final –s in the Fig. 2a facsimile. It was common in manus (...)
- 22 Horsman et al. (1984: 18); Dekker et al. (1992: xxiii and xxvii).
- 23 Based on reproductions in Stapel (1939: 17) and Gaastra (1991: 21).
50One feature of the spelling in Outhoorn (1696), which cannot be compared with that of the printed placard passage, is the use and form of some hand-written letters. For reason of space, I will restrict myself to the use and form of the letter zed (z) here.21 It only occurs in the abbreviation voorsz. (for voorszegt “aforementioned”). The zed in earlier Dutch texts resembled a three (3),22 and the ess-zed cluster in voorsz. was typically rendered as ligature of a long (or descending) ess (ſ) with that 3-formed zed, as in modern German Eszett (ß). The abbreviation was still rendered in this old way as voorß on the first page of the 1602 charter of the VOC (see Fig. 3c).23
51On the Outhoorn (1696) poster, however, the ess-zed cluster was written as sequence of a rounded ess (s) and a zigzag zed (z), hence quite up-to-date (see Fig. 3a). In Donker (1696) cited above for comparison, a zed is consistently written as zigzag, also in the abbreviation voorsz. (twenty-four times). But the ess in the final cluster of the latter is spelled as long (descending) ess, resulting in ſz rather than sz (see Fig. 3b). Outhoorn (1696) and Donker (1696) have in common, that a horizontal line is drawn over the word-final sz cluster.
52In the main, one may probably conclude that local particularity of “officialese” style in the colony was mainly limited to excessive verbosity and pretentious modes of expression. For the rest, the text does not feature distinct Indies-Dutch lexical or spelling deviations, but appears somewhat non-uniform, allowing for variation in individual custom of the writers. In some instances, such as erroneous spelling of the -cht- cluster as -gt-, or explicit indication of vowel length before an intervocalic consonant, it is quite obsolete. In some other instances, it goes abreast with latest developments in spelling in the Netherlands, as demonstrated amongst others by the spelling of jurisdictie or the zigzag rendering of a zed, particularly in a final sz cluster.
- 24 Cf. van Putten (2002: 105–106, 120, 139–140); Day (1904: 101–105); Vlekke (1965: 213).
53The discovery of a 1696 official poster of a decree of a Batavian governor general in a library in Berlin is quite intriguing, the more so because the decree had apparently not been obeyed, but simply ignored. A closer examination revealed that the decree was issued in a critical period of VOC government, marked by serious internal irregularities. Bearing in mind the successful military, political, trade monopolist, and other achievements of the VOC in the Archipelago, that development seems quite surprising. But the existence of active as well as passive corruption of the VOC hierarchy by external business interests as well as through illegal activity of its functionaries is meanwhile well established in the literature.24
54Perhaps of greater interest are socio-linguistic insights disclosed by this unique example of a full-length original official document. It had been well known that the seventeenth-century Dutch community in the Archipelago had been characterized by an apposition of old-timers (oorlam) versus newcomers ([ooram]baar). In this, the newcomers aspired to acquire the linguistic and other features of old-timers as soon as possible. As noted above, the presently inspected document discloses an opposite tendency, suggesting that the old-timers versus newcomers constellation was no longer characteric of the Indies Dutch, or at least not of employees and functionaries of the government hiearchy. In this, one should apparently differentiate between persons from upper and lower ranks.
55It was the high-ranking functionaries who were responsible for the formulations in official documents and it is hardly surprising that it was these who strived to demonstrate their European cultivation to the home office by exaggerated verbosity. The actual writing was performed by lower ranking scribes. These apparently demonstrated their European cultivation by following up-to-date orthographic features to the best of their individual knowledge of contemporanous developments in the homeland.
- 25 See à Winschooten (1681: 175), and Bosman (1916:51 sub baar).
56The oorlam versus [ooram]baar constellation was mainly observed in the seventeenth century. In the subsequent time, use of particularly the latter term was mainly characteristic of seamen’s language, and of Afrikaans spoken in South Africa.25 In view of the 17th versus 18th century “up-and-down” apposition, of which the reversal dates from the last two decades of the 17th century, it seems possible that this was also reflected in replacement of that oldtimer/newcomer apposition by the new tendency towards exaggerated display of European culture.
57Nevertheless, this must remain a speculation, because one single document, even as voluminous as the Outhoorn (1696) poster, cannot be sufficient basis for such fargoing conclusions. Be that as it may, the study of the Dutch text of the rediscovered poster has led to insights into several interesting and hitherto unnoticed socio-linguistic aspects of the period of VOC government in Java.