The present second volume of the Nägara-Kertägama edition contains those
notes on the tex.t and the translation of the major poem and the
appended minor writings and charters that may be of interest to students
of the J avanese language. Perusal of these notes on idiom and
linguistics will be found the more fruitful if the glossary ( volume V
of the present edition) is consulted continuously. No lengthy
discussions of linguistic subjects are to be found in the present
volume. They would be out of place in this new Nägara- Kertägama
edition, for its tenor is primarily sociological. Exceptions have been
made only for some places where short grammatical discus- sions seemed
in place in order to elucidate points of the translation. In the notes
on the contemporaneous minor writings and charters differences between
the scholarly idiom of Court Iiterature (Nägara- Kertägama and Royal
charters) on the one side and the popular ver- nacular idiom of daily
life on the other have been pointed out repeatedly. The close
relationship of the 14th century Majapahit vemacular with modern J
avanese is apparent. Occasional remarks on words betonging to regional
idioms, either Eastem Javanese Majapahit or Ka