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What’s with this “Wren” thing?
The oldest extant version of the fable
we
are presenting here appeared in 1913 in the first volume of a two-volume anthology
of Low
Saxon folktales (Plattdeutsche
Volksmärchen “Low German Folktales”)
collected by Wilhelm Wisser (1843–1935). Read
more ...
Batak
Batak
architecture is a distinctive feature of
Sumatra’s highlands.
Language information:
“Batak” is a group label for a number of ethnic groups and their languages of
the northern highlands of the Indonesian Island of Sumatra (Sumatera) and some surrounding islands:
Northern: Dairi (southwest
of Lake Toba
around
Sidikalang) Karo (west
and northwest of Lake
Toba) Alas-Kluet (northeast
of Tapaktuan
and around Kutacane) Simalungan: Simalungun (northeast
of Lake Toba) Southern: Angkola (Sipirok
area) Toba (Samosir
Island and east,
south and west of Lake Toba) Mandailing (northwest
coast)
Of these, Angkola and, more widely, Mandailing approaches the status of general
Batak.
Most Bataks speak
the national language, Indonesian, as well, and this language variously influences
the Batak languages. Batak languages are used as foreign languages by some local
speakers of Indonesian and Chinese languages.
Traditionally,
the Batak languages are written with several closely related varieties of the
Batak script, which, like most scripts of the Philippines, is derived from
the Brahmi-based Pallava script of Southern India. Though Batak script tradition
is being continued
by some, these days the tendency is to use the Roman script and to generally
follow the spelling system used for Indonesian.
Much outsider’s
pioneering work
on
and
with Batak languages has been done by the Lutheran missionary Ludwig Ingwer Nommensen
(1834–1918) who grew up in predominantly North-Frisian- and Low-Saxon-speaking Schleswig-Holstein,
then under Danish administration, now under German administration. Today’s predominantly
Lutheran Batak people consider him a “holy person” (ompu i).
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