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Semarang
Jogja
Malang
Unang
The rule for each ragam
Walikan Semarang (boso gali)
The first ten hanacaraka letters are swapped with the last ten in reverse order. Vowels stay, and the formula is symmetric. A word-final consonant whose swap is awkward to pronounce (t, s, h, ng) is left alone. Homorganic nasal clusters (mb, nd, ndh, nj, ngg) count as one sound and lose the nasal before swapping.
Example: mangan → kahath
Walikan Jogja
The same twenty letters, paired in parallel instead of reversed: h↔p, n↔dh, c↔j, r↔y, k↔ny. The clothing label Dagadu Djokdja takes its name from this table.
Example: matamu → dagadu
Walikan Malang (ngalam)
The aksara of a word are read back to front. Digraphs (ng, ny, th, dh) move as single units. Ngalam is what the city calls itself.
Example: malang → ngalam
Bahasa Unang
Each word becomes two, by the formula U(x) (b)n(c)ng, where x is the last syllable with every vowel changed to a, b is the word without its last syllable, and c is the original vowel.
Example: hancur → uncar hanung
The twenty aksara
| ha | na | ca | ra | ka | da | ta | sa | wa | la |
| nga | tha | ba | ga | ma | nya | ya | ja | dha | pa |
Attested vocabulary
Applied before the formula, and exported as LEXICON.
| Javanese | prokem | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| mangan | kahath | eat |
| ombe | ngoce | drink |
| turu | yugu | sleep |
| lunga | puha | go |
| mas | kas | mister |
| bapak | calam | father |
| wedok | dhenyom | woman |
| enak | ngetham | tasty |
| apik | ngalim | good |
| iso | ngijo | can |
| ireng | ngigeng | black |
| rokok | gomom | cigarette |
| kopi | moli | coffee |
| sik | jim | wait a moment |
| rak | gam | not |
| ono | ngotho | there is |
| sikat | jimat | brush, take |
| jalan | sapath | street |
| loro | pogo | two |
| seket | jemet | fifty |
| sepuluh | jelupuh | ten |
What decoding cannot recover
- Semarang inserts an h between adjacent vowels, and it cannot be told apart from a real one afterwards.
- Semarang's nasal collapse discards the nasal.
- In hanacaraka an initial a and an initial ha are the same aksara.
- A word ending in y or j encodes to one ending in t or s, and the final-consonant rule then refuses to swap either back.
Sources
The Semarang rules follow Samidjan (2013) as quoted in Khoiriyah (2018), Bahasa Prokem Semarang atau Basa Walikan dalam Komunikasi di Kota Semarang, skripsi UNNES. Walikan Jogja and Malang are produced by libil (MIT, © 2014 Didiet Noor).