The phrase “Betawi” is etymologically derived from the phrase “Batavia”, the Jakarta’s Dutch colonial title. Betawi individuals are the descendants of the folks dwelling round Batavia from across the seventeenth century. Betawi folks throughout colonial occasions have been a product of a melting pot of immigrants and blended marriages involving folks from Javanese, Sundanese (West Java), Melayu (Malays), Makassar, Ambonese, Bugis tribes, Chinese language, Indian, and European.
Native immigrants from different areas in Indonesia principally dropped at Batavia within the seventeenth century as slaves to the Dutch Colonials. Then again, European, Arab, Chinese language and Indian males got here to Indonesia to commerce or work after which proceeded to marry native girls. Within the nineteenth century, folks in what was to be Jakarta started to check with themselves as “Betawi” kids. Betawi folks reside between two huge cultures: Sundanese and Javanese, however they’ve their very own tradition and language.
The Betawi language is a Malay-based creole language. It’s carefully linked to Malay. Betawi vocabulary has great amount of Hokkien Chinese language such because the first-person pronoun gue (I or me) and second-person pronoun lu (you) and numerals equivalent to cepek (100), gopek (5 hundred), and seceng (a thousand), Arabic equivalent to ente (you) and ane (me), and Dutch loanwords. These days, Betawi dialect is a well-liked casual language in Indonesia and used as the bottom of Indonesian accent.
Betawi individuals are principally muslims. Islam teachings, tradition and traditions are simply discovered of their tradition and social system. They’re led by Ulama or Kyai (a neighborhood spiritual chief) of their society. Nevertheless, there’s additionally a small group of Christian Betawi in Tugu space, Kampung Sawah, and Depok.
The artform of the Betawi folks reveals the influences from many various cultures. The Ondel-ondel (a big bamboo masked-puppet) is much like Chinese language, Balinese and Sundanese artform of masked dance. The normal wedding ceremony costume of Betawi reveals Chinese language affect in bride’s costume and Arabian influences in groom’s costume. The Gambang kromong and Tanjidor music orchestra have Chinese language affect. The betawi’s custom for the groom to convey roti buaya (crocodile bread) for the bride throughout wedding ceremony ceremony might be a European custom. They’ve additionally Pencak Silat as a well-liked martial artwork of Betawi folks.
Betawi folks have a number of well-liked conventional cuisines equivalent to kerak telor (a glutinous rice cake cooked with egg and served with shredded coconut and a dried shrimp topping), soto betawi (beef entrail soup with diced tomatoes and slices of fried potato) and asinan Jakarta (pickled greens). Betawi delicacies is usually influenced by Peranakan Delicacies of Chinese language Indonesian, Malay delicacies, Sundanese and Javanese delicacies.
