A Dictionary of the Sunda Language of Java - 1862

A Dictionary of the Sunda Language of Java

Jonathan Rigg

Batavia: Lange & Co 1862

1862, Good Condition, Half-Leather Binding with Marbled Boards & Gilt Spine Title & Decoration, xvi, 537pp, v Volume 29 from the series published by the Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences (Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen)

Light foxing to title-page, front & end Papers

Jonathan Rigg was a British tea plantation entrepreneur and member of the Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences.who lived in southern Bogor. He compiled a Sundanese-English dictionary to take part in a competition to write a Sundanese dictionary that was more complete than Andries de Wilde's (1841). The organizer of the competition was Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen and was announced by the secretary of the institution, Pieter Mijer, on 9 October 1843. Jonathan succeeded in compiling his dictionary in 1854, thirteen years after the publication of De Wilde's dictionary, or eleven years after Mijer's announcement. Moriyama said, "Rigg's Dictionary marks an era in the history of the Sundanese language. The British were successful in West Java, not the Dutch, and in this case it is not difficult to imagine the frustration felt by the Dutch. Although the Dutch had long paid attention to the East Indies and studied it, it was the English (Raffles, Crawford, and Rigg) who made the most important scientific contributions, especially regarding Sundanese." .