ETHNOLINGUISTIC STUDY ON HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS OF MUSEUM WAYANG SENDANG MAS BANYUMAS

Abstract

Abstract: This paper belongs to ethnolinguistic study focusing on the lexical and cultural meaning of historical collections found in Museum Wayang Sendang Mas Banyumas. It is in line with (Spradley, 2016) that ethnography is a work of describing a culture; therefore, when the data are in the form of a linguistic unit, the research is categorised into ethnolinguistic study. Museum Wayang Sendang Mas was built in 1983 initiated by Soepardjo Roestam and some Banyumas figures and artists. The purpose of this puppet museum is to nurture the Banyumas culture, especially Wayang Banyumas. We are interested in bringing this topic to research since Wayang is one of the prominent Indonesian cultural heritages, which is performed to depict life guidance, to provide good examples, norms, and values. Diverse types of puppets, artefacts, and historical objects are stored in this museum. Some of the museum collections are ani-ani, chanting, kubah, kendil, gogok, umpak batu, and umpak umbul umbul. Applying ethnolinguistic approach, this research is aimed at identifying lexical and cultural meanings of museum collections. Ethnolinguistics refers to the study of how language relates to culture and ethnicity. This approach emphasises on how language shapes the thought of ethnic groups and how far their thought shapes language. This is descriptive qualitative research since it comes up with the identification of language meaning. The data are 28 collections of Museum Wayang Sendang Mas. This research found that both lexical and cultural meanings embedded in the museum collections represent moral messages and remind people to the origin of life.