Kawi (from
Sanskrit:
kavi, "poet") is a literary and prose language on the islands of
Java,
Bali, and
Lombok, based on
Old Javanese, a language with a sizable vocabulary of
Sanskrit loanwords. Kawi is the ancestor language of modern
Javanese. The name "kawi" is derived from the root
ku, which in Sanskrit means “poet”, and, in derived forms, a “wise, educated man”. The syllabic meter of Kawi poetry is
sekar kawi, which means “flowers of the language”, sekar itself deriving from the Sanskrit
"sekhara" (“garland”). All Javanese languages are hierarchical and stratified, with strict social conventions for appropriate language subsets to be used for one's superiors or social and cultural functions. Kawi is commonly considered the pinnacle language.