Thanks for the Centhini link Jaga, I've copied that and put it on file, but I doubt I'll ever do anything with it.
The problem with Javanese, or at least a problem, there are many, is that it is what linguists call a "non-standardised language".
It was originally written in various non-roman scripts, when it was romanised it was not romanised in a single standard form, but apart from this, when a native speaker uses his own language he alters words and syntax.
Somebody --- it might have been Robson --- once commented that a Javanese person uses his language as if it were his own personal possession, a bit like Humpty Dumpty:-
"it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."
a person who has been born Javanese and who is living in a fully Javanese environment will have not the slightest difficulty in understanding anything that is spoken to him in his own language, but because spoken inflections as well as body language are missing from the written word, he might not as easily understand clearly something in text.
I do have access to people who are native speakers of Javanese, but their competence varies, and although they are native speakers the Javanese dialect they speak might be only one of several in which they can communicate, and they are likely to be fluent in dialects other than Javanese dialects, as well as BI, Dutch, & English.
As for useful writings in Javanese that involve the keris, Centhini or anything else, how useful they might be depends upon the aspect of the keris that is being dealt with. If the writing focuses on philosophical interpretations, or perhaps on using the keris as a method of teaching, or of providing advice, these writings might not be of much use to somebody who is only concerned with the physical aspects of the keris.
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