Kroeëng is the Atjehsch (Acehnese) word for river, glossed by the Encyclopaedisch Bureau’s Sumatra survey (1917) in its hydrographical chapter as one of four cognate regional terms for “river” in northern Sumatra: “Kroeëng (Atjehsch.) = Woi (Gajo’sch.) = Lae (Dairisch) = Lao (Karo’sch.) = rivier.” The Kroeëng toponym is the principal hydrographical marker of the Atjeh region in Dutch colonial writing, and the principal linguistic evidence of the Atjehnese onomastic landscape of the Westkust and the binnenland.
The toponymic pattern
The Bureau’s Hoofdstuk I glosses the Kroeëng toponym in a footnote to its description of the groote Westelijke lengtedal of Sumatra. The gloss is given as part of the explanation of the toponymy of the northern Sumatran rivers — the Kroeëng Wojla, Kroeëng Teunom, Kroeëng Seunagan, Kroeëng Meureubo, Kroeëng Keureutë, and so on — that drain the Westelijke Barisanketenen of Atjeh to the Indian Ocean. The Kroeëng toponym is thus the principal hydrographical marker of the Westkust van Atjeh and of the binnenland of Groot-Atjeh.
The cognate regional terms — Woi (Gajo), Lae (Dairisch), Lao (Karo’sch) — mark the linguistic frontier of the Atjehnese Kroeëng toponym: Woi characterises the Gajo and Alas rivers of the central-Atjeh hoogvlakte (e.g. the Woi ni Agoesein), while Lae and Lao characterise the Batak rivers of the south (e.g. the Lae Renoen). The Kroeëng toponym thus marks the northern limit of the Gajo–Batak hydrographical frontier, and the southern limit of the Atjehnese onomastic landscape.
Significance
The Kroeëng toponym is, in the Bureau’s Sumatra survey, the principal hydrographical marker of the Atjeh region in Dutch colonial writing. The Bureau’s gloss of the cognate regional terms — Kroeëng = Woi = Lae = Lao = rivier — is the staff history’s principal linguistic evidence of the Atjehnese onomastic landscape, and the principal evidence of the demographic frontier between the Atjehnese, Gajo, and Batak populations of northern Sumatra. The Kroeëng toponym is thus both a hydrographical and a linguistic marker: it identifies a river as Atjehnese, and it locates that river within the demographic frontier of the Atjehnese gewest.
See Also
- De Buitenbezittingen, Deel II, Aflevering 1
- Atjehrivier
- Kroeëng Wojla
- Kroeëng Teunom
- Kroeëng Meureubo
- Kroeëng Seunagan
- Kroeëng Keureutë
- Lao Alas
- Lae Renoen
- 1917
Source
De Buitenbezittingen, Deel II, Aflevering 1: Sumatra, Algemeene Hoofdstukken, bewerkt door het Encyclopaedisch Bureau, Mededeelingen van het Bureau voor de Bestuurszaken der Buitenbezittingen, Aflevering X (Weltevreden: Landsdrukkerij, 1917), Hoofdstuk I (Oro-hydrographisch), footnote on p. 11.