Frog DNA and Indonesia with Pradana

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Pradana Pandu Mahardhika lives in Bandung, Indonesia. He describes himself as a freelance translator/interpreter, amateur tailor, and professional procrastinator. In this episode we talk about how Pradana set up a historical martial arts club, Gwaith-i-Megyr, which was founded in 2016. He had been fencing as part of an informal group for a while, but when he decided to get some wooden swords made up, he found that the enthusiasm was really high, mainly from members of the Tolkien society. There are only three or four formal clubs in the whole of Indonesia, so it is still a small scene, and growth has of course been stalled by Covid. 

We have an interesting chat about languages. Did you know the formal variety of Indonesian has no tenses? Pradana is fluent in four languages, but unfortunately he doesn’t have the knowledge of the Malay Arabic script that would enable him to translate some 16th century Malay sources on using arquebuses. If you have that skill, please get in touch!

More information on the Malay sources can be found here:

• https://www.academia.edu/7070689/Manuskrip_ilmu_bedil_Sumber_etnosejarah_teknologi_senjata_api_Melayu
• https://mowcaparchives.org/items/show/61
• https://jantungmelayu.com/2018/08/kitab-ilmu-bedil-melayu/

It turns out that the treatises aren’t available online, yet.

Pradana is also an archer and a tailor, with ambitions to become a pilot, so we talk about making medieval clothes and flying planes too. Here is a photo of Guy in his wedding suit which he had specially tailored to enable him to wear a sword.

Photo credit: Georgia Bertazzi

Pradana’s blog on military history, fiction writing, historical fencing, and other unrelated subjects is at sillynewsboy.wordpress.com.