BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//CERN//INDICO//EN BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:O31 - The Living Literature -- Towards a Pedagogy of the Sky throu gh Malay Proverbs and Idioms DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20261125T023000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20261125T024500Z DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20261112T150707Z UID:indico-contribution-858@indico.narit.or.th DESCRIPTION:Speakers: YAM Pengiran Anak Hamlatul Arsy Mulia Bolkiah (The C urious Playgrounds / Brunei Astronomical Society)\nMalay peribahasa and id ioms involving bintang and bulan rarely agree on what the sky is for. In o ne register\, it is mirror: bagai bulan dipagar bintang\, (like the moon f enced round by stars)\, lent to a face of unmatched beauty. In a second\, the sky is not borrowed but worn — bintang hati\, (the star of one's hea rt)\, naming the person loved most\, the star not compared to a life but s tanding in for it. In a third\, rarer register\, the sky is simply named w ith care: bintang timur (one bright object given several precise names) — barat\, johar\, kejora\, pagi\, zuhrah — depending on when and where it was watched. This paper reads these three registers not as separate cu riosities but as one layered relationship with the sky\, coexisting inside a single body of language. Each register implies a different intensity an d purpose of looking: the sky glanced at for likeness\, the sky trusted as destiny\, the sky observed closely enough to require precision.\n\nThe Ma lay language carries this layering because it was never confined to one na tion — it became the lingua franca of the maritime Southeast Asian world \, shaped across centuries of trade\, migration\, and exchange between coa st and coast. Its proverbs and idioms compress observation\, ethics\, and belief into forms short enough to survive being spoken rather than written \, passed down across generations who may never have shared a single teach er or text. This paper takes its bearing\, in part\, from Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien III's own regard for Malay as a language of poetry and cultural depth — the conviction that a language capable of carrying feeling with such precision is also capable of carrying knowledge\, and that neither u se diminishes the other. Wawasan 2035 calls Bruneians to become an educate d\, resilient people\, rooted in identity that never had to choose between the traditional and the forward-looking. To read the sky through Malay pr overbs and idioms is to answer that call in kind — proof that language i tself can be a vessel for progress\, carrying inherited knowledge forward rather than setting it aside.\n\nThe inquiry sits within The Living Litera ture\, an ongoing research methodology developed by The Curious Playground s treating Southeast Asian intangible heritage as living knowledge to be r eactivated rather than archived. Each cycle of the project anchors on a si ngle element and moves through investigation\, translation\, and activatio n\, arriving at a creative output built for the continuity of heritage and culture rather than its preservation alone. This cycle is undertaken in c ollaboration with the Brunei Astronomical Society\, keeping the sky-readin g answerable to astronomical practice as much as to cultural research.\n\n A wider illustrated compendium on Malay language and astronomy grows from this cycle — its translation phase\, and a public-facing work rather tha n an academic one. Where peribahasa already live in daily speech\, classro oms\, and family memory but are rarely read for the sky-knowledge folded i nside them\, the compendium aims to make that folded knowledge visible\, p airing each proverb with illustration that holds both its human meaning an d the observation underneath it. For Malay-speaking communities\, it offer s a way back into language already known\, seen freshly. For astronomy edu cators and planetarium practitioners across the region\, it offers cultura lly-rooted material for outreach that doesn't need to import metaphor from elsewhere to make the sky feel close to home. And for the wider documenta tion of Malay heritage\, it argues for proverb's continued relevance as a living record of observation.\n\nThis paper marks the beginning of a colla boration with the Brunei Astronomical Society on the wider compendium. Ahe ad of the conference\, we will carry out workshops in Brunei testing the t hree-register framework in practice\, and this oral presentation will shar e those findings alongside the research\, explorations and illustrations d eveloped so far. Following the conference\, the work will continue — fee ding directly into the compendium and into an illustrated book intended fo r use as educational material for the Brunei Astronomical Society and as c ontent for future tourism and outreach events in Brunei. \n\nBeyond Brunei \, this framework is offered as something the wider region can easily take up and adapt to its own languages\, in the hope that it can help others n ot only appreciate their own culture and heritage\, but arrive at a quiete r gratitude — for a sky and a universe that has always belonged to every one equally. The paper closes by asking what astronomy education might gai n from a public willing to hold the sky the way this language always has.\ n\nhttps://indico.narit.or.th/event/238/contributions/858/ LOCATION:Dusit Thani Mactan Cebu Resort Ballroom II URL:https://indico.narit.or.th/event/238/contributions/858/ END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR