Sundanese language

Sundanese
ᮘᮞ ᮞᮥᮔ᮪ᮓ Basa Sunda
Native to	Indonesia
Region	West Java, Banten, Jakarta, parts of western Central Java, southern Lampung
Ethnicity	Sundanese, Bantenese, Cirebonese, Badui
Native speakers	42 million (2016)[1]
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Nuclear Malayo-Polynesian Malayo-Sumbawan ? Lampung–Sunda?[2] Sundanese
Dialects	Baduy language, Bantenese language
Writing system	Cacarakan (historical) Latin (present) Pranagari (historical) Sundanese script (present) Vatteluttu (historical)
Official status
Official language in	Banten (regional) West Java (regional)
Language codes
ISO 639-1	su
ISO 639-2	sun
ISO 639-3	sun – Sunda
Glottolog	sund1251[3]
Linguasphere	31-MFN-a

A Sundanese lontar manuscript written in Sundanese script.

The first page from manuscript of Carita Waruga Guru which use the Old Sundanese script and Old Sundanese language.

Aksara Sunda (Sundanese script)

Sundanese /sʌndəˈniːz/^[4] (Basa Sunda /basa sʊnda/, in Sundanese script ᮘᮞ ᮞᮥᮔ᮪ᮓ, literally "language of Sunda") is the language of about 39 million people from the western third of Java or about 15% of the Indonesian population.

Dialects

Sundanese appears to be most closely related to Madurese and Malay, and more distantly related to Javanese. It has several dialects, conventionally described according to the locations of the people:

• Western dialect, spoken in the provinces of Banten and some parts of Lampung,
• Northern dialect, spoken in Bogor and northern coastal areas of West Java,
• Southern or Priangan dialect (Bandung and its surroundings),
• Mid-east dialect, spoken in Majalengka and Indramayu,
• Northeast dialect, spoken in Kuningan, Cirebon and Brebes (Central Java),
• Southeast dialect, spoken in Ciamis, Banjar and Cilacap (Central Java).

Priangan, which covers the largest area of Sunda (Tatar Pasundan in Sundanese), is the most widely spoken type of Sundanese language, taught in elementary till senior-high schools (equivalent to twelfth-year school grade) in West Java and Banten Province.

Writing

Sundanese can be written in different writing systems, the Old Sundanese script (Aksara Sunda Kuno) and Pegon in historical times, and in modern times the Latin script and the modern Sundanese script.

Phonology

Sundanese orthography is highly phonetic (see also Sundanese script). There are seven vowels: a /ɑ/, é /ɛ/, i /i/, o /ɔ/, u /ʊ/, e /ə/, and eu /ɤ/. The consonantal phonemes are transcribed with the letters p, b, t, d, k, g, c (pronounced /tʃ/), j /d͡ʒ/, h, ng (/ŋ/), ny /ɲ/, m, n, s /s/, w, l, r /r~ɾ/, and y /j/. Other consonants that originally appear in Indonesian loanwords are mostly transferred into native consonants: f → p, v → p, sy → s, sh → s, z → j, and kh /x/ → h.

According to Yayat Sudaryat (1991,35) there are 16 consonants in Sundanese phonology: /b/, /tʃ/, /d/, /g/, /h/, /dʒ/, /k/, /l/, /m/, /n/, /p/, /r/, /s/, /ŋ/, /t/; /ɲ/, however, influences from foreign languages have introduced several additional consonants such as /f/, /v/, /z/ (as in fonem, qur'an, xerox, zakat).

There are also /w/ and /j/ as semi vowels, they function as glide sound between two different vowels, as in the words:

• kuéh - /kuwɛh/
• muih - /muwih/
• béar - /bejar/
• miang - /mijaŋ/

Phonemes /w/ and /j/ function as glide sounds between two different vowels as in the words:

• wa - rung
• wa - yang
• ba - wang
• ha - yang
• ku - ya

Basic grammar

Root word

Root verb

Plural form

Other Austronesian languages commonly use reduplication to create plural forms. However, Sundanese inserts the ar infix into the stem word. If the stem word starts with l, or contains r following the infix, the infix ar becomes al. Also, as with other Sundanese infixes (such as um), if the word starts with vowel, the infix becomes a prefix. Examples:

1. Mangga A, tarahuna haneut keneh. "Please sir, the bean curds are still warm/hot." The plural form of tahu 'bean curd, tofu' is formed by infixing ar after the initial consonant.
2. Barudak leutik lalumpatan. "Small children running around." Barudak "children" is formed from budak (child) with the ar infix; in lumpat (run) the ar infix becomes al because lumpat starts with l.
3. Ieu kaen batik aralus sadayana. "All of these batik clothes are beautiful." Formed from alus (nice, beautiful, good) with the infix ar that becomes a prefix because alus starts with a vowel. It denotes the adjective "beautiful" for the plural subject/noun (batik clothes).
4. Siswa sakola eta mah balageur. "The students of that school are well-behaved." Formed from bageur ("good-behaving, nice, polite, helpful") with the infix ar, which becomes al because of r in the root, to denote the adjective "well-behaved" for plural students.

However, it is reported that this use of al instead of ar (as illustrated in (4) above) does not to occur if the 'r' is in onset of a neighbouring syllable. For example, the plural form of the adjective curiga (suspicious) is caruriga and not *caluriga, because the 'r' in the root occurs at the start of the following syllable.^[5]

The prefix can be reduplicated to denote very-, or the plural of groups. For example, "bararudak" denotes many, many children or many groups of children (budak is child in Sundanese). Another example, "balalageur" denotes plural adjective of "very well-behaved".

Active form

Most active forms of Sundanese verbs are identical to the root, as with diuk "sit" or dahar "eat". Some others depend on the initial phoneme in the root:

1. Initial /d/ is eliminated and changed to the prefix nga like in ngadahar.
2. Initial /i/ is eliminated and changed to prefix ng like in nginum "drink".
3. Initial /b/ is eliminated and changed to prefix m like in maca "read".

Negation

Abdi henteu acan neda. "I have not eaten yet."

Buku abdi mah sanes nu ieu. "My book is not this one."

Question

Dupi -(question)

example:saya

Polite-

• Dupi Bapa aya di bumi? "Is your father at home?"
• Dupi bumi di palih mana? "Where do you live?"

Passive form

Buku dibantun ku abdi. "The book is brought by me." Dibantun is the passive form ngabantun "bring".

Pulpen ditambut ku abdi. "The pen is borrowed by me."

Soal ieu digawekeun ku abdi. "This problem is done by me."

Adjectives

Examples:

teuas (hard), tiis (cool), hipu (soft), lada (hot, usually for foods), haneut (warm), etc.

Prepositions

Place

Time

Miscellaneous

See also

• Kidung Sunda
• Sundanese alphabet
• Sundanese (Unicode block)

References

Further reading

Rigg, Jonathan (1862). A Dictionary of the Sunda Language of Java. Batavia: Lange & Co. 

External links

Sundanese edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wikivoyage has a phrasebook for Sundanese.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sundanese language.

• Sundanese-Indonesian and Indonesian-Sundanese Dictionary
• Sundanese converter Latin-Sudanese script (Aksara Sunda)
• Indonesian-Sundanese Translator

• http://unicode-table.com/en/sections/sundanese/