Sundanese Language Guide

Also spoken in
Indonesia
Script
Latin, Sundanese

Where it's spoken

Sundanese is the regional language of West Java in Indonesia. A study of Sundanese speech levels quotes the Indonesian scholar Harsojo as saying that it is often said that pure and refined Sundanese is found in the Priangan area, in the regencies of Ciamis, Tasikmalaya, Garut, Bandung, Sumedang, Sukabumi and Cianjur, and that the Cianjur dialect is still considered the most refined. The same quotation describes the Sundanese near the north coast of Java, for example in Banten, Karawang, Bogor and Cirebon, as considered less refined, and the language of the Baduy, spoken in south Banten, as archaic Sundanese.

The same study quotes the Sundanese literary scholar Ajip Rosidi as saying that the language of the Baduy does not symbolize the relative social levels of speaker and addressee.

This app's sign cards show the Indonesian wording rather than Sundanese: its card MASUK ("Entrance") notes that the Sundanese word would be asup, but signs read the Indonesian MASUK.

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Script & pronunciation

Sundanese has been written in a number of different scripts over the years. The modern script, Sunda Baku, derives from Old Sundanese and became official in the late twentieth century. It has official support, is taught in schools and is used on road signs. The Latin script has been in wide use for Sundanese since the twentieth century.

This app's card Aksara Sunda ("Sundanese script") notes that the script appears beside Latin letters on signs, while menus and daily writing use the Latin alphabet. All of this app's Sundanese cards are written in the Latin alphabet.

Ajip Rosidi writes that Sundanese has one more vowel than Indonesian, eu. He says that D.K. Ardiwinata's early twentieth-century spelling set the vowel eu to be written as eu, and that a later decision to write it with the letter ö was cancelled. This app writes these vowels as é, e and eu and does not use ö. An Indonesian-language news article on Sundanese spelling describes é as sounding like the e of Indonesian énak, e as sounding like the e of Indonesian emas, and eu as a distinctive Sundanese sound between i and u, pulled further forward. The eu is written with two letters, as in the card Henteu ("No").

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Grammar essentials

A study based on a native speaker's word list and sentences describes Sundanese as an SVO language: subjects precede verbs and objects, and prepositional phrases or complements follow verbs. This app's card Abdi teu neda daging ("I do not eat meat") follows this order, with the subject Abdi before the verb neda and the object daging after it.

The same study reports a negative word used with verbs and adjectives, as in "He is not tall" and "He doesn't come". In the conversations transcribed in the speech-level study, teu is glossed "not", teu acan "not yet" and sanés "not". This app's card Henteu ("No") notes that it negates verbs and adjectives, with the short form teu, and that sanés is used to negate a noun. Its card Sanés ("No, it is not") calls sanés the polite word for "is not" before a noun.

This app's cards put naha at the start of a sentence to make a yes-or-no question, as in Naha aya asrama pikeun mahasiswa? ("Is there a student dormitory?").

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Politeness & etiquette

Sundanese has speech levels. The speech-level study says that Satjadibrata's formulation seems to be somewhat of a standard formulation, and describes it as having two levels as its frame: Kasar, the "low level" or "general conversational speech", and Lemes, the "high level" or speech in which polite vocabulary is used. Finer distinctions are possible but very infrequently used. This app's repository notes call the plain level loma and say that its sentences are written at the polite level while its single-word cards are neutral.

The norms summarized in that study, after Satjadibrata, say that strangers speak Lemes with each other, that lower-status people speak Lemes up to higher-status people while higher-status people speak Kasar down to them, and that intimate friends speak Kasar with each other. Among people of equal status, younger people speak Lemes to older people. The study's own recorded texts show wide variability in the use of speech levels within every degree of acquaintance.

The study proposes that when expressing thanks, Lemes style is used regardless of any other style being used, while noting that Soedradjat feels nuhun and hatur nuhun are really not so different in politeness. This app's cards draw a distinction between the two. Its card Hatur nuhun ("Thank you") is the polite thank-you for elders, strangers and staff. Its card Nuhun ("Thanks") is casual, for friends and juniors, and its note says not to use it with elders.

Lemes vocabulary includes words of respect, used for the person addressed or someone being referred to, and humble words, used for oneself. In the study's examples, Bapa ningali ka abdi ("You, sir, are looking at me") uses the respect word ningali for the other person's action, and Abdi ningal ka Bapa ("I am looking at you") uses the humble word ningal for one's own action; the Kasar word is nenjo. This app's card Abdi teu neda daging ("I do not eat meat") uses neda, which the card's note calls the humble form for your own eating; tuang is for the other person and never for yourself.

This app's card Abdi ("I / me") gives it as the polite first person, with kuring or urang as casual and aing as rude. Its card Anjeun ("You") gives a safe polite "you", and notes that for elders Bapa or Ibu sounds more natural and that manéh or sia are rude. In a description by Surjadi quoted in the study, when two people meet and find no family relationship, they fix each other's positions by age: the younger calls the elder akang ("elder brother") or euceu ("elder sister"), and in return the elder addresses the younger as ayi or adi.

This app's card Sampurasun ("Hello (Sundanese greeting)") notes that the usual answer is Rampés. Its card Punten ("Excuse me") is used when passing in front of someone, getting attention or for a light apology, and the note gives Hapunten for a heavier apology.

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