Sundanese People - Language

Language

The Sundanese language is spoken by approximately 27 million people and is the second most widely-spoken regional language in Indonesia, after Javanese. The 2000 Indonesia Census put this figure at 30.9 million. This language is spoken in the southern part of the Banten province, and most of West Java and eastwards as far as the Pamali River in Brebes, Central Java.

Sundanese is more closely related to Malay and Minang than it is to Javanese, although Sundanese has borrowed the language levels denoting rank and respect. There are several dialects of Sundanese, from the Sunda–Banten dialect to the Sunda–Central Javanese dialect which mixes elements of Javanese. Some of the most distinct dialects are from Banten, Bogor, Priangan, and Cirebon. In Central Java, Sundanese is spoken in some of the Cilacap region and some of the Brebes region. It is known that the finest Sundanese dialect — which is considered as its original form — are those spoken in Ciamis, Tasikmlaya, Garut, Bandung, Sumedang, Sukabumi, and Cianjur. Dialect spoken by people living in Cianjur is considered as the most refined Sundanese. While Sundanese spoken on north coast, Banten and Cirebon is considered less refined. While the language spoken by the people of Baduy is considered the archaic type of Sundanese language, before the Sundanese people adopt the concept of language stratification to denote rank and respect as demonstrated (and influenced) by Javanese.

Today, Sundanese language are mostly written in latin alphabet. The example of Sundanese-language media is Mangle Magazine that is written in latin alphabet. However, there is an effort to revive Sundanese script that have been used by ancient Sundanese between 14th and 18th centuries. The example are the street names in Bandung and several cities in West Java are written in both latin and Sundanese scripts.