Sundanese alphabet
| Aksara Sunda ᮃᮊ᮪ᮞᮛ ᮞᮥᮔ᮪ᮓ |
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| Type | |
| Languages | Sundanese |
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Time period
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Circa 14th–18th centuries, and present |
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Parent systems
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Sister systems
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Balinese Batak Baybayin Kulitan Buhid Hanunó'o Javanese Lontara Old Sundanese Rencong Rejang Tagbanwa |
| Direction | Left-to-right |
| ISO 15924 | Sund, 362 |
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Unicode alias
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Sundanese |
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Sundanese script (Aksara Sunda, ᮃᮊ᮪ᮞᮛ ᮞᮥᮔ᮪ᮓ) is a writing system which is used by the Sundanese people. It is built based on Old Sundanese script (Aksara Sunda Kuno) which was used by the ancient Sundanese between the 14th and 18th centuries.
Since Sundanese people have utilized many different scripts, there were several requirements considered in the standardization of the Sundanese script for modern usage: (a) a script that can record Sundanese language; (b) period of usage; (c) area of usage; (d) simplicity; (e) shows Sundanese identity.
The government of West Java Province has announced Peraturan Daerah (Local Regulation) no. 6 1996 about the Sundanese language, literature and script. The regulation was motivated by Keputusan Presiden (President's Decision) no. 082/B/1991, 24 July 1991.
As follow up to the local regulation, on Tuesday, 21 October 1997 in the main hall of Japanese Language Study Centre, Universitas Padjadjaran, Jatinangor; a seminar entitled "Lokakarya Aksara Sunda", in cooperation with the government of West Java Province and the Faculty of Literature Padjadjaran University, was held and attended by delegations from local communities and cities in West Java. Several discussion results were achieved:
Next, the existence and function of Sundanese Script in the social and cultural life of West Javanese people in modern life is supported by the West Javanese Governor's Decision no. 434/SK.614-Dis.PK/99 about "Standardization of Sundanese Script", Local Government's Regulation no. 5 2003 about "Conservation of Local Language, Literature, and Script", and Governor's Decision no. 3 2004.
The standardized script has 32 basic characters, consists of 7 (seven) aksara Swara (independent vowels): a, é, i, o, u, e, and eu, and 23 aksara Ngalagena (consonants with vowel a): ka-ga-nga, ca-ja-nya, ta-da-na, pa-ba-ma, ya-ra-la, wa-sa-ha, fa-va-qa-xa-za.
The additional five sounds to the Ngalagena characters were added to fulfill the purpose of Sundanese script as tool for recording the development of Sundanese language, especially by absorption of foreign words and sounds. However, the glyphs for the new characters are not new, but reusing several variants in old Sundanese script, for example: the glyphs for fa and va are variants of Old Sundanese pa, the glyphs for qa and xa are variants of Old Sundanese ka, and the glyph for za is a variant of Old Sundanese ja.
There are two non-standard sounds kha and sya for writing foreign Arabic consonants 'خ' and 'ش'. These are considered non-standard because their usage only supported by few Sundanese people.
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Wikipedia