Updated 31 December, 2024
This page brings together basic information about the Sundanese script and its use for the Sundanese language. It aims to provide a brief, descriptive summary of the modern, printed orthography and typographic features, and to advise how to write Sundanese using Unicode.
Richard Ishida, Sundanese Orthography Notes, 31-Dec-2024, https://r12a.github.io/scripts/sund/su
ᮞᮊᮥᮙ᮪ᮔ ᮏᮜ᮪ᮙ ᮌᮥᮘᮢᮌ᮪ ᮊ ᮃᮜᮙ᮪ ᮓᮥᮑ ᮒᮨᮂᮞᮤᮖᮒ᮪ᮔ ᮙᮨᮛ᮪ᮓᮤᮊ ᮏᮩᮀ ᮘᮧᮌ ᮙᮛ᮪ᮒᮘᮒ᮪ ᮊᮒᮥᮒ᮪ ᮠᮊ᮪-ᮠᮊ᮪ ᮃᮔᮥ ᮞᮛᮥᮃ. ᮙᮛᮔᮨᮂᮔ ᮓᮤᮘᮨᮛᮨ ᮃᮊᮜ᮪ ᮏᮩᮀ ᮠᮒᮨ ᮔᮥᮛᮔᮤ, ᮎᮙ᮪ᮕᮥᮁ-ᮌᮅᮜ᮪ ᮏᮩᮀ ᮞᮞᮙᮔ ᮃᮚ ᮓᮤᮔ ᮞᮥᮙᮔᮨᮒ᮪ ᮓᮥᮓᮥᮜᮥᮛᮔ᮪.
Source: Unicode UDHR, article 1
Origins of the Sundanese script, 14thC – today.
Phoenician
└ Aramaic
└ Brahmi
└ Tamil-Brahmi
└ Pallava
└ Old Kawi
└ Old Sundanese
└ Sundanese
+ Balinese
+ Batak
+ Baybayin
+ Javanese
+ Lontara
+ Lampung
+ Makasar
+ Rencong
+ Rejang
Since 1996 the Sundanese script has been the official orthography for the 27 million Sundanese speakers on the island of Java, although the Latin script is also used. It is currently taught in schools and used for public signage.
ᮃᮊ᮪ᮞᮛ ᮞᮥᮔ᮪ᮓ
The modern orthography is derived from the Old Sundanese orthography (Aksara Sunda Kuno) which was used by the Sundanese between the 14th and 18th centuries. It, in turn, derived from the Pallava script.
Source: Scriptsource, Wikipedia.
Sundanese is an abugida, ie. consonants carry an inherent vowel sound that is overridden, where needed, using vowel signs. See the table to the right for a brief overview of features for the modern Sundanese orthography.
Sundanese text runs left to right in horizontal lines. Words are separated by spaces.
The 18 native consonant letters are supplemented by 7 more used for non-native sounds, such as those from Arabic.
Syllable-initial clusters use 3 dedicated combining marks for the second consonant.
Syllable-final consonant sounds are also represented by 3 dedicated combining marks. When a vowel sign and final consonant are both attached to the same base, they are arranged side by side.
Other consonant clusters are indicated by a visible mark called pamaaeh. There are no stacked consonants or other conjuncts in modern Sundanese, however they were used in the Old Sundanese orthography.
❯ basicV
This orthography is an abugida with one inherent vowel, pronounced a.
Other post-consonant vowels are represented by 6 combining marks (vowel signs). There are no vowel letters.
There is 1 pre-base glyph. There are no circumgraphs or multipart vowels.
Standalone vowels are written using 7 independent vowel letters,
Sundanese has a set of native digits, but uses ASCII punctuation.
These are sounds for the Sundanese language.
Click on the sounds to reveal locations in this document where they are mentioned.
Phones in a lighter colour are non-native or allophones. Source Wikipedia.
labial | alveolar | post- alveolar |
palatal | velar | uvular | glottal | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
stop | p b | t d | k ɡ | q | |||
affricate | t͡ʃ d͡ʒ | k͡s | |||||
fricative | f v | s z | x | h | |||
nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | |||
approximant | w | l | j | ||||
trill/flap | r | ||||||
An orthographic syllable in modern Sundanese can be described as one of
C {y,r,l} {vs} {ng,r,h}
Cp
V {ng,r,h}
where C
is a consonant and V
is an independent vowel, y,r,l
represents a medial combining character, vs
a vowel sign, ng,r,h
a syllable-final combining character, and p
a vowel-killer.
The following table summarises the main vowel to character assigments.
ⓘ represents the inherent vowel. The right-hand column shows standalone vowels.
Simple: | ||
---|---|---|
For additional details see vowel_mappings.
ᮊ ka [U+1B8A SUNDANESE LETTER KA]
a following a consonant is not written, but is seen as an inherent part of the consonant letter, so ka is written by simply using the consonant letter.
In modern Sundanese writing suppressed inherent vowels are indicated by either
For example, ᮃᮌᮢᮤᮊᮥᮜ᮪ᮒᮥᮁ contains all three (see fig_vowel_absence).
ᮃᮌᮢᮤᮊᮥᮜ᮪ᮒᮥᮁ
At the end of a word, 1BAA is used, eg. see ᮄᮊᮣᮤᮙ᮪ in fig_final_pamaaeh.
ᮄᮊᮣᮤᮙ᮪
ᮊᮤ kiː [U+1B8A SUNDANESE LETTER KA + U+1BA4 SUNDANESE VOWEL SIGN PANGHULU]
Sundanese uses the following dedicated combining marks for vowels.
Two vowel signs are spacing marks, meaning that they consume horizontal space when added to a base consonant.
One vowel sign appears to the left of the base consonant letter or cluster.
This is a combining mark that is always stored after the base consonant. The font places the glyph before the base consonant.
ᮛᮦᮌᮀ
Sundanese represents standalone vowels using a set of independent vowel letters, eg. ᮅᮃᮕ᮪ The set includes a character to represent the inherent vowel sound.
Independent vowels can carry syllable-final consonants, eg.
ᮃᮀᮊᮥᮒᮔ᮪
ᮎᮤᮊᮤᮄᮂ
ᮘᮤᮃᮀ
This section maps Sundanese vowel sounds to common graphemes in the Sundanese orthography.
Alternative dependent (post-consonant) and standalone vowel letters are labelled.
Sounds listed as 'infrequent' are allophones, or sounds used for foreign words, etc. Light coloured characters occur infrequently.
dependent ᮤ
standalone ᮄ
dependent ᮥ
standalone ᮅ
dependent ᮦ
standalone ᮆ
dependent ᮩ
standalone ᮉ
dependent ᮧ
standalone ᮇ
dependent ᮨ
standalone ᮈ
inherent vowel eg. ᮊᮜᮕ
standalone ᮃ
The following table summarises the main consonant to character assigments.
Onsets | |
---|---|
Medials | |
Finals |
For additional details see vowel_mappings.
The Sundanese block has 18 consonant letters for indigenous sounds in modern Sundanese writing.
An extended set of consonants is used to represent non-native sounds, eg. Arabic.
The three trailing consonants that can appear in syllable-initial pairs are written using dedicated combining marks, eg. ᮄᮊᮣᮤᮙ᮪ ᮃᮌᮢᮤᮊᮥᮜ᮪ᮒᮥᮁ
The three syllable-final consonant sounds are also represented using dedicated combining marks, eg. ᮙᮀᮌᮥ ᮕᮞᮤᮁ ᮃᮘᮂ-ᮃᮘᮂ
Syllable-initial consonant clusters allow 3 sounds after the initial consonant, j, r, or l. These are all represented using dedicated combining marks (see onsets).
In modern Sundanese the absence of a vowel sound between two consonants is shown using a visible vowel killer 1BAA. This produces no special conjunct forms.
ᮃᮊ᮪ᮞᮛ
Historical Sundanese does have conjunct forms. They can be produced using the invisible 1BAB. The following shows known conjuncts:os
Historically, Sundanese also had special forms for subjoined -m and -w. These can be represented using 1BAD and 1BAC.
This section maps Sundanese consonant sounds to common graphemes in the Sundanese orthography.
Alternative onset, medial, and final consonants are labelled.
Sounds listed as 'infrequent' are allophones, or sounds used for foreign words, etc. Light coloured characters occur infrequently.
onset ᮕ
onset ᮘ
onset ᮒ
onset ᮎ
onset ᮓ
onset ᮏ
onset ᮊ
onset ᮟ for transliteration of foreign words.
onset ᮌ
onset ᮋ for transliteration of foreign words.
onset ᮖ for transliteration of foreign words.
onset ᮗ for transliteration of foreign words.
onset ᮞ
onset ᮯ for transliteration of foreign words.
onset ᮐ for transliteration of foreign words.
onset ᮮ for transliteration of foreign words.
onset ᮠ
coda ᮂ Coda.
onset ᮙ
onset ᮔ
onset ᮑ
onset ᮍ
coda ᮀ Coda.
onset ᮝ
onset ᮛ
medial ᮢ
coda ᮁ
onset ᮜ
medial ᮣ
onset ᮚ
medial ᮡ
ᮺ is an archaic letter used for writing Sanskrit.
For reproduction of Old Sundanese writing there are 5 additional characters:
Sundanese uses native digits, which are decimal-based and used in the same way as European numerals.
To help distinguish the digits from other characters | U+007C VERTICAL LINE is used around numbers.
Sundanese runs left to right in horizontal lines.
Show default bidi_class
properties for characters in the Sundanese orthography described here.
You can experiment with examples using the Sundanese character app.
Sundanese text is not cursive.
Glyph shaping is required for subjoined consonants in Old Sundanese, but doesn't appear to be needed for modern Sundanese orthography.
However, when two diacritics appear in the same position relative to the base character they are positioned side by side, as shown in fig_multiple_diacritics.
Observation: Everson says that the same applies for ᮊᮢᮥ, but the fonts I've tried all render that combination vertically.
For Old Sundanese orthography, positioning rules are also needed to produce conjunct forms.
Words are separated by spaces.
tbd
Modern Sundanese typically uses ASCII punctuation for sentence and phrase punctuation.
phrase | ,
; : |
---|---|
sentence | . ? ! |
The punctuation described here is used for Old Sundanese texts, and is not used for modern Sundanese.
phrase | In Old Sundanese, if ᳀ is used as a full stop, ᳂ is used as a comma. Otherwise ᳃ may be used as a comma in older texts. |
---|---|
sentence | ᳀ may be used in Old Sundanese texts. |
Religious texts in Old Sundanese contain ᳆᳀᳆ and ᳆᳁ markers, which include additional code points ᳆, and ᳁.
Historical texts in Old Sundanese contain ᳅᳂᳅ markers, with the additional code point ᳅.
Other similar code points include ᳄ and ᳇.
Sundanese commonly uses ASCII parentheses to insert parenthetical information into text.
start | end | |
---|---|---|
standard | ( |
) |
Sundanese texts use quotation marks around quotations. Of course, due to keyboard design, quotations may also be surrounded by ASCII double and single quote marks.
start | end | |
---|---|---|
initial | “ |
” |
nested | ‘ |
’ |
tbd
No information about whether lines break after syllables or space-separated words.
According to Everson, hyphenation can occur after any full orthographic syllable, but there are no details about how that works.
As in almost all writing systems, certain punctuation characters should not appear at the end or the start of a line. The Unicode line-break properties help applications decide whether a character should appear at the start or end of a line.
Show (default) line-breaking properties for characters in the modern Sundanese orthography.
The following list gives examples of typical behaviours for some of the characters used in modern Sundanese. Context may affect the behaviour of some of these and other characters.
Click/tap on the characters to show what they are.
Sundanese uses the so-called 'alphabetic' baseline, which is the same as for Latin and many other scripts.
Most Sundanese letters are of a uniform height, but Sundanese places vowel marks and final characters above and below base characters. If the latter occur together, they are typically placed side by side, rather than extending away from the baseline.
To give an approximate idea, fig_baselines compares Latin and Sundanese glyphs from the Noto font. The basic height of Sundanese letters is typically around the Latin cap-height, and combining marks below fit pretty much within the Latin descender height, however combining marks reach above the Latin ascenders, creating a need for larger line spacing.