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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Vowel sounds
Consonant sounds
labial
alveolar
post-
alveolar
palatal
velar
uvular
glottal
stop
pb
td
kɡ
q
affricate
t͡ʃd͡ʒ
k͡s
fricative
fv
sz
x
h
nasal
m
n
ɲ
ŋ
approximant
w
l
j
trill/flap
r
Structure
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.
Vowels
Vowel summary table
The following table summarises the main vowel to character assigments.
ⓘ represents the inherent vowel. The right-hand column shows standalone vowels.
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
using 1BAA
using a medial consonant diacritic, or
using a word-final consonant diacritic.
For example, ᮃᮌᮢᮤᮊᮥᮜ᮪ᮒᮥᮁ contains all three (see fig_vowel_absence).
Left to right, the highlights show a medial diacritic, a pamaaeh, and a final consonant diacritic.show composition
ᮃᮌᮢᮤᮊᮥᮜ᮪ᮒᮥᮁ
At the end of a word, 1BAA is used, eg. see ᮄᮊᮣᮤᮙ᮪ in fig_final_pamaaeh.
Pamaaeh in word-final position.show composition
ᮄᮊᮣᮤᮙ᮪
Vowel basics
Combining marks used for vowels
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.
Pre-base vowel sign
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.
A prebase vowel sign appears to the left of the consonant after which it is pronounced.show composition
ᮛᮦᮌᮀ
Standalone vowels
Sundanese represents standalone vowels using a set of independent vowel letters, eg. ᮅᮃᮕ᮪ The set includes a character to represent the inherent vowel sound.
ᮄ␣ᮅ␣ᮆ␣ᮇ␣ᮈ␣ᮉ␣ᮃ
Independent vowels can carry syllable-final consonants, eg.
ᮃᮀᮊᮥᮒᮔ᮪
ᮎᮤᮊᮤᮄᮂ
ᮘᮤᮃᮀ
Vowel sounds mapped to characters
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.
Plain vowels
i
dependentᮤ
standaloneᮄ
u
dependentᮥ
standaloneᮅ
e
dependentᮦ
standaloneᮆ
ɤ
dependentᮩ
standaloneᮉ
o
dependentᮧ
standaloneᮇ
ə
dependentᮨ
standaloneᮈ
a
inherent voweleg. ᮊᮜᮕ
standaloneᮃ
Consonants
Consonant summary table
The following table summarises the main consonant to character assigments.
The Sundanese block has 18 consonant letters for indigenous sounds in modern Sundanese writing.
ᮕ␣ᮘ␣ᮒ␣ᮓ␣ᮊ␣ᮌ␣ᮎ␣ᮏ␣ᮞ␣ᮠ␣ᮙ␣ᮔ␣ᮑ␣ᮍ␣ᮝ␣ᮛ␣ᮜ␣ᮚ
Repertoire extension
An extended set of consonants is used to represent non-native sounds, eg. Arabic.
ᮟ␣ᮋ␣ᮖ␣ᮗ␣ᮐ␣ᮯ␣ᮮ
Onsets
ᮢ␣ᮣ␣ᮡ
The three trailing consonants that can appear in syllable-initial pairs are written using dedicated combining marks, eg. ᮄᮊᮣᮤᮙ᮪ᮃᮌᮢᮤᮊᮥᮜ᮪ᮒᮥᮁ
Finals
ᮀ␣ᮁ␣ᮂ
The three syllable-final consonant sounds are also represented using dedicated combining marks, eg. ᮙᮀᮌᮥᮕᮞᮤᮁᮃᮘᮂ-ᮃᮘᮂ
Consonant clusters
Syllable-initial clusters
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).
Other consonant clusters
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.
The word aksara, showing pamaaeh vowel killer.show composition
ᮃᮊ᮪ᮞᮛ
Old Sundanese
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.
ᮬ␣ᮭ
Consonant to script mapping
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.
p
onsetᮕ
b
onsetᮘ
t
onsetᮒ
t͡ʃ
onsetᮎ
d
onsetᮓ
d͡ʒ
onsetᮏ
k
onsetᮊ
ks
onsetᮟfor transliteration of foreign words.
ɡ
onsetᮌ
q
onsetᮋfor transliteration of foreign words.
f
onsetᮖfor transliteration of foreign words.
v
onsetᮗfor transliteration of foreign words.
s
onsetᮞ
onsetᮯfor transliteration of foreign words.
z
onsetᮐfor transliteration of foreign words.
x
onsetᮮfor transliteration of foreign words.
h
onsetᮠ
codaᮂCoda.
m
onsetᮙ
n
onsetᮔ
ɲ
onsetᮑ
ŋ
onsetᮍ
codaᮀCoda.
w
onsetᮝ
r
onsetᮛ
medialᮢ
codaᮁ
l
onsetᮜ
medialᮣ
j
onsetᮚ
medialᮡ
Other features
Other letters
ᮺ is an archaic letter used for writing Sanskrit.
ᮺ
For reproduction of Old Sundanese writing there are 5 additional characters:
ᮻ␣ᮼ␣ᮽ␣ᮾ␣ᮿ
Numbers
Digits
Sundanese uses native digits, which are decimal-based and used in the same way as European numerals.
᮰␣᮱␣᮲␣᮳␣᮴␣᮵␣᮶␣᮷␣᮸␣᮹
To help distinguish the digits from other characters |U+007C VERTICAL LINE is used around numbers.
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.
Multiple combining marks alongside the same base character sit side by side.
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.
Typographic units
Word boundaries
Words are separated by spaces.
Graphemes
tbd
Punctuation & inline features
Phrase & section boundaries
,␣;␣:␣.␣?␣!
Modern Sundanese typically uses ASCII punctuation for sentence and phrase punctuation.
phrase
,
;
:
sentence
.
?
!
Old Sundanese
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 ᳇.
Bracketed text
(␣)
Sundanese commonly uses ASCII parentheses to insert parenthetical information into text.
start
end
standard
(
)
Quotations & citations
‘␣’␣“␣”
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
‘
’
Line & paragraph layout
Line breaking
tbd
No information about whether lines break after syllables or space-separated words.
In-word line-breaking
According to Everson, hyphenation can occur after any full orthographic syllable, but there are no details about how that works.
Line-edge rules
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.
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.
“ ‘ ( should not be the last character on a line.
” ’ ) . , ; ! ? % should not begin a new line.
Baselines, line height, etc.
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.
Font metrics for Latin text compared with Sundanese glyphs in the Noto Sans Sundanese font.
