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.
The 18 native consonant letters are supplemented by 7 more used for non-native sounds, such as those from Arabic. ❯ consonants
Syllable-initial clusters use 3 dedicated combining marks for the second consonant. ❯ onsets
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. ❯ finals
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. ❯ clusters
Sundanese has a set of native digits, but uses ASCII punctuation. ❯ numbers
Character index
Letters
Show
Basic consonants
ᮕ␣ᮘ␣ᮒ␣ᮓ␣ᮊ␣ᮌ␣ᮎ␣ᮏ␣ᮞ␣ᮠ␣ᮙ␣ᮔ␣ᮑ␣ᮍ␣ᮝ␣ᮛ␣ᮜ␣ᮚ
Extended consonants
ᮟ␣ᮋ␣ᮖ␣ᮗ␣ᮐ␣ᮯ␣ᮮ
Vowels
ᮄ␣ᮅ␣ᮆ␣ᮇ␣ᮈ␣ᮉ␣ᮃ
Not used for modern Sundanese
ᮺ␣ᮻ␣ᮼ␣ᮽ␣ᮾ␣ᮿ
Combining marks
Show
Vowels
ᮦ␣ᮤ␣ᮥ␣ᮧ␣ᮨ␣ᮩ
Medials
ᮢ␣ᮣ␣ᮡ
Finals
ᮀ␣ᮁ␣ᮂ
Other
᮪
Not used for modern Sundanese
᮫␣ᮬ␣ᮭ
Numbers
Show᮰␣᮱␣᮲␣᮳␣᮴␣᮵␣᮶␣᮷␣᮸␣᮹
Punctuation
Show‘␣’␣“␣”
ASCII
(␣)␣,␣.␣:␣;␣?␣!␣|
Not used for modern Sundanese
᳀␣᳁␣᳂␣᳃␣᳄␣᳅␣᳆␣᳇
Other
Show
To be investigated
%␣-␣[␣]␣§␣«␣»␣ʼ␣͏␣␣␣␣‑␣–␣—␣†␣‡␣…␣‰␣′␣″␣‹␣›␣
Items to show in lists
Phonology
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.
Vowel sounds
Consonant sounds
labial
dental
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
ⓘ 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.
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.
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
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
Vowel length
tbd
Nasalisation
tbd
Tones
Sundanese is not a tonal language.
Vowel sounds mapped to characters
This section maps Sundanese vowel sounds to common graphemes in the Sundanese orthography. Click on a grapheme to find other mentions on this page (links appear at the bottom of the page). Click on the character name to see examples and for detailed descriptions of the character(s) shown.
Sounds listed as 'infrequent' are allophones, or sounds used for foreign words, etc.
The three trailing consonants that can appear in syllable-initial pairs are written using dedicated combining marks, eg. ᮄᮊᮣᮤᮙ᮪ᮃᮌᮢᮤᮊᮥᮜ᮪ᮒᮥᮁ
Final consonants
ᮀ␣ᮁ␣ᮂ
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 ᮪[U+1BAA SUNDANESE SIGN PAMAAEH]. 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 ᮫U+1BAB SUNDANESE SIGN VIRAMA. The following shows known conjuncts:os
This section maps modern Sundanese consonant vowel sounds to common graphemes in the Sundanese orthography,. Click on a grapheme to find other mentions on this page (links appear at the bottom of the page). Click on the character name to see examples and for detailed descriptions of the character(s) shown.
Sounds listed as 'infrequent' are allophones, or sounds used for foreign words, etc.
This section brings together information about the following topics:
writing styles;
cursive text;
context-based shaping;
context-based positioning;
baselines, line height, etc.;
font styles;
case & other character transforms.
The orthography has no case distinction, and no special transforms are needed to convert between characters.
Context-based shaping & positioning
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.
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.
Font styling & weight
tbd
Graphemes
Grapheme clusters
tbd
Punctuation & inline features
Word boundaries
Words are separated by spaces.
Phrase & section boundaries
,␣;␣:␣.␣?␣!
Modern Sundanese typically uses ASCII punctuation for sentence and phrase punctuation.
phrase
, [U+002C COMMA]
; [U+003B SEMICOLON]
: [U+003A COLON]
sentence
. [U+002E FULL STOP]
? [U+003F QUESTION MARK]
! [U+0021 EXCLAMATION MARK]
Old Sundanese
The punctuation described here is used for Old Sundanese texts, and is not used for modern Sundanese.
Sundanese commonly uses ASCII parentheses to insert parenthetical information into text.
start
end
standard
( [U+0028 LEFT PARENTHESIS]
) [U+0029 RIGHT PARENTHESIS]
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.
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.
Text alignment & justification
tbd
Text spacing
tbd
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.
Counters, lists, etc.
tbd
Styling initials
tbd
Page & book layout
This section is for any features that are specific to Sundanese and that relate to the following topics:
general page layout & progression;
grids & tables;
notes, footnotes, etc;
forms & user interaction;
page numbering, running headers, etc.
