Sundanese (Basa Sunda, literally "language of Sunda") is the language of about 27,000,000 people from the western third of Java or 13.6% of Indonesian population.

It is classified in Austronesian - Malayo-Polynesian - Western Malayo-Polynesian - Sundic language family and has several dialects based on the locations of the people:

• Banten,
• Bogor,
• Priangan , and
• Cirebon.

Priangan, which cover the most area of Sunda, is the main dialect of Sundanese language taught in elementary till junior-high schools (equivalent to ninth-year school grade).

Phonology

Currently, Sundanese is written in Latin script and is highly phonetical. There are five pure vowel sounds: a (similar to the sound in bus), e (as in get), i (shorter than in eat), o (shorter than in dawn), u (as in put), and two neutral vowels like the second vowel of water which is also spelled e, and eu (as 'eau' in plateau); and no diphthong. The consonantic phonemes are rendered by the letters p, b, t, d, k, g, c (pronounced like the ch in cheese), j, h, ng (which also occurs initially), ny (as in canyon), m, n, s (unvoiced, as in sun or cats), w, l, r (trilled or flapped) and y. Other consonants that originally appear in Indonesian loanwords mostly transferred into main consonants: f -> p, v -> p, sy -> s, sh -> s, z -> j, and kh (as in loch) -> h.

Basic grammar

(to be written).

Root word

(to be written).

Active form

(to be written).

Negation

(to be written).

Question

(to be written).

Passive form

(to be written).

Adjectives

(to be written).

Prepositions

Place

Time

Miscellaneous

Conjuctives

(to be written).

See also:

• Kidung Sunda

External links

• ethnologue report on Sundanese