Basa Sunda

1 Phrases

Learn just a little Sundanese to not sound snobby.

• Hatur Nuhun: Thanks very much

• Sami-sami: Same to you

• Wilujeng Sumping: Welcome

• Wilujeng Emping: Good morning

• A dictionary of the Sundanese language (1862) by Jonathan Rigg

Useful honorifics:

• Mang (“Uncle”) is often used for musicians. I think it is equivalent to Aling for women, or is that Tagalog?
• Kang (“Big brother”) is a generic honorific. Is Neng the equivalent for women?
• Abah is a serious honorific male address, for significant leaders, etc.

2 Sundanese script

If you want to know how to write in Sundanese script… Most Sundanese don’t; this is a recent revival thing.

A standardised Sundanese script was recently included in Unicode, and now you can indeed type contemporary Sundanese script. Historically, there are other forms, standards, styles, and whole other scripts for the Sundanese, but I know even less about those than the one that is notionally current. Read the history at Kairaga.com. Now read the Sundanese Wikipedia article.

If I’ve understood the Wikipedia page correctly (and I translated it from Sundanese, which I do not speak, so that’s not guaranteed) it’s like Thai and some other Brahmi-derived scripts in that there are primary consonants decorated with modifiers to change the succeeding vowel. This is an abugida system. So the following should say “Lotekno”; Because there are modifiers attached to the consonants La-Ta-Ka-Na.

ᮜᮧᮒᮦᮊ᮪ᮔᮧ

• Automatic transcription (missing the letter F, maybe others?)