Sundanesse Scripts

Writing system is the most important tool to spread the high and noble knowledge of Indonesian people since the ancient time. Let me take you on a journey to see some of the writing systems in Indonesia.

First, let’s visit the Java Island and the neighboring island of Bali. Sanskrit and Pallava were the writing systems of the past, but the Javanesse were able to create their own writing system which is the “Hanacaraka” or the “Carakan”. Interestengly enough, the order of Hanacaraka itself bears a story.
So strong was the Javanesse influence around the Nusantara, the Hanacaraka/Carakan was also used by their neighbours and vessel kingdoms.The Balinesse Carakan has enough variety to distinct their Carakan from the Javanesse Carakan. There are additional consonants in the Balinesse Carakan, and they are used for writing words from the Kawi (Old Javanese) language.

But did the entire Java Island use the Carakan?Well, that’s debatable. Let’s visit the western Java to the home of Sundanesse people, the cunning neighbor of th Javanesse people. Subjected to the might of Jaanesse empires, the Javanesse influences in the Sundanesse society is clear in the way of the culture, clothing, language and yes, writing system too. Hanacaraka were also used to write Sundanesse. But the Sundanesse were able to develop their own script too!Kudos for that.
Sunda Kuna script is much simpler than the Hanacaraka (thank goodness). The rules are simple:

The Sunda Kuna script is a syllabic alphabet/alphasyllabary.
Each consonant has an inherent vowel (it goes like this: ka, kha, qa, xa, ga, nga, ca, ja, za, nya, ta, da, na, pa, fa, va, ba, ma, ya, ra, la, wa, sa, sya, ha). Err..I’m not sure whether that’s the original order, but whatever!
Other vowels or the absence of vowels can be indicated by using diacritics which appear above, below, before, after or before and after the consonant letter. Simple huh?
The direction of writing is left to right, in a horizontal line.

Because I’m currently living in Bandung, I’m proud of the aksara sunda/sunda kuna. Unlike the other Indonesian scripts, it’s hard to find information on Sunda Kuna. I got these neat papers on Sundanesse Script from the Sundanesse Culture Society themselves. Well, I kinda have stolen it from them, hahaha.