Sundanese

Sundanese is the Malayo-Polynesian language of the Sundanese people, native to western Java in the region called Tatar Sunda or Pasundan. Although surrounded by Javanese, it is classified with the Malayic languages and the Land Dayak and Kayan-Murik groups of Borneo.

From the age of Tarumanagara, whose fifth-century Ciaruteun inscription of King Purnawarman was incised in Pallava script and drew heavily on Sanskrit, it served as the language of Sundanese courts, including the Hindu kingdom of Pajajaran, which lasted from 932 to about 1579. Old Sundanese was used for religious and historical manuscripts.

It was first written in the Old Sundanese script; after the spread of Islam the Arabic-based Pegon alphabet joined it, and in colonial times the Latin alphabet became dominant. Sundanese remained the everyday speech of western Java through the Mataram conquests and the Dutch colonial period.