The Existence of Sundanese Writing by Sayu Asmarita

The Existence of Sundanese Writing

Sunda is known for its cultural diversity. Sundanese Writing or can be called “ngalena” is one of the contents. Sundanese Writing has been used since before the 14^th century and that statement was proved by the Sundanese writing used in the manuscripts (Parahyangan story, Bujangga Manik, Sewaka Darma) and on the more popular inscriptions (Kebantenan inscription, Kawali inscription). Sundanese writing was well known by the Sundanese who lived around that century. As time goes by, it has been declared as an original writing which is protected and it must be preserved. In 2003 The level 1 regional government of West Java established  a regional regulation number 5, about preservation, coaching, development of Sundanese, literature and Sundanese writing. However, in this modern era Sundanese writing has begun to fade, as if  the Sundanese themselves forgot and even unknown about it. So, what caused this cultural setback to occur? There are three possible causes, those are globalization, education system, and there is no an obligation to use the Sundanese writing in daily or social life.

Globalization is a process of expanding influence from one country to another or we can call it as a worldwide process. Now, Globalization has been being happened in Indonesia. It caused by : the free of accessing information from print or electronic media. Actually, the free accessing information itself can have positive and negative impact. The positive side is people will get a lot of information coming from all corners of the world, indirectly the information will increase people's knowledge, but the negative side is most of them do not re-filter the information they got. So that the cultures of the other countries are known and imitated by Indonesians. For the example, standing party culture which is currently being imitated by Indonesians in the middle and upper economies.

The same thing happened to Sundanese Writing. Because of globalization effect, Indonesians got a lot of information about various types of handwriting from several foreign countries such as Hiragana, Kanji and Hangul. As the example, my friend like watching Korean Drama. She often watchs it, even she knows every Korean Dramas that is being talked about. As a result, she can writes Hangul. It reflects that she unconsciously imitated the culture of another country by putting it into practice in everyday life. Indirectly it made her no longer care about his own culture. Such conditions occur in almost every region. It is not surprising that people of West Java themselves do not have the ability to write Sundanese Writing. Of course, it was replaced by the another writings which is considered modern one.

Another possible cause for the fade of Sundanese writing is education system. As a people who have graduated from Vocational High School in Office Admnistration Department, I got the study about Sundanese writing in second grade. At that time, I had thought that the Institute of Education had carried out their duties in an effort to develop and preserve Indonesian culture, by adding a local cultural curriculum in which learning about Sundanese writing. But, unfortunately not all schools especially in West Java provide teaching about local culture like Sundanese writing, so there are still many people do not know about the existence of it.

On the other hand, there is a fact that the large number of students studying Sundanese writing at the senior high school level does not make students master the Sundanese writing skills, because they only learn it within six months or a semesters. With such short time is not enough to train and get used to write foreign writing, and it will be hard if it is not often trained. That is why many people learned about Sundanese writing, but after they rose to the next level and graduated, they are forgot about it.

A third cause for the fade of Sundanese writing is there is no there is no an obligation to use the Sundanese writing in daily or social life. If we are thorough, the number of people who can write Sundanese writing cannot guarantee that Sundanese writing still exists without practicing it often in daily or social life. Just is like a knife that is rarely sharpened, it will be blunt. Similar to the Sundanese writing, if someone does not use or practice it often, then slowly that person will forget it.

Until now, there is no an obligation to use the Sundanese writing in daily or social life. So, The fading of Sundanese writing culture is not entirely derived from globalization and the education system, because indeed this problem seems to be supported by the absence of media to apply it and there is no necessity to use it. Even though, Sunda has many cultures that can be used as a medium for collaborating with Sundanese writing, for  the example : Sunda has a popular culture, “Sawer”, the text of sawer can be written by Sundanese writing. Son that, the existence of the Sundanese writing will not fade.

Everyone will feel sad when they witness one by one the loss of Indonesian culture. therefore we as young people must have an innovation to uplift the culture that has been forgotten. One way is to start re-introducing the types of Sundanese writing and the local content of the local culture through socialization to all levels of society both bureaucrats and the community, as well as formal and informal institutions. Starting from the ranks of bureaucrats as policy makers, the government should play an active role in the efforts to preserve, develop and foster local culture and the educational institutions have to participate in the process of preservation of regional literary.

The Sundanese writing must be returned, resurrected. So that our culture is not eroded by the flow of foreign cultures out there. With the ease of obtaining and disseminating information, the Sundanese writing can easily be introduced to the world audience. Do not let us lose to other languages. Because our language is actually better than the foreign language.