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- Austronesische Sprachen (1)
- Schrift (1)
- Sundanesisch (1)
- The Sundanese script: visual analysis of its development into a native Austronesian script
- Before submission to the Javanese Islamic sultanate in the sixteenth century CE, the Sundanese writing culture had developed in a variety of media, for example, gold, stone, copper, bamboo, or lontar and gebang leaves. The letterforms on bamboo, lontar, and some on stones, differ in style and structure to the forms on gebang and copper. These peculiarities are also mentioned by K. F. Holle (1877) and Prof. Dr. J. G. de Casparis (1975). This research shares the same curiosity as that of Holle and de Casparis. With a background in graphic design, a visual approach as an arts-based research method is used to analyze this development. This discourse allowed to understand the influences of hand gestures, materials, and tools on the form of the letters and lead to my visual analysis. It can be concluded that only intensive writing activities could allow the observed variation of letterforms, which also lead to structural changes, facilitating the speed of writing. This is suggested by original texts as much as by the visual analysis. The Saṅhyaṅ Sasana Maha Guru text describes ten writing media for different purposes and Saṅhyaṅ Siksa Kandaṅ Karesian text lists more than thirty professions, some of which may need media for keeping the record.