d r a f t – sll in revision d r a f t – sll in revision Re-posioning the Sundanese Culture and Language in the Indonesian Context Safrina Noorman Abstract: This paper is a brief overview on the Sundanese culture and language of the West Java Province in Indonesia. The paper is roughly divided into parts. The first part discusses the general aspects of the culture such as its origins and various art forms, and briefly describes the Sundanese language and how it works. The second part addresses the posion of the Sundanese culture in a mulethnic Indonesian naon and discusses the problems and challenges faced in the posioning of both culture and language in the naonal educaon system which is regarded as one of the sites for the preservaon of local cultures including the Sundanese. The paper also aends to the efforts made to keep alive the culture and language in sites other than the formal one. It is expected that the paper insgates discussions which open up new insights for the efforts made and assembles inputs from different perspecves and experiences for the advancements of the efforts. INTRODUCTION The name “sunda” refers to quite a number of things but the most common reference is to an ethnic group. Sunda as a label for an ethnic group represents a people living in the Banten and West Java areas of Indonesia. Based on the Regional Social-Economic Survey (2007), the area is populated by around 50 million people, + 80% of which are the Sundanese people. This has made West Java the most densely populated province in Indonesia. However, as a cultural enty and despite the considerable number of populaon, Sundanese is not as widely known as some other Indonesian ethnic groups like the Javanese or Balinese. This is probably due to the fact that they are fewer in number compared to the Javanese who shares the same island, or it 1 1