Sundanese Culture

The Sundanese are of Austronesian origins who are thought to have originated in Taiwan, migrated though the Philippines, and reached Java between 1,500BCE and 1,000BCE. The Sundanese have traditionally been concentrated in the provinces of West Java, Banten and Jakarta, and the western part of Central Java. The provinces of Central Java and East Java are home to the Javanese, Indonesia's largest ethnic group. West Java spreads over an area of 16,670 square miles (43,177 square kilometers). The northern coast is flat, and the southern coast is hilly. The central area is mountainous and is marked by some spectacular volcanoes.

The Sundanese language is spoken by approximately 27 million people and is the second most widely-spoken regional language in Indonesia, after Javanese. The vast majority live on the island of Java. Java is a small island, but it is the administrative and economic center of the Indonesian archipelago (chain of islands).This language is spoken in the southern part of the Banten province, and most of West Java and eastwards as far as the Pamali River in Brebes, Central Java. Like other Indonesians, most Sundanese are bilingual. They speak both their native tongue, Sundanese, and the Indonesian national language.

Sundanese culture has borrowed much from Javanese culture, however it differs by being more overtly Islamic, and has a much less rigid system of social hierarchy. The Sundanese, in their mentality and behavior, their greater egalitarianism and antipathy to yawning class distinctions, their community-based material culture, of feudal hierarchy, apparent among the people of the Javanese Principality. Central Javanese court culture nurtured in atmosphere conducive to elite, stylized, impeccably-polished forms of art and literature. In a pure sense, Sundanese culture bore few traces of these traditions.

The traditional profession of Sundanese people is agricultural, especially rice. Sundanese culture and tradition are usually centred around the agricultural cycle. Next to agriculture, Sundanese people often choose business and trade to make a living although mostly are traditional entrepreneurships, such as a travelling food or drink vendors, establishing modest "warung" (food stall) or restaurant, or as the vendor of daily consumer's goods. Several traveling food vendors and food stalls such as Siomay, Gado-gado and Karedok, Nasi Goreng, Cendol, Bubur Ayam, Roti Bakar (grilled bread), Bubur Kacang Hijau (green beans congee) and Indomie instant noodle stall are notably Sundanese.

Traditional artforms include various of musics, dances, and martial arts. The notable Sundanese musics are angklung bamboo music, kecapi suling music, gamelan degung, reyog Sunda and rampak gendang. Angklung bamboo music instrument is one of world heritages of intangible culture.The most well known and distinctive Sundanese dance are Jaipongan, a traditional social dance which usually but mistakenly associated mith eroticism. Wayang golek puppetry is the most popular wayang performance for Sundanese people. The Pencak silat martial art in Sundanese tradition can be traced to the historical figure King Siliwangi of Sunda Pajajaran kingdom, with Cimande is one of the most prominent school.

The Sundanese have an music cultural heritage  is one of the more traditional varieties is called  degung.  It is performed by a simplified  gamelan  orchestra blending soft-sounding percussion instruments with the melancholy sounds of a flute. Another type of orchestra is made up of an instrument called  angklung  (consisting of suspended bamboo tubes in different lengths that make a musical sound when shaken).

One of the oldest forms of Sundanese literature is the pantun cerita. It is a kind of traditional poetry, in which each verse consists of two couplets. It tells of Sundanese heroes from ancient times. More modern forms of literature, such as the novel, have also emerged among the Sundanese.

Other cultural heritage of Sundanese are:
Dances like ketuk tilu, tari merak (dance "peacock"), jaipongan (popular Sundanese social dance), tari topeng (mask dance), sisingaan, etc. . Sundanese Pupuh (Sundanese poetic meters) is specify the number of lines in each verse as well as the ending syllables of each line

Pantun Sunda is a genre of Sundanese oral narative performance in which a solo storyteller recounts the glory of past kingdoms and the exploits of heroic figures. Calung  is a humorous performance in which a group of 4 - 6 people led by a leader performing humorous conversation and in certain periods conducting musical performance using some peaces of angklung instruments with funy lyrics.

Sisindiran is an oral performance in which two groups of people reciprocally conducting humorous questions and answers performance using poetic meters; one group asks a question and the other group answers it (and the answer may include a question for the opposite group). Others Tarling (guitar and flute music typical to Cirebon),  Sandiwara (opera) and Traditional humorous story: "Kabayan, the innocent man".