Searching of Sundanese Archaic Words in Inner and Outer Badui
Davin Rusady and Sri Munawarah
Faculty of Humanities, University of Indonesia, Depok, Indonesia
Keywords: Archaic, Sundanese, Inner Badui, Outer Badui.
Abstract: Badui people came from the old Sundanese Kingdom which is the Pajajaran Kingdom who was hiding
when the kingdom started to collapse at the early of the 17
th
century following the rise of Islamic teachings
by the Banten Kingdom. The Badui was the people of the Pajajaran Kingdom who fled to Lebak district and
settled there. After settling down, they still apply the traditional life customs that being inherited from
generation to generation. Therefore, there is a possibility the Badui people inherited some Sundanese
archaic words. This study attempts to answer whether there are any Sundanese archaic words in the Inner
and Outer Badui areas. The goal of this research is to inventory Sundanese archaic words in the Inner and
Outer Badui areas. The data were collected by interviewing informants in 14 villages with listening,
observing, and writing informants’ utterance. The methods used in this research are checking the words and
compare it to the dictionary of Sundanese archaic words. The results show that there are 633 words used by
the Badui people and as many as 47 words (7,42%) of it are Sundanese archaic words that are not used
anymore in Bandung, but still used in Badui area. Moreover, the archaic vocabularies are not only found in
Inner Badui area, which is considered more exclusive due to the strict application of customary rules but
also found in Outer Badui area that is considered to be contaminated by the outermost areas because the
application of customary rules is laxer.
1 INTRODUCTION
Each language certainly has a variety of dialects
because dialect is part of a language (Wardhaugh
2006). One of the interesting phenomena to be
traced can be found in Badui area because Badui
people are speaking in the ancient Sundanese
language. According to Lauder (2006), the closed
society situation allows the Badui society to preserve
the ancient Sundanese vocabulary. It encourages
researchers to conduct research on vocabulary words
archaic Sundanese in Inner and Outer Badui.
Fromkin et al. (2003) have proposed that a word
can be described as archaic because there is no
speaker who uses the vocabulary and its existence
was already replaced. For example, mokla 'blood' in
Sundanese is rarely used in Bandung and
surrounding areas. The word is replaced with getih
which also means 'blood'. Meanwhile, the word
mokla still exist in the Badui area because Badui
society still speaks in ancient Sundanese.
Badui society is a group of people who still
maintain the original culture. They inherit the
customary rules of pikukuh from generation to
generation. Geographically, Badui society is divided
into two groups, namely Inner Badui and Outer
Badui. Inner Badui area includes Cikertawana,
Cibeo, and Cikeusik Village. Meanwhile, a recent
report on the amount of Outer Badui area (Baduy
Kembali 2016) said that the Outer Badui area covers
61 other villages.
At first, the Badui speak in Sundanese. Their
language belongs to the Sundanese-Banten dialect
category, the Badui subdialects. Unlike the Banten
dialect, the language used in Badui is not influenced
by the Javanese language. In addition, the language
used in Badui has a special vocabulary for counting
good days. Therefore, customs, religions, ancestor
stories, and so forth are kept in their speech
(Permana, 2006).
One of the earliest writings about the Bedouin
community comes from reports C.L. Blume, during
the botanical expedition to the area in 1822.
According to Blume, the Badui community
originated from the old Sundanese Kingdom, which
is the Pajajaran Kingdom, who hid while the
kingdom collapsed in the early 17
th
century
592
Rusady, D. and Munawarah, S.
Searching of Sundanese Archaic Words in Inner and Outer Badui.
DOI: 10.5220/0007171505920596
In Proceedings of the Tenth Conference on Applied Linguistics and the Second English Language Teaching and Technology Conference in collaboration with the First International Conference
on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education (CONAPLIN and ICOLLITE 2017) - Literacy, Culture, and Technology in Language Pedagogy and Use, pages 592-596
ISBN: 978-989-758-332-2
Copyright © 2018 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved

following the Islamic teachings of Banten Kingdom
(Permana, 2006).
In connection with those statements, researchers
concluded that the Badui people were the people of
the Pajajaran Kingdom who fled to the Lebak
district and settled there. Once settled, they still
apply rigorous royal life procedures as the
inheritance. It is also possible that the Badui society
has inherited archaic vocabularies in ancient
Sundanese. Therefore, the problems in this paper are
what kind of Sundanese archaic vocabularies that
still remain in the Badui area. The purpose of this
research is to find Sundanese archaic vocabulary and
vocabulary that replacing the Sundanese archaic
vocabulary in the Badui area.
2 LITERATURE REVIEW
This research is the first study of Sundanese archaic
vocabulary. Therefore, researchers did not find
previous research that discusses the searching of
archaic vocabulary in Sundanese. Even so,
researchers found several studies that discuss the
searching of archaic vocabulary in other regional
languages, such as Minangkabau and Mandailing
languages. In the Pariaman dialect of Minangkabau
language, Yulis et al. (2013) stated that there are
archaic vocabularies that are no longer used in the
Koto Tabang region. The study also reveals that
there are five factors that can cause these
vocabularies to be archaic, among others the
growing number of younger generations, the
declining number of older generations, the
unfavourable attitudes towards local languages, no
language interaction, and the influx of Indonesian
vocabulary entry into in the local language. In
addition, in the Mandailing language, Lubis (2013)
stated that there are eighty archaic vocabularies.
Thirty vocabularies have never been used in daily
life. Some of the causes of these vocabularies are
archaic, among others modern cultures replacing
traditional cultures, replacements by synonyms, and
the influence of the introduction of Indonesian
vocabulary into local languages.
There are also several other studies that can
provide information to researchers in understanding
the condition of observation points, such as research
entitled Forest Land Acquisition in Badui Areas by
Badui Communities from 1953 to 1985 in 1999,
Environmental Wisdom in Baduy Society in 2006,
and Baduy Ecotourism: The Linkage between
Pikukuh, Environment, and Tourism in 2010. Those
three studies contain an overview of Badui area,
such as Banten history, the Badui origins,
geographical location, territory, social organization,
community structure, governance system, public
trust, kinship and marriage, livelihood, also
settlement distribution. Such information may assist
the researcher in collecting data and writing research
reports.
In the book entitled Potret Kehidupan
Masyarakat Baduy (Portrait of Baduy Society’s
Life) also disclosed about the origin of Badui tribe
society. There are several opinions on the origin of
Badui name. According to some folklore in Banten,
the Badui name came from the name of a river
named Cibaduy. However, the name was born after
the first self-isolated community opened the village.
There are other opinions that say the Badui comes
from the word Budha and turned into Baduy. There
is also a saying that the name comes from the word
Baduyut because in the village that is used as a place
to live a lot of Baduyut trees, a kind of banyan.
Meanwhile, surely the word Badui was born after
the alienated community built the village
(Djoewisno, 1987).
The alienated society was the Pajajaran people
who fled for fear of enemy pursuits, especially by
the Cirebon Kingdom. Eventually, they came to a
place protected by hills and mountains (Sodikin,
2006). Therefore, it is possible that the Badui people
who live today are the descendants of King
Siliwangi and his guards.
Badui society is divided along strictly socio-
political lines into two distinct subcultures. These
subcultures are distinct geographically. There is no
firm evidence that explains the separation of the
Badui into Inner and Outer (Sodikin, 2006).
However, in a dissertation entitled “Badujs En
Moslims in Lebak Parahiang Zuid Banten”, Geise
(in Sodikin 2006) says that the Inner and Outer
Badui are a single socio-cultural entity. Geise argues
that they are the same community because the Outer
Badui situates their houses overlooking one of the
villages in the Inner Badui area. This happens
because there is a sense of one's offspring or at least
feel that their ancestors have ever worshiped
together against one of Inner Badui villages. This
unity can be clearly seen in the organization of
sacred ceremonies, such as harvest ceremony, rice
planting ceremony, and Kawalu ceremony.
According to Geise (in Sodikin, 2006), the
emergence of the Inner and Outer distinction in
Badui society is a symptom found in various forms
in Indonesia of two-level hierarchies. Geise
describes Kajeroan, the Inner Badui, as a group that
upholds sacred values, acts in the manner of a
Searching of Sundanese Archaic Words in Inner and Outer Badui
593

respected person, or the nobility and leads, while
panamping, the Outer Badui, is a group that upholds
every day, laxer values, has the desire to worship,
and belongs to the masses.
According to Sodikin (2006), the Kajeroan or
Inner Badui are the group who arrived first in the
area they now occupy. This area is called Taneuh
Kajeroan and its inhabitants are called Urang
Kajeroan ‘insiders'. The Inner Badui inhabit three
villages or Tangtu Tilu: Cibeo, Cikeusik, and
Cikertawana. The other group, the Panamping, or
Outer Badui, are called Urang Kaluaran 'outsiders'.
The Outer Badui community groups live in other
villages outside the Inner Badui areas and their
village continues to expand from year to year.
3 METHODS
Research techniques that researchers will do are the
technique of interviewing with a direct listing
(Ayatrohaédi, 2002). The interview will be done by
asking a list of questions that researchers have
prepared. The questionnaire will be asked by the
informant by pointing to the object around the
informant (if any), explaining the form, usefulness,
and nature of the vocabulary in the questionnaire.
After asking a list of questions, the researcher will
directly write the spoken vocabulary using lexical
writing. Lexical writing will be performed to
determine how the pronunciation or the
pronunciation of the vocabulary of native speakers.
Lexical writing referring to The International
Phonetic Alphabet (Chambers and Trudgill, 2004)
because the researcher must use the lexical symbol
in writing so that readers know the pronunciation or
vocabulary proper pronunciation.
Interviews will be conducted in the Kanekes
Village, Leuwidamar District, Banten Province,
West Java. The village was selected as the main
area, so the observation point would be at the hamlet
level. The number of observation points should be
enough to provide a representative sample. They
should be as evenly distributed from each other as
possible throughout the study area. The goal is that
the set of all selected villages should appear as
evenly spread and the sample size should be no less
than 20% of a total number of villages. These
criteria are thought adequate to produce a
comprehensive picture of the language situation
(Lauder, 2007). In this study, researchers sampled a
total of 14 from 64 villages in the Badui tribe areas.
Observation points located in Inner Badui, among
others, Cibeo, Cikertawana, and Cikeusik village.
Meanwhile, observation points that are located in the
Outer Badui, among others Cijengkol, Cisadane,
Cieurih, Cipaler, Cikopeng, Cisaban, Balinbing,
Ciwaringin, Karakal, Kaduketug, and Kompol
villages.
The selection of informants for dialectology
research needs to follow a strict set of criteria. It is
advised that they are Non-mobile, Older, Rural, and
Male (NORM). The thinking behind this is to make
sure the informants can represent the language and
not influenced by other external languages or
cultures. Non-mobile means rarely traveling and free
from experiences other than those in the local
culture; Older means older people are more likely to
use archaic vocabulary; Rural means less likely to
be exposed to outsiders or foreigners; and Male
because traditionally men were thought to be better
represent the local language (Lauder, 2007).
The person who meets the NORM criteria needs
to be found at each observation point. The person
should be someone who speaks the language as a
first language. In order to make such decisions, the
researcher works with a research assistant who is a
native speaker of the local language and a bilingual
who can communicate well with the researcher and
the local community.
All 14 informants were interviewed for this
study, one for each observation point. All of the
informants were considered to be suitable as they
had used Sundanese as their first language. None of
the informants had any history of formal education.
This is due to one of the customary rules that
prohibits Badui people from going to school. Ideally,
the age of informants should be between 40 to 50
years old (Ayatrohaédi, 1979). However, a number
of informants who were older than 50 are chosen
due to the absence of informants that meet the
criteria in some villages. These informants were in
good physical, displayed no signs of senility, and
used the language fluently.
To obtain a good overview of the linguistic
phenomenon, a questionnaire that fit for the purpose
need to be developed. The questionnaire used in this
study is 200 Swadesh basic vocabularies (Lauder,
2007). Two hundred of Swadesh's basic vocabularies
is used because the vocabulary is in all languages
and unlikely to change.
Furthermore, research data obtained from
informants will be transcribed and compared with
data from research conducted in Bandung with the
same question list. In that comparison, the authors
sifted the data to find the Sundanese vocabulary that
was not used in Bandung but still found in the Badui
area. The research data used as comparative material
CONAPLIN and ICOLLITE 2017 - Tenth Conference on Applied Linguistics and the Second English Language Teaching and Technology
Conference in collaboration with the First International Conference on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education
594

in this research is data from research entitled
“Pemetaan Bahasa di Kota Bandung Sebuah Kajian
Dialektologi” (Language Mapping in Bandung City:
A Dialectology Study) Sulyana (2012).
As the capital of West Java province and central
government, Bandung can be considered as a region
with more modern Sundanese language. By
comparing data on the use of Sundanese language
vocabulary in Badui territory which is considered
old-fashioned and data on the use of Sundanese
language vocabulary in Bandung area that is
considered more modern, researchers can discover
how many vocabulary words Sundanese undergoing
changes. Then, the filtered vocabulary is sorted
again based on an ancient Sundanese dictionary
entitled A Dictionary of the Sunda Language of Java
(Rigg, 1862). The author chose the dictionary as
reference material in this study because the
dictionary is considered as the oldest Sundanese
dictionary.
4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
Based on data collection in the field using the 200
questions list of Swadesh's basic vocabulary, there
are 633 vocabularies used by Badui community.
From the entire vocabulary, as many as 47
vocabulary is not used in the area of Bandung and
contained in an ancient Sundanese dictionary.
Meanwhile, other vocabularies that is recorded is a
common Sundanese vocabulary that is still used in
other areas of West Java. The fifty vocabulary,
among others is as seen in table 1.
Table 1: Sundanese Archaic Vocabularies.
Swadesh Basic
Words
Vocabulary
New Vocabulary
ALIR (ME)
palid
ngalir, ngocor
APUNG (ME)
ngambul
ngambang
AWAN
ré-ék, halimun
awan, angkeub, méga
BAIK
éndah, bageur
hadé, saé, alus
BAKAR
huru
beuleum, duruk, bakar
BARING
ngedeng
ngagolér, golér,
gogoléran, saré, tiduran
BARU
kakarak
anyar, baru, éngal
BELAH (ME)
bencar
beulah, ngabeulah,
meulah
BENGKAK
kembung
bareuh
BERI
biken
méré, béré, masihan
BERJALAN
udag
leumpang, papah
BINATANG
satowa
sato, héwan, binatang
BURU (BER)
ngalanjak
moro
BURUK
bau
buruk, goréng, butut
CUCI
seseuh
kumbah, cuci
DANAU
dano
situ
DARAH
mokla
getih
DINGIN
tiris
ti’is, ngecep
GEMUK,
LEMAK
lintuh
lintuh, gendut, montok
GARUK
korék
gero
HANTAM
gebuk
hantem, nubruk, nabrak,
tubruk, neungar
HATI
angen
haté, ati
IBU
ambu
ibu, indung, ema,
mamah
IKAT
talian
tali, beungkeut
KARENA
kerna
karena, sabab,
kulantaran, lantaran,
saupami, upami,
kusabab
KATA (BER)
lémék
ngomong, nyarios,
nyarita
KERING
tuhur
garing
KOTOR
ledok
kotor
LEMPAR
balangkeun,
piceun, balang
balédong, malédog,
alung, téngor, ngalung
LIHAT
deuleu,
ngadeuleu
tingali, ningali, tingal,
tempo, malong
MAKAN
madang, nyatu
dahar, tuang
MATAHARI
matapoé
panonpoé
NYANYI
ngawih
ngalagu, nyanyi,
nembang, ngahaleuang
PANJANG
lojor
panjang
PEGANG
cokot
cekel, nyekel, ngepeng,
cepeng, nyepeng
PERAS
pereut
peres, meres, mereut
PEREMPUAN
bikang
awéwé, istri
POTONG
tuwar
potong, motong, teukteuk
SUNGAI
wahangan
walungan, susukan
TERTAWA
seuseurian
seuri, gumujeng
TIDUR
hé-és
saré, bobo’, kulem
The archaic words in table 1 are still affected by
the usage or level of Sundanese used by Badui
community. One of the constraints in this research is
a closed attitude of Badui people. That condition is
very not possible to taking the data with a focus on
one particular language level. Additionally, it has
suggested that Sundanese used by the Badui people
does not have any different speech levels indicating
social status (Ekadjati, 1980). This study has,
however, identified evidence to the contrary.
Meanwhile, the number of archaic vocabulary
most commonly found in the Balinbing village of
Outer Badui, followed by Cikeusik village of Inner
Badui, and Ciwaringin village of Outer Badui. Table
2 shows percentage of archaic vocabulary based on
the village.
Table 2: Percentages of archaic vocabularies by village.
Village
Amount of Archaic
Words
Percentage (%)
Cikertawana
17
33.33
Cibeo
18
35.29
Cikeusik
22
43.14
Cijengkol
19
37.25
Searching of Sundanese Archaic Words in Inner and Outer Badui
595

Cisadang
18
35.29
Cieurih
20
39.22
Cipaler
13
25.49
Cikopeng
12
23.53
Cisaban
18
35.29
Balinbing
24
47.06
Ciwaringin
21
41.18
Karakal
14
27.45
Kaduketug
16
31.37
Kompol
17
33.33
5 CONCLUSIONS
Based on this study, it was found 47 archaic
vocabularies that are not used anymore in Bandung
but still used in Badui area. The archaic vocabularies
found in the Badui area consists of several word
classes, there are 25 verb vocabularies, 11 noun
vocabularies, 10 adjectives vocabularies, and a
conjunction vocabulary. Moreover, the archaic
vocabularies are not only found in Inner Badui area,
which is considered more exclusive due to the strict
application of customary rules but also found in
Outer Badui area that is considered to have
contaminated by the outermost areas because the
application of customary rules is laxer.
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CONAPLIN and ICOLLITE 2017 - Tenth Conference on Applied Linguistics and the Second English Language Teaching and Technology
Conference in collaboration with the First International Conference on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education
596