Holiday Ayo - The Sundanese are an ethnic group native to the western part of the Indonesian island of Java. They number approximately 31 million. The Sundanese are predominantly Muslim.

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.

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.

Language
The Sundanese language is spoken by approximately 27 million people and is the second most widely-spoken regional language in Indonesia, after Javanese. 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.

Sundanese is more closely related to Malay and Minang than it is to Javanese, although Sundanese has borrowed the language levels denoting rank and respect.

There are several dialects of Sundanese, from the Sunda-Banten dialect to the Sunda-Central Javanese dialect which mixes elements of Javanese. Some of the most distinct dialects are Banten, Bogor, Priangan, and Cirebon. In Central Java, Sundanese is spoken in some of the Cilacap region and some of the Brebes region.

Religion
The original religious system of the Sundanese was monotheism. The best indications are found in the oldest epic poems (wawacan) and among the remote Baduy tribe. This religion is called Sunda Wiwitan ("early Sundanese"). Today, most Sundanese are Muslims.

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 is nurtured in an 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 art and culture of Sundanese people reflect historical influences by various cultures that include pre-historic native animism and shamanism traditions, ancient Hindu-Buddhist heritage, and Islamic culture.

The Sundanese have very vivid, orally-transmitted memories of the grand era of the Sunda Kingdom. The oral tradition of Sundanese people is called Pantun Sunda, the chant of poetic verses employed for story-telling. It is the counterpart of Javanese tembang, similar but quite different from Malay pantun.

Traditional art forms include Pencak silat martial arts, angklung bamboo music, kecapi suling music, gamelan degung, jaipongan and other dances, and wayang golek puppetry.

Many forms of kejawen dance, literature, gamelan music, and shadow puppetry (wayang kulit) derive from the Javanese. Sundanese shadow puppetry is more influenced by Islamic folklore than the influence of Indian epics present in Javanese versions.