Between Districts and Dialects: Can we imagine a map of identity not drawn in lines, but woven in words?

By: M. Azzam Rakan Noor

Growing up in a city where regional language felt alienated from daily life, I often felt disconnected from the places my parents came from. My mother, a Sundanese woman, speaks fluently with her friends and family, but she never really passed the language down to me. Driven by a growing curiosity — or perhaps a quiet desperation to understand my roots — I began to teach myself Sundanese through the internet and asked a friend of mine who could speak it for help.

As a beginner, I assumed Sundanese would be like English or French — with maybe a few dialects or slang differences. I was wrong.

One afternoon, when I was visiting my grandma, I told my cousin about an interaction I had with our grandmother. I had proudly asked, “Tos ngadahar, Nek?” (Have you eaten, Grandma?) thinking I was using a proper and respectful phrase. But to my surprise, she looked startled.

My cousin laughed and said, “Don’t say that to Grandma! It sounds inappropriate.”

Confused, I asked why. He explained, “’Ngadahar’ comes from a different part of the Sundanese-speaking region — and it’s mostly used by young people. Older folks consider it impolite. You should’ve said “ma’em” instead.”

At that moment, I realized that language doesn’t just vary by region — it shifts across generations. What I thought would build a connection nearly created distance. One word carried an entire history of regional nuance, social hierarchy, and cultural expectation — all shaped by invisible borders I had never seen before. The evolving nature of the Sundanese language cannot be separated from the historical transformations of governance in the region — reaching back long before Indonesia was established, or even before the Dutch arrived on the island of Java. Sundanese was originally the language of the Sunda Kingdom, which ruled much of what is now western and central Java. As the kingdom expanded, so did regional linguistic distinctions. 

In terms of topology, Sundanese is a complex linguistic landscape. It stretches from the western parts of Java to some central regions, including provinces like West Java and parts of Central Java. This spread intersects with regencies and districts, each fostering subtle but distinct variations in vocabulary, tone, and register. The western areas, for instance, frequently interacted with outside communities, especially vendors–since their geographical position is close to beaches and transit ports–, leading to the incorporation of new terms and linguistic expressions. These early processes of spatial and administrative differentiation marked the origins of what we might call administrative logic.

Over time, this gave rise to territorial thinking — not only in terms of land and governance, but also identity. Each region was increasingly imagined as linguistically and culturally distinct. In the case of Sundanese, this translated into a perception that each area should have its own “authentic” version of the language — reinforcing invisible borders or ‘space’ within what is otherwise considered a single ethnolinguistic group.

In the poststructural sense, space is not merely geographical, but discursive — always mediated by what is absent, deferred, or different. As Jacques Derrida would suggest, meaning is never fixed in place. In the context of Sundanese language, the boundaries between dialects function not only as markers of location, but also as sites of difference that shape social meaning. What is appropriate in one district becomes inappropriate in another — not because of distance, but because of culturally constructed “spacing.”

These differences are not just linguistic quirks — they often signal where someone comes from. For example, my grandmother, who lives in a relatively small city close to a mountain and known for its elders and traditional families, speaks a version of Sundanese considered more “refined” or “high.” She attributes this to her region’s limited contact with other local cultures, aside from the legacy of Dutch occupation. In contrast, a friend of mine who taught me basic Sundanese comes from Cirebon, a coastal area in Central Java, where the language is heavily influenced by Javanese.

The way norms are enforced through language and social behavior also shows that linguistic control is an act of constructing a discourse where those in power attempt to justify and preserve speech patterns that were established long ago, even if they no longer serve contemporary needs or purposes. These unnoticed norms can lead to misunderstandings — as I once experienced when I unknowingly used a casual regional term with my grandmother that she found inappropriate. But more than that, they also reflect how linguistic forms can signal social status or cultural legitimacy, creating unspoken hierarchies within what is technically a single language community. Not only that, this also reveals how borders operate not only as spatial dividers but as cultural filters, shaping what language is “acceptable,” “refined,” or “respectful.” This pattern of labeling certain dialects as “rough” or “rude” highlights how identity can be fragmented and alienated, even when people share the same linguistic roots. The manner of including/excluding people from ‘proper Sundanese’ in this case is now visibly based on unseen cultural lines–lines shaped by a discourse that was once intentional and institutional, but now continues unconsciously.

It is clear that language often continues to support outdated hierarchies. While it is good to preserve cultural aspects and respect elders, this can unintentionally foster superiority complexes toward regions seen as speaking a “lower” form of Sundanese. To foster inclusivity, instead of dividing the use of Sundanese into hierarchical levels, we can embrace its internal diversity. This includes acknowledging shared roots while offering historical context for regional linguistic variation.

In this way, we can embrace both local richness and mutual intelligibility — for instance, through seminars or online platforms where Sundanese speakers from different regions share stories in their dialects, exploring the interactive ‘landscape’ of their speech.

As Jacques Derrida once said, a more inclusive linguistic map would refuse the notion that language must “belong” somewhere, but instead see it as something always in motion, always in relation. Space is also defined by relations, not distance or not just topological factors. To give an example, my cousins, though living far from the capital, can understand new slang and even incorporate viral English words into their daily conversations via social media. In this case, we can implement this with Sundanese educational or cultural contents, aiming to show how Sundanese is being spoken in many regions despite historical backgrounds and differences, strengthening bonds among the speakers and enhancing their connaissance that Sundanese is not merely just one out of hundreds traditional languages in indonesia, but as their identity– innate aspect of their life.

In the end, instead of seeing dialects as separations, we can treat them as layers of richness within a broader linguistic ecosystem. Creating more inclusive linguistic maps — through inter-regional storytelling, online platforms, or regional language exchanges — allows us to preserve differences without enforcing hierarchy. It is important to take conscience, that language shouldn’t belong to a place — it should belong to its people, in all their diversity.

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