Entry 5: Sundanese People Can Pronounce [f]!

Sundanese is one of the many ethnic groups in Indonesia. One of my friends at the English Department of Iowa State University is from Indonesia and she is Sundanese. Whenever I talk to her in Indonesian or English, I sometimes find her pronouncing the [f] or [v] sound as [p]. This is because in Sundanese language, there are no [f] and [v] sounds. I was then told by her, that the phonological transfer does not only occur in speech form, there are also examples of written transfer. Thus, for this entry, I browsed on Google to find some pictures showing examples of the written transfer. The examples that I found show the ‘perceived’ written form of Indonesian or English words by Sundanese people*. Based on the examples that I found, it is interesting to note that not only does the transfer occur from [f] to [p] or [v] to [p], but transfers also occurs from [p] to [f] and [v] to [f].

Below is a table showing the correct form of the words and its written ‘version’ according to Sundanese people.

Correct Form	Written ‘version’ according to Sundanese people	English Translation
Fitnah	Pitnah	Slander
Konferensi	Konperensi	Conference
Variasi	Pariasi	Variation
Berfoto-foto	Berpoto-poto	Taking pictures
Fly-over (Refers to the fly-over bridge)	Ply ofer	Fly-over bridge
Servis	Serpis	Service
Sofa	Sopa	Sofa
Power	Fower	Power
Lapor	Lafor	Report
Pelan-pelan	Felan-felan	Slowly

Based on the data above, the following transfers can be identified:

• [f] → [p]
• [p] → [f]
• [v] → [p]
• [v] → [f]

I then attempted to do a phonological analysis on the data to see whether or not there is a pattern for this phonological transfer. The following environments were identified:

Environments of the Phonological Transfers
[f] → [p]	[p] → [f]	[v] → [p]	[v] → [f]
initial position_V (in this case the vowel is [o])	initial position_V (in this case the vowel is [o] or [ə])	initial position_V (in this case the vowel is [Ʌ])	V_V (more specifically [o]_[Ʌ])
initial position_C (in this case the vowel is [l])	V_V (more specifically [Ʌ] _[o])	C_V (more specifically [r]_[ɪ])
C_V (more specifically [n]_[ə])
V_V (more specifically [o]_[Ʌ])

Based on the environment analysis, it is quite easy for me to assume that [f], [v], and [p] for Sundanese speakers of Indonesian are all allophones of the same phoneme which is /p/, and are in free variation according to the perception of the Sundanese people. However, due to very limited data, it would not be wise to make such an assumption. They may be allophones of the same phoneme considering the fact that Sundanese people use the sounds interchangeably and do not believe that a different word meaning is produced when doing so, but it does not mean that they are in free variation. Additionally, when the vowels and consonants in the environment are examined, there are several differences. For example in the [f] → [p], [p] → [f], and [v] → [p] transfers, all three occur in initial position_V. But when we look at the vowel there are differences, except with [p] → [f] which has two possible vowels in its environments. Nevertheless, it is highly possible that with a bigger data size, a pattern for phonological transfer made by Sundanese people could be identified.

*For the analysis, it important to have in mind that in Indonesian, the pronunciation of consonants follow its orthographic form. E.g. the letter s is always pronounced [s] and never as [z].

References

andrewhinata. (2013, July 8). Re: orang bandung / orang sunda masuk atau dari daerah lain jugaboleh masuk !! [Online forum comment]. http://www.kaskus.co.id/thread/51dae47b0975b42921000005/orang-bandung---orang-sunda-masuk-atau-dari-daerah-lain-juga-boleh-masuk/

Cuma urang-urang Sunda yang paham ragam kehidupan seperti ini!. Retrieved from http://www.explorejabar.com/2014/11/cuma-urang-urang-sunda-yang-paham-ragam.html

Risadi, A. A. (2013, February 26). Sunda: F/V/P(?). Kompasiana, Retrieved from http://www.kompasiana.com/arisahmadrisadi/sunda-f-v-p_552fe4ab6ea8340d608b457f