User:Haikal FK 1705/sandbox

Sundanese has various speech levels used to indicate a fine shade of relative rank between speakers. A speaker of 'high' rank in the social ladder uses a 'lower' hence less respectful but more intimate form of speech to his subordinate or to a younger person. In turn, the subordinate and the young would use the 'higher' level which is more respectful, less intimate and a socially distancing form of speech: There are five levels of speech:

These levels are eventually dichotomi sed into simple hormat and loma: the first three are subsumed under hormat and the last two would come under loma. In familiar speech between close friends and in the intricacies of family life, there are preset codes of speech behaviour in Sundanese. In this study, the kasar speech level of standard Sundanese is chosen, as the lemes level is historically a later development (see Ajatrohaedi 1971:730).

The basic structural patterns are to be found in both the kasar and l ern levels, the l ern employing more ' obl ique ' patterns. Thus, on the whole , the difference at clause and sentence level is lexemic more than anything else. Furthermore, it i s an establi shed fact that the use o f the lemes level is relatively limited when compared with the maj ority o f speakers. To quote Aj atrohaedi "the l emes level i s only limited to the spoken language, whereas the written language ( the language of newspapers , magazine s , books , etc . ) used the ordinary language , i . e . kasar language " ( 19 7 1 : 7 4 2).