Regaining Sundanese Culture through the Motto of Cities and Regencies in Jawa Barat-Indonesia:

A Linguistic Perspective

Abstract

Many researchers do their research on motto and emblems from different types of point of view, but it still limited on research on motto of the city or regency that based on the Linguistic perspective. The aim of this study is to regain the motto of the cities and regencies in Jawa Barat-Indonesia based on Linguistic perspective. The method applied is descriptive method, every motto of the city and regency are collected and analyzed based on Linguistic approach. It is found there are twenty-six cities and regencies that have mottos in their emblems. It means only one emblem has no motto inside. From the twenty-six mottos, there are two similar mottos (Sukabumi regency and Cirebon city), so that it is counted as twenty-five mottos. It is found that the vocabularies taken in the motto derived from different languages. It could be categorized into three different categories of language; they are Sundanese language, Bahasa Indonesia, and the combination of Bahasa Indonesia and Sundanese. From the data collected, the motto taken from Sundanese language is the dominant; it is found nineteen data from twenty-five collected mottos. The motto taken from Bahasa Indonesia vocabulary are two data from twenty-five collected mottos while the motto taken from the combination of Bahasa Indonesia and Sundanese languages are four data from twenty-five collected mottos. From the nineteen data taken from Sundanese, it is only thirteen mottos that refer to Jawa Barat’s motto as the province. It is concluded that the government of the regencies and cities in Jawa Barat-Indonesia regains the Sundanese culture through their mottos of the cities or regencies. Secondly, although the cities or the regencies applied Sundanese in their mottos, there is only thirteen mottos that refers to the province’s motto “Gemah Ripah Repeh Rapih” as Jawa Barat motto.