The name of the group of islands in the Malay Archipelago (including Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Celebes, the Moluccas, etc.), used attrib. to specify certain animals, as Sunda grosbeak, ox.
1802. Latham, Gen. Synopsis Birds, Suppl. II. 196. Sunda Grosbeak, Loxia Javensis.
1883. Encycl. Brit., XV. 322/1. Here [in the Malay Peninsula] is … the Sunda ox of Java.
Hence Sundanese, Sundanesian a., belonging or native to the Sunda Islands; also sb. of the natives or their language.
1876. trans. Haeckel’s Hist. Creation, II. 327. All the Polynesian and Sundanesian dialects and languages can be derived from a common, long since extinct primeval language.
1880. Encycl. Brit., XII. 818/1. The most cultivated of the native tongues is the Javanese…. To it Sundanese stands in the relation that Low German holds to High German. Ibid., XIII. 607/1. The Javanese are generally darker than the Sundanese…. The Sundanese is less than the Javanese proper.
