2025:Program/Transliterating Cacarakan Manuscripts: Digital Access to Preserve Cultural Heritage

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Session title: Transliterating Cacarakan Manuscripts: Digital Access to Preserve Cultural Heritage

Session type: Poster

Track: Community Engagement

Language: en

Cacarakan is a historical script that was used from early 17th to the late 18th century and is closely related to the Sundanese language (one of the local languages ​​in Indonesia). Currently, the script is no longer used in any format. There are several collections of Cacarakan manuscripts in repositories such as Wikipabukon (Sundanese Wikisource), but only a few people can read or transliterate them. This poster will present an initiative to transliterate the Cacarakan manuscript into a digital format, making them more easily read and accessible by the wider citizen.

Description

Cacarakan is a modified form of the Javanese script historically used to write Sundanese texts. However, as it is no longer taught in schools, literacy in Cacarakan has significantly declined. Many Cacarakan manuscripts remain unreadable to modern audiences, limiting their historical and cultural value.

While digital repositories like Wikipabukon store some of these texts, very few contributors can read, transliterate, or verify them. Additionally, existing transliterations are often inaccessible, undocumented, or unknown to wider communities. Through funding from Wikimedia Indonesia, as a initial movement, our community successfully transliterated a 114-page book to Wikibooks and translated it into Indonesian.

This poster will highlight an initiative to transliterate Cacarakan manuscripts into modern, readable formats and expand their accessibility through digital platforms. Moreover, future plans of how contributors can help sustain this effort. We can also integrate unique words found in the manuscript as entries in Wiktionary or its example sentences.

How does your session relate to the event theme, Wikimania@20 – Inclusivity. Impact. Sustainability?

This poster supports Wikimania 2025’s theme, in scope of Inclusive: Transliteration & translation make historical texts accessible to more people, Impact: Digitizing these manuscripts ensures long-term preservation of Sundanese heritage, and Sustainable: Encouraging community participation in script preservation.

What is the experience level needed for the audience for your session?

Everyone can participate in this session

Speakers

• Muhammad Akbar

A Sundanese Wikisource contributor who loves historical texts and traditional scripts.