Negotiation and hybridity in sacred space: a linguistic landscape study of the Walisongo (Nine Saint) burial complexes

The public texts displayed throughout the Walisongo (Nine Saints) burial complexes convey information while simultaneously functioning as symbolic representations of religious behavior, history, social life and tourism. These languages operate across sacred, semi-sacred and profane spaces as they assert their presence. This study focuses on language use, informational functions and symbolic functions. A total of 515 photographs were collected through photographic documentation across nine Walisongo burial complexes in East Java, Central Java and West Java during the period of January–March 2025. The study is also supported by in-depth interviews. The data were analyzed using the Linguistic Landscape framework of Landry and Bourhis (Citation1997) and Bourdieu (Citation1991) theory of symbolic power. The findings reveal eight languages appearing in monolingual, bilingual and multilingual patterns, with Indonesian followed by Arabic dominating both distribution and frequency. Informational functions are dominated by regulative and normative messages, followed by identity, knowledge-based, economic, administrative, educational and spiritual information. The symbolic function demonstrates how practices of field, power, capital and habitus manifested within sacred spaces create openings for commodification, serving profane needs. This indicates that the concept of berkah (blessing) associated with the Sunan is undergoing negotiation and hybridity.