Madurese

Madurese (Bahasa Madura) is an Austronesian language spoken by the Madurese people primarily on Madura Island and in nearby areas of East Java, Indonesia. The language is used in daily communication, education at local levels, media, and cultural life, alongside Indonesian, the national lingua franca. Estimates of native speakers range from several million, with the largest concentrations on Madura and in urban centers of East Java such as Surabaya and surrounding districts; smaller communities exist in other Indonesian provinces and among the Madurese diaspora in Southeast Asia.

Madurese comprises several dialects, commonly grouped into Western, Central, and Eastern varieties, with the Sumenep region often highlighted as a central variety. Mutual intelligibility varies across dialects. The modern standard writing uses the Latin script, while Pegon, an Arabic-based script, has historically been used for religious and literary texts.

Madurese is an Austronesian language in the Malayo-Polynesian family. It exhibits typical Austronesian word order and morphological features, including affixation and pronoun systems that distinguish inclusive and exclusive 'we'. The language has absorbed vocabulary from Javanese and Indonesian through long-term contact, especially in urban areas. Although not an official national language, Madurese enjoys a strong regional presence and is a key marker of Madurese identity.