Madurese language

Madurese
Madhura, Basa Mathura
Spoken in	Island of Madura, Sapudi Islands, northern coastal area of eastern Java, Singapore
Native speakers	14 million  (1995)
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Nuclear Malayo-Polynesian Malayo-Sumbawan ? Madurese
Language codes
ISO 639-2	mad
ISO 639-3	mad

Madurese in Javanese script

Madurese is a language of the Madurese people of Madura Island and eastern Java, Indonesia; it is also spoken on the neighbouring small Kangean Islands and Sapudi Islands, as well as from migrants to other parts of Indonesia, namely the Tapal Kuda area comprising Pasuruan, Surabaya, Malang until Banyuwangi, Masalembu Islands, even some on Kalimantan. The Kangean dialect may be a separate language. It was traditionally written in the Javanese script, but the Latin alphabet is now more commonly used. The number of speakers, though shrinking, is estimated to be 8-13 million.

Links between Bali–Sasak languages and Madurese are more evident with the "low" form (common form). There are some common words between Madurese and Filipino languages as well as between Madurese and Banjar. There are several dialects.

Phonology and morphology

Madurese has more consonants than its neighboring languages due to it having voiceless unaspirated, voiceless aspirated, and voiced sounds. Similar to Javanese, it has a contrast between dental and alveolar (even retroflex) stops .^[1] Nouns are not inflected in gender and are pluralized via reduplication. Its basic word order is SVO. Negation is expressed by putting a negative particle before the verb, adjective or noun phrase. As with other similar languages there are different negative particles for different kinds of negation.

Common words

• Man: lalake
• Woman: babine
• Yes: iya
• No: enja
• Water: aeng
• Sun: are
• Three: tello'
• I/me: sengko'
• You: be'en

Footnotes

1. ^ Stevens, Alan (2001) "Madurese", in Facts About the World's Languages, Jane Garry (ed.) & Carl Rubino (ed.), New York: H. W. Wilson

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