Madurese

Madurese is the Malayo-Polynesian language of Madura Island off the northeast coast of Java, also spoken across the eastern salient of Java and on Bawean and the Sapudi Islands. It belongs to the Malayo-Sumbawan branch, closer to Malay, Balinese and Sasak than to the Javanese of the neighbouring mainland.

Madurese was long written in the Javanese script, and after the island's Islamization also in the Arabic-based Pegon alphabet, before the Latin alphabet became dominant. It distinguishes three levels of speech, from the most polite register to the speech of close equals.

The dialect of Sumenep in eastern Madura, seat of the island's old courts, serves as the standard. Madura was conquered by Mataram in 1624 and ceded to the Dutch in 1743, yet Madurese remained the common tongue of islanders and their migrant communities.