The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages, with approximately 385.5 million speakers. The Malayo-Polynesian languages are spoken by the Austronesian peoples outside of Taiwan, in the island nations of Southeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean, with a smaller number in continental Asia in the areas near the Malay Peninsula, with Cambodia, Vietnam and the Chinese island Hainan as the northwest geographic outlier. Malagasy, spoken in the island of Madagascar off the eastern coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean, is the furthest western outlier.
In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa is a vowel sound denoted by the IPA symbol ⟨ə⟩, placed in the central position of the vowel chart. In English and some other languages, it usually represents the mid central vowel sound, produced when the lips, tongue, and jaw are completely relaxed, such as the vowel sound of the ⟨a⟩ in the English word about.
Madura Island is an Indonesian island off the northeastern coast of Java. The island comprises an area of approximately 4,442 square kilometres (1,715 sq mi). Administratively, Madura is part of the province of East Java. It is separated from Java by the narrow Madura Strait. The administered area has a density of 756 people per km2 in 2022, while the main island has a somewhat higher figure of 826 per km2 in 2020.
Sundanese is a Malayo-Polynesian language spoken by the Sundanese. It has approximately 32 million native speakers in the western third of Java; they represent about 15% of Indonesia's total population.
Balinese is a Malayo-Polynesian language spoken by 3.3 million people on the Indonesian island of Bali, as well as Northern Nusa Penida, Nusa Lembongan, Nusa Ceningan, Serangan, Western Lombok, Eastern Java, Southern Sumatra, and Sulawesi. Most Balinese speakers also use Indonesian. The Bali Cultural Agency estimated in 2011 that the number of people still using the Balinese language in their daily lives on the Bali Island is under 1 million. The language has been classified as "not endangered" by Glottolog.
Javanese is a Malayo-Polynesian language spoken by the Javanese people from the central and eastern parts of the island of Java, Indonesia. There are also pockets of Javanese speakers on the northern coast of western Java. It is the native language of more than 68 million people.
Old Javanese or Kawi is the oldest attested phase of the Javanese language. It was spoken in the eastern part of what is now Central Java and the whole of East Java, Indonesia. As a literary language, Kawi was used across Java and on the islands of Madura, Bali, and Lombok. It had a sizable vocabulary of Sanskrit loanwords but had not yet developed the formal krama language register, to be used with one's social superiors that is characteristic of modern Javanese.
The Javanese script is one of Indonesia's traditional scripts developed on the island of Java. The script is primarily used to write the Javanese language, but in the course of its development has also been used to write several other regional languages such as Sundanese, Madurese, and Sasak; the lingua franca of the region, Malay; as well as the historical languages Kawi and Sanskrit. Javanese script was actively used by the Javanese people for writing day-to-day and literary texts from at least the mid-15th century CE until the mid-20th century CE, before its function was gradually supplanted by the Latin alphabet. Today the script is taught in DI Yogyakarta, Central Java, and the East Java Province as part of the local curriculum, but with very limited function in everyday use.
Madurese, Madurans, Madurites or Madurace are one of the Javan ethnic groups native to the Indonesian island of Madura in Java Sea, off the northeastern coast of Java. They speak their own native Madurese language, shared common history, traditions, and cultural identity. Nationwide, the Madurese are the third largest ethnic group in Indonesia, and one of the well-known Indonesian national dishes of Satay also ultimately attributed as the national culinary heritage of Madura-origin invented by the Madurese.
The Sasak language is spoken by the Sasak ethnic group, which make up the majority of the population of Lombok, an island in the West Nusa Tenggara province of Indonesia. It is closely related to the Balinese and Sumbawa languages spoken on adjacent islands, and is part of the Austronesian language family. Sasak has no official status; the national language, Indonesian, is the official and literary language in areas where Sasak is spoken.
The Sikkimese language, also called Sikkimese, Bhutia, or Drenjongké, Dranjoke, Denjongka, Denzongpeke and Denzongke, belongs to the Tibeto-Burman languages. It is spoken by the Bhutia in Sikkim, India and in parts of Koshi, Nepal. It is the Official Language of Sikkim, India. The Sikkimese people refer to their own language as Drendzongké and their homeland as Drendzong. Up until 1975 Sikkimese was not a written language. After gaining Indian Statehood the language was introduced as a school subject in Sikkim and the written language was developed.
The Bawean, or Baweans, or also Baweanese, also called Bawean Madurese are an ethnic group native to the island of Bawean, located in the Java Sea off the coast of Java, Indonesia. They are considered a distinct ethnic group within the larger Javanese cultural sphere. The Bawean people have their own unique language, also called Bawean, which belongs to the Austronesian language family.
The Malayic languages are a branch of the Malayo-Polynesian subgroup of the Austronesian language family. The most prominent member is Malay, a pluricentric language given national status in Brunei and Singapore while also the basis for national standards Malaysian in Malaysia and Indonesian in Indonesia. The Malayic branch also includes local languages spoken by ethnic Malays, further several languages spoken by various other ethnic groups of Sumatra, Indonesia and Borneo even as far as Urak Lawoi in the southwestern coast of Thailand.
More than 700 living languages are spoken in Indonesia. This figure indicates that Indonesia has about 10% of the world's languages, establishing its reputation as the second most linguistically diverse nation in the world after Papua New Guinea. Most languages belong to the Austronesian language family, while there are over 270 Papuan languages spoken in eastern Indonesia. The language most widely spoken as a native language is Javanese.
Lampung or Lampungic is an Austronesian language or dialect cluster with around 1.5 million native speakers, who primarily belong to the Lampung ethnic group of southern Sumatra, Indonesia. It is divided into two or three varieties: Lampung Api, Lampung Nyo, and Komering. The latter is sometimes included in Lampung Api, sometimes treated as an entirely separate language. Komering people see themselves as ethnically separate from, but related to, Lampung people.
Kangean or Kangeanese is a language spoken by the Kangeanese, which is an ethnic group originating from Kangean Island in the Kangean Islands region, north of the Bali Sea. It is native to Kangean and the surrounding islands. Kangean lies to the north of Bali, the northwest of Lombok and the east of Madura. The Kangean language is closely related to Madurese and partly mutually intelligible with it, and is often considered a dialect of Madurese.
Kulung is one of the Rai languages; it is spoken by an estimated 33,000 people. Van Driem (2001) includes Chukwa as a dialect.
The Malayo-Sumbawan languages are a proposed subgroup of the Austronesian languages that unites the Malayic and Chamic languages with the languages of Java and the western Lesser Sunda Islands, except for Javanese. If valid, it would be the largest demonstrated family of Malayo-Polynesian outside Oceanic. The Malayo-Sumbawan subgroup is however not universally accepted, and is rejected e.g. by Blust (2010) and Smith (2017), who supported the Greater North Borneo and Western Indonesian hypotheses. In a 2019 paper published in Oceanic Linguistics, Adelaar accepted both of these groupings, in addition to Smith's (2018) redefinition of Barito languages as forming a linkage.
Pegon is a modified Arabic script used to write the Javanese, Sundanese, and Madurese languages, as an alternative to the Latin script or the Javanese script and the Old Sundanese script. It was used in a variety of applications, from religion, to diplomacy, to poetry. But today particularly, it is used for religious (Islamic) writing and poetry, particularly in writing commentaries of the Qur'an. Pegon includes letters that are not present in Modern Standard Arabic. Pegon has been studied far less than its Jawi counterpart which is used for Malay, Acehnese and Minangkabau.
The Enggano language, or Engganese, is an Austronesian language spoken on Enggano Island off the southwestern coast of Sumatra, Indonesia.
