Preserving Madurese Language, Is It Important?

Abstract

Indonesia has a variety of regional languages that are used to communicate. Based on data from the Summer Institute of Linguistics, there are 735 regional languages in Indonesia. Of the 735 regional languages, the Madurese language is not included in the category of endangered because the number of speakers is still more than 100,000 people. However, BPS data shows that Madurese language speakers have continued to decline. In 1980, the number of Madurese speakers was 6,913,977 people. In 1990 there were 6,792,447 speakers. The data shows that every year around 12,153 Madurese speakers decrease. There are various reasons why the Madurese language is decreasing. Some of them, they feel ashamed to use the Madurese language because Madurese is considered the language of the middle to lower economic class and is synonymous with the language of people who are not educated. In daily life on Madura Island, the surrounding small islands, as well as overseas, children are also more often invited to communicate using Indonesian and rarely use Madurese as the language of daily communication. It would be a shame if the Madurese language would eventually become extinct because the Madurese language has enormous potential to be used as an Indonesian Absorption Source Language (Bahasa Sumber Serapan/ BSS). In certain matters Madurese is richer than Indonesian. Based on this explanation, with the potential for Madurese to be used as BSS Indonesian, raises the question: is it important to preserve the Madurese language amid the increasing abandonment of the Madurese language by its speakers?

Keywords: Madurese ; Regional Language