Javanese language


Javanese is an Austronesian language spoken primarily 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.
Javanese is the largest of the Austronesian languages in number of native speakers. It has several regional dialects and a number of clearly distinct status styles. Its closest relatives are the neighboring languages such as Sundanese, Madurese, and Balinese. Most speakers of Javanese also speak Indonesian for official and commercial purposes as well as a means to communicate with non-Javanese-speaking Indonesians.
There are speakers of Javanese in Malaysia and Singapore. Javanese is also spoken by traditional immigrant communities of Javanese descent in Suriname, Sri Lanka and New Caledonia.
Along with Indonesian, Javanese is an official language in the Special Region of Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

Geographical distribution

Javanese is spoken throughout Indonesia, neighboring Southeast Asian countries, the Netherlands, Suriname, New Caledonia, and other countries. The largest populations of speakers are found in the six provinces of Java itself, and in the neighboring Sumatran province of Lampung.
The language is spoken in Yogyakarta, Central and East Java, as well as on the north coast of West Java and Banten. It is also spoken elsewhere by the Javanese people in other provinces of Indonesia, who are numerous due to the government-sanctioned transmigration program in the late 20th century, including Lampung, Jambi, and North Sumatra provinces. In Suriname, Javanese is spoken among descendants of plantation migrants brought by the Dutch during the 19th century. In Madura, Bali, Lombok, and the Sunda region of West Java, it is also used as a literary language. It was the court language in Palembang, South Sumatra, until the palace was sacked by the Dutch in the late 18th century.
Javanese is written with the Latin script, Javanese script, and Arabic script. In the present day, the Latin script dominates writings, although the Javanese script is still taught as part of the compulsory Javanese language subject in elementary up to high school levels in Yogyakarta, Central and East Java.
Javanese is the twenty-second largest language by native speakers and the seventh largest language without official status at the national level. It is spoken or understood by approximately 100 million people. At least 45% of the total population of Indonesia are of Javanese descent or live in an area where Javanese is the dominant language. All seven Indonesian presidents since 1945 have been of Javanese descent. It is therefore not surprising that Javanese has had a deep influence on the development of Indonesian, the national language of Indonesia.
There are three main dialects of the modern language: Central Javanese, Eastern Javanese, and Western Javanese. These three dialects form a dialect continuum from northern Banten in the extreme west of Java to Banyuwangi Regency in the eastern corner of the island. All Javanese dialects are more or less mutually intelligible.
A table showing the number of native speakers in 1980, for the 22 Indonesian provinces in which more than 1% of the population spoke Javanese:
Indonesian province% of provincial populationJavanese speakers
Aceh6.7%175,000
North Sumatra21.0%1,757,000
West Sumatra1.0%56,000
Jambi17.0%245,000
South Sumatra12.4%573,000
Bengkulu15.4%118,000
Lampung62.4%2,886,000
Riau8.5%184,000
Jakarta3.6%236,000
West Java13.3%3,652,000
Central Java96.9%24,579,000
Yogyakarta97.6%2,683,000
East Java74.5%21,720,000
Bali1.1%28,000
West Kalimantan1.7%41,000
Central Kalimantan4.0%38,000
South Kalimantan4.7%97,000
East Kalimantan10.1%123,000
North Sulawesi1.0%20,000
Central Sulawesi2.9%37,000
Southeast Sulawesi3.6%34,000
Maluku1.1%16,000

According to the 1980 census, Javanese was used daily in approximately 43% of Indonesian households. By this reckoning there were well over 60 million Javanese speakers, from a national population of 147,490,298.
In Banten, the descendants of the Central Javanese conquerors who founded the Islamic Sultanate there in the 16th century still speak an archaic form of Javanese. The rest of the population mainly speaks Sundanese and Indonesian, since this province borders directly on Jakarta.
At least one third of the population of Jakarta are of Javanese descent, so they speak Javanese or have knowledge of it. In the province of West Java, many people speak Javanese, especially those living in the areas bordering Central Java, the cultural homeland of the Javanese.
Almost a quarter of the population of East Java province are Madurese ; many Madurese have some knowledge of colloquial Javanese. Since the 19th century, Madurese was also written in the Javanese script.
The original inhabitants of Lampung, the Lampungese, make up only 15% of the provincial population. The rest are the so-called "transmigrants", settlers from other parts of Indonesia, many as a result of past government transmigration programs. Most of these transmigrants are Javanese who have settled there since the 19th century.
In Suriname, South America, approximately 15% of the population of some 500,000 are of Javanese descent, among whom 75,000 speak Javanese. A local variant evolved: the Tyoro Jowo-Suriname or Suriname Javanese.

Classification

Javanese is part of the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian language family, although its precise relationship to other Malayo-Polynesian languages is hard to determine. Using the lexicostatistical method, Isidore Dyen classified Javanese as part of the "Javo-Sumatra Hesion", which also includes the Sundanese and "Malayic" languages. This grouping is also called "Malayo-Javanic" by linguist Berndt Nothofer, who was the first to attempt a reconstruction of it based on only four languages with the best attestation at the time.
Malayo-Javanic has been criticized and rejected by various linguists. Alexander Adelaar does not include Javanese in his proposed Malayo-Sumbawan grouping. Robert Blust also does not include Javanese in the Greater North Borneo subgroup, which he proposes as an alternative to Malayo-Sumbawan grouping. However, Blust also expresses the possibility that Greater North Borneo languages are closely related to many other western Indonesian languages, including Javanese. Blust's suggestion has been further elaborated by Alexander Smith, who includes Javanese in the Western Indonesian grouping, which Smith considers as one of Malayo-Polynesian's primary branches.

Dialects

There are three main groups of Javanese dialects, based on sub-regions: Western Javanese, Central Javanese, and Eastern Javanese. The differences are primarily in pronunciation, but with vocabulary differences also. Not all Javanese dialects are mutually intelligible; for example, a Javanese speaker from Surabaya might not be able to understand the Javanese spoken in Tegal, or the formal registers spoken in parts of Central Java.
A preliminary general classification of Javanese dialects given by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology's Department of Linguistics is as follows. Pesisir, Banyumas and Tengger are considered to be among the most conservative dialects. The Banten, Pesisir Lor, Banyumas and Tengger dialect do not have the vowel raising and vowel harmony features that are innovations of the "standard" Solo and Yogyakarta dialects.

Standard Javanese

Standard Javanese is the variety of the Javanese language that was developed at the Yogyakarta and Surakarta courts, based on the Central Javanese dialect, and becomes the basis for the Javanese modern writings. It is marked with the strict usage of two speech levels for politeness, i.e. vernacular level called ngoko and high-register level called krama. Other dialects do not contrast the usage of the speech levels.

Central Javanese

Central Javanese is founded on the speech of Surakarta and to a lesser extent of Yogyakarta. It is considered the most "refined" of the regional variants, and serves as a model for the standard language. This variant is used throughout eastern part of Central Java, the Special Region of Yogyakarta, and the western and southern part of East Java provinces. There are many lower-level dialects such as Kedu, Muria and Semarangan, as well as Surakarta and Yogyakarta themselves. Javanese spoken in the Western and Southern Part of East Java bears a strong influence of Surakarta Javanese.
This variant is also used by Mataraman descendant's outside the Mataraman cultural area, like small part of western region of Jombang Regency, small part of western region of Malang Regency, almost of southern part of Banyuwangi Regency and south and southeastern part of Jember Regency. The variation of Central Javanese are said to be so plentiful that almost every administrative region has its own local slang.
There some influences of other dialect, like in the eastern part of Nganjuk, north and northeastern part of Kediri and the eastern part and southeastern part of Blitar there is some influences of the Arekan dialect, even though the basic vocabulary is still predominantly Mataraman and still classified as Mataraman Dialect.
  1. Mataram dialect, Kewu dialect, or Standard dialect is spoken commonly in Yogyakarta, Surakarta, Klaten, Karanganyar, Wonogiri, Sukoharjo, Sragen, Boyolali, and eastern half of Magelang Regency.
  2. Pekalongan dialect is spoken in Pekalongan, Pekalongan regency, Batang and also in Pemalang.
  3. Kedu dialect is spoken in the former Kedu residency, including: Temanggung, eastern part of Kebumen, Magelang, and Wonosobo.
  4. # Bagelen dialect is sub-dialect of Kedu spoken in Purworejo.
  5. Semarang dialect is spoken in Semarang, Semarang regency, and also Salatiga, Grobogan, Demak and Kendal.
  6. Muria dialect or Eastern North-Coast dialect is spoken in Jepara, Rembang, Kudus, Pati, and also in Tuban and Bojonegoro.
  7. # Blora dialect is sub-dialect of Muria, spoken in Blora, the eastern part of Grobogan, and the western part of Ngawi.
  8. Madiunan dialect or Mataraman dialect is spoken mainly in western part of East Java province, including Madiun, Ngawi, Pacitan, Ponorogo, Magetan, Kediri, Nganjuk, Trenggalek, Tulungagung, and Blitar.