Austronesian · ISO 639-3 mad
Madurese Language Bhasa Madhura
Madurese is an Austronesian language spoken by about 17 million people in 2 countries. It is written in the Latin script.
Where Madurese is spoken
- Official language
- Regional official
- Spoken by 10%+
- 1–10%
- Smaller communities
About the Madurese language
Madurese (Bhasa Madhura) is spoken by about 17 million people, which makes it the 75th most spoken language in the world — just behind Assamese (17 million) and ahead of Northeastern Thai (17 million). It belongs to the Austronesian language family and, more precisely, to the Maduresic group within the Maduresic branch.
Where is Madurese spoken?
Madurese is used in 2 countries. The largest communities live in Indonesia (18 million) and Singapore (24,113).
Share of the population that speaks Madurese: Indonesia 6.3% (18 million) and Singapore 0.4% (24,113).
Madurese is not a national official language anywhere.
Writing system and status
Madurese is written in the Latin script. It is a safe, widely transmitted language: children still learn it at home as their first language.
ISO codes: ISO 639-3 mad.
Frequently asked questions about Madurese
How many people speak Madurese?
Where is Madurese spoken?
What language family does Madurese belong to?
What is Madurese called in Madurese?
Is Madurese an endangered language?
Data: Languages of the World dataset (MIT) — ISO 639-3, Glottolog (CC BY 4.0), Unicode CLDR, Google LinguaMeta (CC BY 4.0) and Wikidata; country lists: samayo/country-json (MIT). Speaker numbers include first- and second-language speakers where sources report them.