Madurese Language in West Kalimantan Context

Abstract

This article discusses the linguistic shift experienced by the Madurese language used in Kalimantan as well as the socio-cultural influences on the creation of a linguistic variation of the language. This language which was brought by the Madurese people as immigrants from Madura Island to West Kalimantan in the 18th century has transformed into a new variety of the language as the result of having direct and close linguistic encounters with the local language. The transformation seems to be apparent in the introduction of Malay-rooted lexical items and in the understanding change of Madurese stratification.

It, in turn, has led to the construction of new variety of the language as well as the creation of the new social identity for Madurese people in Kalimantan.

Key words: Madurese, linguistic shift, social identity.

Introduction

Language as a means of communication is never static. It is constantly changing and evolving together with its user’s needs. The change becomes inevitable when it is separated from its origin and interacts with other cultures which, in turn, develop a ‘dialectical diversity’ (Fromkin, Rodman, Gyams, Collin, Amberber & Harvey, 2009, p.

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399) to create a new social identity for the speakers. This linguistic phenomenon occurs in Madurese language, the indigenous language of the Madurese people from Madura Island of Indonesia, which have migrated and spread to other regions of Indonesia including to Kalimantan. Subsequently, the language experiences linguistic changes as it has close contact with the local language in Kalimantan such as Malay language. The change is subsequently inherited by the next generation of Madurese people, making the process of linguistics change continuously occurs and goes further into a linguistics shift.

Consequently, as time goes on, a new variety of the language which is in many ways different to that used in its place of origin emerges and, at the same time, signifies a new social identity of the speakers.

The Madurese Linguistics Shift

Just like other languages, Madurese which is classified as a Western Austronesian language of Indonesia, (Davies, 2005) has experienced a linguistic transformation as the result of having contact with the other cultures, in this case, the Kalimantan Malay culture. Since Madurese people came to Kalimantan in the 18th century (Wawa, 2000) the language has actively interacted with the native language ‘breeding’ a new different variety of the language in terms of lexical items and the understanding of Madurese linguistic stratification.

The most obvious difference between the two varieties that can be clearly identified is lexical items. In this context, Madurese Kalimantan has absorbed many words from the Malay language, one of the indigenous languages of Kalimantan, adding Malay words and morphemes to its lexicon as ‘loan words’ (Fromkin et al, 2009, p.459) and change the pronunciation of the words to fit the phonological rules of Madurese. Words such as roma for ‘house’, bennyak for ‘many’ and utu for ‘car’, for instance, are derived from Malay words of rumah, banyak and oto respectively. The borrowed items are frequently used in daily communication from one generation to the next, resulting in the disappearance of the original Madurese words for those lexical items in the Madurese speech community in Kalimantan. Hence, many individuals in the community, especially the young, lose their familiarity of Madurese codes which, to a great extent, makes them fail to recognize that bungkoh,possak and montor are the Madurese words for the abovementioned words. It seems that Madurese in the region has experienced a linguistic phenomenon of language displacement, something, as suggested by Holmes (2008), that commonly happens to any minority languages existing in a wider and majority society as ‘the degree of linguistic distance’ (Kloss in Edward, 2010, p.85) between the two languages is extremely small.

The understanding of speech level

The change also affects the understanding of Madurese level of speeches of Kalimantan Madurese. According to Stevens (1965), Madurese, like Sundanese, Javanese and Sasak, has a range of word choices to be used in a conversation determined by the relationship between the speaker and by the social status of the subject referring to speech levels. If Sasak, the native language of Lombok, has 5 speech levels (Meyerhoff, 2006), Madurese, as outlined by Stevens, has 6 levels which are divided into two linguistic systems: a style system which is related to the level of familiarity between the speakers and a reference system which is used to refer to honored and high-status people, especially religious leaders. The style system, according to Stevens (1965, p.295-296) has 4 levels: Kasar (coarse), biasa (ordinary), tenga (middle) alus (refined) while the reference system has 2 levels: alus tinghi (high refined) and alus mandhap (low refined) which, in turn, can be compressed into three main levels: low, middle and high.

Most Madurese people in Madura have a deep conscious awareness of the system. They repeatedly switch their codes from one speech level to another ones depending upon the addressee in the conversation in their daily interaction. To identify themselves, for example, they use engkok, which is low level for ‘I’ when conversing with colleagues or younger people. The code is subconsciously switched into kauleh, the middle level, when the speakers need to identify themselves to older people or to those with higher status. Meanwhile, in conversation with religious leaders, abdhina- high level- is used for the same purpose. The system of the speech levels is consistently implemented with a rigid separation of utilization between one level to the others as an overlapping in usage may lead to an unpleasant situation in the conversation.
In contrast, Kalimantan Madurese has limited knowledge of this system. The majority of speakers only know the low level of Madurese with a very limited ability in using the middle one. The high level is most likely ‘extinct’ among the speech community as the version of the language seems unusable which results in an extensive alteration in the way of communication carried out especially the one with religious leaders. If religious leaders are honored with the high level of speech or alus tinghi (high refined) in Madura, in Kalimantan, it is scarcely conceivable since Kalimantan Madurese actively employ the middle level of speech- with a very limited number of active speakers- for both older people and religious leaders. It seems that in this area, Madurese speech level has been downgraded into the use of low level code, building up a pragmatic competence in a different way with the people in the language native land.

There are many instances where they fail to ‘properly’ use Madurese in various domains but, by the same token, strengthen their identity as Kalimantan Madurese. It is fairly common to find Madurese people in Kalimantan using words such as roma which is a low level word for ‘house’ for every level of interaction instead of compok for middle and dhelem for high level. In the case of identifying someone, the condition is better as they can accommodate the middle level as well. Instead of using kakeh , the low version for ‘you’, all the time, most of them also use sampean for both elderly people and religious leaders but they fail to recognize panjenengan and ajunan which are alus tinghi (high refined) or high level for religious leaders.

New Variety of Madurese and the Creation of New Social Identity

Furthermore, the linguistic diversity between the two communities of Madurese has seemingly shaped the society’s behavior toward the two varieties of language from both sides. For Kalimantan Madurese, the divergence has established their own distinct identity as linguistically different Madurese compared to the ones in Madura island by creating their own variety of Madurese with ‘distinctive local colorings’ (Wardhaugh, 2006, p.45). The adoption of Malay words and the inability of applying speech level are entirely acceptable as they become the part of their Madurese features with which they can be identified. Indeed, there is a fear of attrition of Madurese which is surrounded by Malay as the main language in Kalimantan as it has been the case with Javanese and Indonesian as identified by Mueller (2009) or even of giving up the language in favor of the dominant language in the community as noted by Romaine (2000). Yet, heretofore, Kalimantan Madureses have developed and maintained their bilingualism with Malay as it gives them more access to the community as well as enables them to claim their identity as the member of Malay speech community.

Meanwhile, for Madurese in Madura, it denotes the degradation of the language. As Madurese is a dominant language in Madura, they articulate grave concern about prescriptively using the language in all of its aspects. The importance of addressing people with an appropriate speech level becomes the main feature of this variant of Madurese creating its exclusiveness among other varieties. Thus, the failure to appropriately apply it in a conversation is considered as pragmatic incompetence as it has been a part of ‘general structures of expectation’ or ‘schemata’ (Kramsch, 1998) in Madurese culture. Moreover, the attachment of an ill-mannered stigma will follow the failure and it is considered as one of common consequences, as suggested by Fought (2006), for not being able to deploy a proper codes which is intimately related to an ethnic identity.

Of the same importance, lexical choices also become the determining aspect to be linguistically included in Madurese community. Kalimantan Madurese is considered as low Madurese as it is heavily influenced by local Malay language. Notwithstanding, in fact, Madurese has loaned many words from Indonesian and Javanese (Stevens, 1966) such as manok for ‘bird’, bhajeh for crocodile and ghighih for tooth derived manuk, baja which are Javanese and gigi from Bahasa Indonesia. The borrowed words have been considered part of Madurese linguistics variables. Adding more loan words to create a new variety of the language, especially from other local languages such as Kalimantan Malay, seems unacceptable for Madurese people in Madura island as it may put the variety into an undermined position. The more words adopted, the lower the level of the varieties will be as it has been perceived that the process of borrowing has morphologically destructed the language and are able to lead to confusion in a conversation.

In relation to the creation of a language variety in a multilingual community, the dominant society seems to exert inevitable social and cultural influences on the minority language. It happens to Malay language which reinforces the existence of Kalimantan variety of Madurese. Different with Madurese in Madura island which live in a relatively homogenous language and culture, Kalimantan Madureses have to face the fact that they are at the midst of a society which is linguistically and culturally diverse with Malay language and culture as the dominant one. In order to cope with linguistic obstacle, they learn to speak the local language which, according to Chambers (2003), becomes the most convincing markers with which to lay claim to local identity as well. It, in turn, develops their linguistic repertoire to be able to actively control the utilization of two regional varieties of Malay, Sambas Malay and Pontianak Malay, in different language domains beside their restricted use of Madurese language in their own speech community. The linguistic repertoire is expanded even further as they are also exposed to the diglossic situation in the use of Bahasa Indonesia- the standard version of Malay- where its ‘H’ is used in the interactions within formal institution and its ‘ L’ variety becomes a bridge of communication with other ethnics groups. This condition subsequently enables the subconscious adoption of linguistics elements of other language, especially Malay, into Madurese which leads to a gradual displacement of the language.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it seems apparent that Madurese, the fourth most widely spoken language in Indonesia after Bahasa Indonesian, Javanese and Sundanese respectively (Davies, 1954), in Kalimantan has been undergoing a language shift which, as underlined by Weinreich (in Coulmas, 2005), might happen as the result of linguistic encounters under migration conditions. The contact with local language and culture has introduced many new Malay-rooted words into Madurese language which, subsequently, alters Madureses’ familiarity to their own language. Similarly, the perception toward the concept of linguistic level in Madurese has been changed which from the perspective of Madurese in Madura is regarded as ‘linguistic deformation’ while Kalimantan Madureses recognize it as linguistic assimilation and adjustment to the local linguistic community. c

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