Lexical Variation of Madurese in Bangkalan: Geographic Patterns and Age-Related Change

Abstract

This study examines whether lexical variation in Bangkalan Madurese patterns by geography or by age. Data were collected in five kecamatan (sub-districts) of Bangkalan Regency through a 40-item word-list questionnaire completed by 15 informants from three age cohorts and through semi-structured interviews with seven informants, whose transcripts were analyzed thematically. Most lexical variation proved to be geographic: the second-person pronoun kamu “you”, for example, is kakeh in Tanjung Bumi, hedeh in Labang, and be'na in Kota Bangkalan and Tanah Merah across all age cohorts. Age-related contrasts were few and small. The clearest generational signal concerned the high speech register (engghi-bhunten), which only one of fifteen informants produced spontaneously and which interviewees of several ages described as no longer fully mastered. The interviews also documented lexical loss (obuh “hair”), the replacement of colour terms by loanwords even among older speakers, and a rural/coastal–urban gradient in self-reported Madurese use. Because the sample is still uneven, the findings are preliminary. They suggest that geography shapes everyday vocabulary, whereas register competence and the transmission of basic vocabulary are the domains most affected by pressure from Indonesian.